Dr. Alan Z. Barbakow, D.D.S., the Santa Clarita Valley’s first orthodontist and a longtime community leader and supporter of the arts, died in Santa Monica Friday morning. He was 77.

Barbakow had been in declining health for about five years and had just celebrated his birthday Monday, Rabbi Mark Blazer, a family friend, said Friday afternoon.

“Alan was a man that had a heart that I’ve never seen in my life, a heart that was open to everyone and everything without judgment and just complete love and compassion,” his wife of nearly four decades, Rïse, told The Signal Friday afternoon.

“He was part of everything … He brought life and love to Newhall … I just know that what he gave to the valley and to everyone was something that doesn’t happen — it was pure,” she said. “There was empathy and an understanding of the real world.”

A self-described “city kid” raised in Los Angeles by his father, a shipping clerk, and his mother, a secretary, Barbakow graduated from the University of California, Berkeley.

He went on to earn a dental degree with an advanced specialty in orthodontics from the University of Southern California’s School of Dentistry in 1971.

In 1977, Barbakow opened his practice in a Western-themed office building he owned on Lyons Avenue in Newhall and counted generations of Santa Claritans among his patients.

“As a medical professional, he always thought of his patients as family,” Blazer said. “He never let an opportunity pass where he didn’t ask his patients about their lives, make them feel like they were part of the family. Over the decades, he had former patients bring in their kids, and then even grandkids because he was there that long.”

Barbakow and Rïse (pronounced RI-sa) lived in Newhall for many years, then built a home in Malibu but remained active in the SCV community until he retired in spring 2013.

His passion for a variety of causes including children, education, the arts, issues affecting women, and health care led him to key leadership roles and many significant accomplishments.

Barbakow helped establish the Foundation for Children’s Dental Health, served as a board member then member emeritus with the Child & Family Center, and is a past president of the Betty Ferguson Foundation.

Alan and Rïse Barbakow chaired the annual Boys & Girls Club auction and fundraiser multiple years. Barbakow also played a central role in raising funds for major expansion for the Child & Family Center and mounted two capital campaigns for Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.

In 1994, recognizing his decades of dedication to improving the quality of life for SCV residents, Barbakow was named SCV Man of the Year. Fifteen years later, in 2009, he was the honoree at Zonta Club of SCV’s 25th annual Tribute Dinner.

Dr. Alan Barbakow, D.D.S., stands on the stairs overlooking the lobby of his spacious suite of offices on Lyons Avenue in Newhall in 2009. The stagecoach was purchased more than 30 years ago at an auction of frontier memorabilia in Santa Rosa, N.M. | Photo: Dan Watson/The Signal.

Barbakow was a founding member and president of the Santa Clarita Arts Council in the late 1980s, said City Councilwoman Laurene Weste, another longtime family friend.

“His leadership never wavered,” Weste said. “He knew we had talent in our community, knew we had the ability to support it. He kept vigilant and was always encouraging. He hosted events at his office and raised money for the arts because he knew it would be great for the community, and now it is. I’m so proud of the legacy he helped create and that we all love so much here in Santa Clarita.”

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Born July 1, 1942, Barbakow “was the first one in the family to earn a college degree,” he told The Signal’s Michele Buttelman in an October 2009 interview.

“I was the classic laughingstock of the USC Dental School,” he said then. “Orthodontists don’t go to communities that just had earthquakes (the Feb. 9, 1971, Sylmar earthquake). The population was diminished by 25 percent in the first six months after the quake. So we were a downwardly mobile community at the time. The area was not just underserved, it was non-served — there were no specialists out here at the time.”

Barbakow went on to describe how he scavenged old timber from the Sylmar quake, had Western artifacts shipped from a shuttered museum in Santa Rosa, N.M., and decorated his suite of offices in a wild, wild west motif.

“I wanted to make it a showplace,” he said.

The grand opening of his new office became a huge event in the SCV, with a little help from another local friend, Western star and trick rider Montie Montana.

“Montie Montana brought a black stallion in here and gave the kids rides,” Barbakow said. “Everyone had a great time.”

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“When I moved to Santa Clarita 21 years ago, some of Alan’s patients, some of his friends, wanted me to connect with him because he was a Jewish and a leader in Santa Clarita, even though he didn’t live here that long,” said Blazer, rabbi at Temple Beth Ami in Newhall.

“We became friends right away, and I just loved spending time with Alan, so we would go out for lunch often,” Blazer said. “He always wanted to introduce me to his friends in Santa Clarita and make sure that he could help out others in the Jewish community. He wanted to give back. He really helped Temple Beth Ami grow and take the next steps that we needed to in our community.”

“Alan was the love of my life,” Rïse said. “From the first date I ever had with him, I knew this was the man I was going to marry and live with for the rest of my life. I felt completely honored to share my life with this man and have our children and have him be a role model to them.”

“The world has lost someone who has really made it a better place,” Rise said. “I think being with him has made me a better person, and it’s going to be very hard to walk this Earth without him, but he has given us tools and gifts to continue being who he was.”

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Along with his wife, Barbakow is survived by their five children and nine grandchildren. A memorial service is scheduled for Monday, July 8, at 3 p.m. in the TaNaCH Chapel at Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries – Hollywood Hills, 5950 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles 90068.

Dr. Alan Barbakow D.D.S. views the decor of his office which includes a set of elephant tusks and an assayer’s scale from Death Valley as well as horseshoes and various branding irons in 2009. | Photo: Dan Watson/The Signal.