Friends of Bill Truex will remember him as one who never let obstacles interrupt his pursuit of a goal.
The decorated architect, who changed the face of Burlington by envisioning civic projects such as the Church Street Marketplace, died of heart failure on April 10, his wife, Jill Williams, confirmed. He was 85.
In his professional capacity, Truex designed several Burlington buildings, including the U.S. Coast Guard Station and North Beach Bath House. In his personal life, he served on a number of public boards and held an affection for antique boats.
But in all that he did, friends and business partners say, Truex labored relentlessly in pursuit of whatever vision he had his sights on.
“The way downtown looks and the way the waterfront looks has an awful lot to do with Bill Truex,” said Pat Robins, his longtime friend.
Robins first met Truex in 1972, when the former led an association of downtown business owners, and the latter was a young architect on the Burlington scene. Over lunch one day, Robins recalled, Truex proposed his idea for a pedestrian mall in the city’s downtown, inspired by a similar design he had seen in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Robins agreed to give the concept a shot, and the two began a six-year effort that eventually brought about the Church Street Marketplace — though Robins credited Truex as the brains behind the operation.
“He did all the thinking. I just made some speeches,” Robins told VTDigger.
After multiple test runs with a car-less Church Street, the project went ahead with a combination of $1.5 million in local money and a federal grant of $6 million, which U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had personally lobbied then-President Jimmy Carter for.
But, in an interview, Leahy echoed the deference Robins paid to Truex, saying the architect “did all the work; I sort of just put everybody in contact.”
“I can only imagine what downtown Burlington would be like without Bill Truex,” Leahy said. “The simplicity of the things he designed was wonderful. … The practical was what mattered.”
Leahy said he last saw Truex at an event on Church Street in fall 2021, where the old friends laughed and kept “completing each other’s sentences.”
William H. Truex, Jr. was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on March 21, 1937. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard University’s School of Design, he moved to Burlington with his first wife and two sons, Scott and Eric, in 1966.
Two years later, Truex co-founded the architectural firm Alexander and Truex, alongside the now-deceased Eugene Alexander. In 1977, the duo joined with another Burlington firm, DeGroot Cullins, to form what is now called TruexCullins.
Tom Cullins, who became Truex’s business partner in that merger, called their working relationship “a terrific marriage.”
“Bill was a very good business person,” Cullins said. “He said to me, ‘Hey Tom, I’ll run the business office if you continue to design award-winning designs.’ And that’s what we did.”
Truex maintained a steady output of work even as he sought commissions for the firm. In particular, he designed several American Red Cross blood centers, including the one in Burlington, after his son Eric died of blood cancer in 1978.
Eric’s death caused Truex tremendous grief, Robins said, but it did not deter his resolve to finish projects such as the Marketplace.
“It was very hard for him, but he just kept right on going,” Robins said. “He was one of those guys.”
Truex’s determination would shine through in more lighthearted ways, friends recalled. One day, Truex enlisted Robins to help move one of the architect’s beloved boats into a garage.
After arriving at the scene, Robins protested: “No, it can’t fit, come on.”
Truex, as one familiar with technical measurements, replied: “We’ve got an inch and a quarter to spare on both sides and four inches on the bow.”
With some maneuvering, the duo eventually stationed the boat securely inside the garage.
“There was no space on the other side. You had to climb in through the door and jump into the boat to get into it,” Robins said. But Truex was still correct.
The architect’s fascination with boats led to his involvement with the Antique and Classic Boat Society, of which he served on the international board. According to Williams, Truex took a lead role in planning the organization’s International Boat Show, which is set to be held in Burlington the week after Labor Day.
Truex’s other public involvement included stints on Burlington’s Planning Commission and Development Review Board, the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission and time spent as a director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont and Burlington City Arts. He helped launch the architecture programs at Norwich University and Vermont Technical College.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger hailed Truex’s contributions in a statement following his death, calling him a “true Burlington giant.”
“Bill had a great love and appreciation for this City,” Weinberger said, “and I am very grateful for the friendship and support of City initiatives that Bill generously offered throughout the last decade.”
In describing his architectural philosophy, Truex wrote that he imagined a building “as if it were a piece of a puzzle.”
“A structure does not exist in a vacuum; it is not the whole event,” he wrote. “It’s how we organize the pieces that gives the full picture.”
