The Life and Times of Paul Terry Walhus
Working title: 108 Websites and a Quarter-Mile: The Paul Walhus Story
Length: Approximately 80,000 words (the current draft is 30,000 words across 100 chapters; the final book will be refined and expanded).
Format: Illustrated biography in 100 chapters, organized into seven parts covering bloodlines, childhood, track, the road to Austin, the web pioneer years, tai chi, and the family biographer role.
Three reasons:
1. The subject is unique. Paul Walhus is the rare American who has been on the internet since 1996 and is still on it in 2026. He owns 108 websites on a single server. He owns some of the most valuable aged .com domains in the world. He has been practicing tai chi in the direct lineage of the first tai chi teacher in America. He has been teaching aqua fitness in his eighties. And he is the cousin and designated biographer of Barney A. Ebsworth, whose art collection sold at Christie's for $323 million.
2. The family story is extraordinary. Paul's family tree includes a Norwegian immigrant who crossed the Atlantic in 1851, a Bavarian Jew who stood in the hail of lead at the Battle of Spotsylvania, a Titanic survivor who founded NYU Langone's Hospital for Joint Diseases, the manager of the Bureau of Information at the world's busiest train station, a Broadway actress, the producer of the TV show that inspired American paramedic laws, and the cousin who assembled one of the greatest private art collections in American history.
3. The voice is authentic. Paul is writing his own biography in the third person, drawing on direct memory, primary sources, and decades of research. No ghostwriter could produce this material. No outside biographer could access the specific Christmas Eve memories on Gannon Avenue or the specific feel of the Rolls Royce in the Sumac Lane driveway. Paul is the only person alive who can tell this story.
Readers of American family sagas (Ron Chernow, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David McCullough). Readers of internet-era memoirs (Walter Isaacson's The Innovators). Readers of immigrant narratives (Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Díaz's family material). Readers of Midwestern coming-of-age stories. Readers interested in the Ebsworth art collection and the larger Barney Ebsworth story. Readers of tai chi and wellness literature. Readers of early-web history.
This biography is one of three in a planned trilogy covering the Walhus, Frauenthal, and Ebsworth families. The Ebsworth biography is already in advanced draft form at barneyebsworth.com. The Frauenthal legacy has been developed at barneyfrauenthal.com. Together, the three books form an American family saga spanning five generations and three immigrant lines.
Paul Terry Walhus is a lifelong resident of Austin, Texas and the founder of the WholeTech Network — 108 websites running on a single server since 1996. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Class of 1969. He is a certified aqua fitness instructor through the University of Texas continuing education program and a direct lineage student of Master Choy Kam Man in the Yang Style tai chi tradition. He is on X/Twitter as @springnet, on Instagram as @springnet, and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/walhus.
Draft chapters available for review. Author available for interviews and editorial meetings. Target publication date: July 14, 2026, to coincide with the Barney Ebsworth biography launch. Contact: info@walhus.com