Joe Griffith remembers when Palmer's Folly went up in flames.
He had sold the historic two-story mansion in Monroe County to Richard Butler and Jeremy Carroll, who were almost done restoring it.
Then an electrical short in May 2013 sparked a fire that devoured the 1870s cypress and cottonseed insulation.
"Richard and I sat in the yard and cried together the day that it burned," Griffith said. "It was still on fire. We knew there was no saving it."
Butler, a well-known Arkansas preservationist, died Thursday from a variety of medical problems, Carroll said.
Richard Colburn Butler III was born Sept. 21, 1937, in Little Rock to Richard C. Butler and Gertrude Marjorie Remmel Butler.
Richard Butler's father, who was known as Dick Butler, was an attorney for the Little Rock School Board during desegregation in the 1950s. Dick Butler, who died in 1999, was a philanthropist for whom the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is named.
Richard Butler III grew up in Little Rock. He earned a degree in history from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., and a law degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Butler practiced law from 1963-68, then became a trust officer for Commercial National Bank of Little Rock, where he worked for 13 years.
He then managed a telephone ministry funded by several churches. It provided "psychotherapeutic counseling," according to an obituary Butler wrote for himself last year.
"He was available almost 24/7 at the nonprofit until it closed in 1984," Butler wrote in his own obit.
He worked for 18 years as personal assistant to philanthropist Lucy Lockett Cabe.
Butler then moved to historic Washington in Hempstead County, where he owned property and restored the Noel Owen Log House, which was built in 1842 and moved from Blue Bayou near Nashville.
Butler kept dual residency in Washington and Little Rock until 2018.
Butler's cousin, Nan Ellen Dickinson East of Little Rock, said "he would go to old Washington every Thursday without fail."
"He took his mom Gertie Butler down there, and she spent the night in the jail," East said. "They just fixed it up for her."
Butler restored several buildings in Little Rock.
"Richard worked diligently in historic preservation to help people growing up in the 21st century to understand the charm of Little Rock's and Arkansas' past so that it would not be forgotten," Butler wrote in his obituary. "He owned, restored or maintained historic houses in the 400 block of East 10th Street and the First Hotze House of Little Rock."
Becky Witsell said she and her husband, Charles, met Butler in 1967. They were all living in a Victorian house on Little Rock's 10th Street that had been converted into a four-unit apartment complex.
"We called it the incubator because all the tenants that were there at that time were interested in historic preservation and urban living, living downtown and walking to work," she said.
"Richard's interests were broad, politics in particular, anything cultural, especially music," Witsell said. "He loved going to the symphony. He was always going to lectures."
East said her cousin Richard was a community philanthropist -- a supporter of the arts, colleges and churches.
"Richard was just an all-around good person," she said.
Every year, Butler would have a Twelfth Night party attended by hundreds of people. Many would drink the wassail.
"He was Mr. Preservation," said Rachel Patton, executive director of Preserve Arkansas. "When you think about historical preservation in Arkansas, some of the people I think about first would be Parker Westbrook, who is now deceased, Richard Butler and Carl Miller. When I got started in preservation in 2008, they were the old guard. Richard was the chair for the state review board for preservation."
Miller of Little Rock said he knew Butler all his life.
"He was a friend of mine ever since childhood, about 80 years," Miller said. "He and I both grew up at First United Methodist Church in downtown Little Rock. Our parents were good friends."
"He just was so well-liked and so popular," Miller said. "It really shocked all his friends in Little Rock when he died. He will be with us in spirit from now on. I'm still trying to get over it."
Rex Nelson, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist, said Butler was a Republican when almost everyone else in Arkansas was still a Democrat.
"He has this impeccable knowledge of Arkansas history," Nelson said. "He had this insatiable thirst for knowledge about anything Arkansas, whether it was Arkansas history or Arkansas politics."
Rees Taylor Roberts, a Little Rock native who now lives in Tempe, Ariz., posted a tribute to Butler on Facebook. Roberts wrote that, when he lived in Little Rock, he and Butler would have dinner every Monday night at the Copper Grill. One night, they decided to take a short road trip.
"For some reason, we had decided that it was imperative that we drive through the tunnel under the Capitol building so that we could honk the horn and hear it echo," Roberts wrote. "And so we left the Copper Grill, piled into his car, and drove up Capitol Avenue at a torpid 5 miles per hour, rounded the corner, and drove through the tunnel, honking and giggling all the while. It's a silly, but treasured memory."