Hank Reverman, who opened the Blue Moon Tavern, the venerable University District watering hole, and later became a pilot and flight instructor, died at his home in Seattle Thursday morning. He was 96.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his wife, Lisa.

Reverman saw a financial opportunity in opening a bar so soon after the repeal of Prohibition, and on April 15, 1934, the tavern opened for business using money Reverman's father had set aside for his college education.

From its inception, the bar, at 712 N.E. 45th St., did brisk trade, drawing students from the nearby University of Washington. Under drinking laws then in place, no bars or taverns could open within one mile of a college campus. The Blue Moon was just over the invisible line.

"He told me once that he didn't know there was a Depression going on," Lisa Reverman said.

Henry "Hank" Reverman, at right, behind the bar at the Blue Moon in the mid-1930s. This photo hangs on the ceiling.

Reverman often tended bar, and met his first wife, Maxine (she died in 1994, and Hank remarried in 1997), at the tavern. Though he was not a big drinker, his personality --gregarious and charismatic -- made him ideally suited for his chosen line of work.

Reverman sold the tavern in 1940, and opened other establishments, but he always held a special place for the Blue Moon. In 2004, on the tavern's 70th anniversary, Reverman rolled up his sleeves and tended bar one last time.

In later years, the bar became known for its diverse clientele. It was frequented by students and faculty from the UW, writers, artists, musicians and activists, and was known to attract the oddball and eccentric.

"Hank told me once that his original vision for the place was for a collegiate bar," said Gus Hellthaller, the tavern's current owner. "But the day it opened up it attracted poets, artists, musicians and all types of oddballs. It never changed, and Hank said he loved that."

Henry John Reverman Jr. was born Sept. 14, 1912, in Seattle. He grew up on First Hill, and later graduated from Lincoln High School.

His father, Hank Sr., worked for the Seattle Electric Company aboard its trolleys. Hank Jr. was the youngest of three, the only boy.

Lisa Reverman said her husband developed a love of flying as a teenager, when Charles Lindbergh, touring the United States after completing his famous trans-Atlantic flight, flew over Hank and his father as they walked on Capitol Hill.

"He said it was as if he could reach out and touch him," Lisa Reverman said. "He said from then on flying was what he ultimately wanted to do."

During World War II, Reverman was a flight instructor for the Army Air Corps before flying transport planes over Asia until war's end.

After the war, he returned to Seattle, where in 1946 he founded Lake Union Air Service. He worked there as an instructor and pilot until his retirement in 1973.

It was as an instructor that he met Lisa, who worked for him for five years in the 1960s, and whom he taught to fly. His wife said he also was a talented musician who played the clarinet and organ, and was an avid fisherman.

In addition to his wife, Reverman is survived by his daughter, Diane, of Kirkland; his granddaughter, Danielle, of Bellevue; and his wife's three children from a previous marriage.

There will be no funeral, but a memorial service will be held. No date has been set.