Charles Edwin Wills

Charles (Chuck) Edwin Wills, 1934-2025
Chuck was born in Vancouver 21 September 1934 and died in Vernon 31 August 2025. He graduated
from Kitsilano High School where he competed on the ski team, the rugby team, and with the ballroom
dancing group. He was a large part of the Vancouver ski racing crowd, making him self well-known for
suffering a concussion by hitting a tree (later named Chuck’s tree) on Grouse Mountain during a race. He
graduated from UBC in 1960 with a Bachelor of Architecture, working first for a ski lift engineer and then
forming a partnership called Anderegg & Wills, Architects in North Vancouver. He met his wife Linda at
the bottom of the Austin Pass rope tow at Mount Baker Ski Area and they married 5 August 1961 in
West Vancouver. They left in December 1963 for a nine–month European tour by Volkswagen van,
returning in August 1964. They had two daughters, Kristin born in 1966 and Naomi in 1968. Chuck was
pleased to have daughters that he could teach how to ski.
Chuck served as an alderman for North Vancouver City in the early 1970’s and instigated the
redevelopment of Lower Lonsdale. In 1974, the family moved to a farm near Fort Steele, where Chuck
continued his architectural practice in nearby Cranbrook. The isolated farm allowed him to practice his
yodelling and hunting horn practice, scaring the nearby wildlife. The family remembers him milking the
neighbour’s cow in a fogbound field. The cow grew impatient with his amateur efforts and kept
wandering off into the fog, followed by Chuck with his milking pail and stool. The whole family soon
learned the differences between city life and country life. One of his favourite architectural awards was
for a solar-heated chicken house!
1981 found the family on the move to Vernon, where Chuck, as principal of Kalamalka Architecture,
designed many houses, multi-family homes, and commercial buildings from Salmon Arm to Penticton.
He was a member of Vernon’s Advisory Planning Commission for over 20 years, mostly as chair, and
spent a couple of years on Vernon’s Affordable Housing Committee. He donated the design work for
the archives’ addition to the museum and was a regular volunteer for the Vernon Friends of the Library.
He was also a founding member of the Vernon Film Society, bringing foreign and non-commercial films
to Vernon. The study of economics was always dear to his heart and he funded a course in the Austrian
School of Economics at UBCO. Perhaps his most visual accomplishment was the creation of the 25 th
avenue of sponsored trees called Memory Lane. An off shoot of the 1992 Vernon Centennial
celebrations, the Garden City Society continued long after 1992, promoting tree planting in Vernon’s
public spaces. As chair of the society, Chuck initiated the idea of using the old railway bed on 25 th
Avenue as a linear park, with trees purchased in memory of loved ones. The mature trees lining the
avenue attest to the foresight of his vision.
Chuck is survived by his wife, best friend, and partner of 64 years, Linda; his daughters Kristin and Naomi
(Lee); his grandchildren Josh and Tenaya Naeth; sister-in-law Rosemary, nieces Monika and Karin, and
cousin Bob Waldron.
He will be remembered for his love of architecture, skiing, red wine, good food, writing letters to the
editor and politicians, Spanish guitar music, art, Japanese gardens, world travel, foreign films, and
Scrabble, but most of all, he loved his family.
Thank you to the nursing staff and doctors at Vernon Jubilee Hospital and Vernon Hospice House. No
service is planned.

Arrangements entrusted to

Cypress Funeral & Cremation Services 250-558-0866

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