December 11, 1937 – August 21, 2023
For his college class 60th reunion publication, Bill was asked for a short bio. He wrote: “Haight-Ashbury, Mom&Dad, Olympic Club, LowellHS, fly-fishing, Yale, Scully, Albers, NYC, Mary Hamman, ’63 March, Wendy, Peace Corps, 250DodgeRoadster, Hawaii, 59BorgwardCombi, Auckland University NZ, Architectural history, design studio master, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 68Camaro, Weyerhaeuser, Christa, Werner Architects, 67VWbug, Tiffany&Co., Sausalito, 85Saab900T, Planning Commissioner, 97Saab9000, Patricia, Marin County Civil Grand Juror, 2016BMW428i”
William Arno Werner, Jr., 85, passed away peacefully at his home in Sausalito, CA on Monday, August 21, after three years of declining health precipitated by a herniated disc and spinal compression fractures. He is survived by his daughter Christa Nerone (Michael), grandsons Heath Moody (Chandler) and Devin Nerone, great granddaughter Kennedi Moody, ex-wife Wendy Wilson and “significant other” Patricia Zuch.
Bill was born on December 11, 1937 at the Stanford Hospital, San Francisco (now part of CPMC), the only child to William Arno Werner, Sr. and Sophie (Menutis) Werner. In later life, he was pleased to note that 1937 was also one of the best viniculture years across much of the wine cultivating world.
He had the great good fortune, as he put it, to grow up in the Haight-Ashbury of the 40’s and early 50’s, during a time when adults were distracted, helicopter parents had not been invented, and San Francisco was quirky, diverse and open to the explorations of adventurous youngsters. His father owned an auto repair and restoration business (see focus on cars, above), and was a Freemason: Seeing Bill’s potential, when Bill turned 10 a fellow Freemason sponsored him to the San Francisco Olympic Club. Bill retained membership for over 70 years, and the youth programs of the 40’s and 50’s nurtured general athletic, diving and gymnastic skills that rose to collegiate levels.
Bill attended the Dudley Stone School on Haight Street and Lowell High School. Competitive gymnastics (“Who’s the kid?” college scouts asked when, as a high school junior, he out-performed college level competitors), and a perfect fit to the mid-fifties Ivy League Affirmative Action Program (West Coast, inner city, public high school, immigrant working class parents, decent grades and a short police record — sleeping on a beach in Carmel) led to scholarships from MIT, Harvard and Yale. Bill chose Yale, the high bidder by $25.
“I’d never been east of Reno in my life” he said, or been on a plane or in a taxi. But Bill was always “game,” and that lifelong sense of adventure took him to Yale for undergraduate and graduate degrees. When asked by Yale to list characteristics he would want in a freshman roommate, he wrote: “I would like someone from a prep school, since I have never met one, with a home in New York City, and a dateable sister.” That answer made its way up to the President of Yale, who personally inquired as to how Yale did in filling the bill.
Bill arrived in New Haven with only enough cash to get to the campus from the airport. After seven summers as a graveyard shift journeyman brewer at Lucky Lager’s Brewery in San Francisco, scholarships, bursary jobs and other internships at Yale, and skill at the blackjack tables, Bill graduated with a BA of Arts (’59), a Master of Architecture (’63), a new wife (Wendy Wilson), and no debt. In gratitude and with enthusiasm, Bill served as Chair of the Yale Schools Committee, SF (’76-’84), President of the Yale Club, SF (’84-’87), and Member of the Yale Alumni Board of Governors (’88-’91).
After a 1963 Peace Corps training program, and working briefly in Hawaii, Bill and Wendy moved to New Zealand, where he taught architectural history and design for two years at the Auckland University School of Architecture. He returned to San Francisco to join the internationally recognized architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in 1968. He left Skidmore in 1976 to form his own firm, and in 1980 partnered with Don Sullivan to form Werner & Sullivan Architects, SF. After Don’s death in 2000, Bill continued on through 2020 as Werner Associates Architects.
Bill’s 57 year career in architecture defied stereotyping, on purpose. “More often than not,” he said, “it seems that the first time we undertake any specific type of architectural project is remarkably stimulating. We have avoided becoming ‘specialists’ for that very reason.” Clients ranged from corporate, retail and research entities to government agencies; projects ranged from a 390 acre office campus master plan, the Rincon Center Post Office in SF, Tiffany & Co. outlets and Weyerhaeuser Company’s Washington forestry research center, to residential projects (always accompanied by a “Hold-Harmless in Case of Divorce” contract rider.) Several design excellence awards from institutes, magazines and AIA Chapters followed.
A newly minted bachelor, Bill moved to Sausalito in 1983, and, in 2008, moved his practice from San Francisco to a building he had designed in Sausalito. It is fitting that he designed both the then largest commercial project and the smallest, albeit unquestionably the most visited, public facility in Sausalito. Thirty-four years of pretty much constant participation in Sausalito civic affairs, which ended at the end of 2022, began in 1988 when the City Council appointed him to the Sausalito Design Review Board. That was followed by two separate appointments to the Planning Commission, numerous Task Forces, Steering Committees, Commissions and Planning Forums. He was appointed by the Marin Superior Court to the 2015-16 Marin County Civil Grand Jury and, in recognition of talented writing and analytical skills, reappointed to the 2016-17 Marin County Civil Grand Jury.
Participation in Sausalito public affairs led to a relationship with Patricia that spanned 20+ years to date, enriched by a shared appreciation for travel, fine dining, good wine, music, plays, friends, family and each other– with a hearty dose of laughter thrown in.
Bill was an avid fly-fisherman, a master chef, an event planner par excellence, a well researched travel guide – and always, always “game.”