108 Websites and a Quarter-Mile
A Documentary Film about Paul Terry Walhus
The untold story of Paul Walhus — the quarter-miler from Affton, Missouri who became an internet pioneer, a tai chi student in the direct lineage of the first teacher in America, and the only living biographer of Barney Ebsworth, one of the great American art collectors of the twentieth century.
Feature-length documentary, approximately 90 minutes. Five acts. Mixed footage: contemporary interviews with Paul, archival photographs and film, location visits to St. Louis, Spring Grove, Heber Springs, Austin, and (if possible) the Hunts Point Ebsworth estate in Seattle. Animated sequences for moments where no footage exists.
Open on Paul at his Austin desk, looking at a photograph of the brick house on Gannon Avenue in University City, Missouri. Voiceover: "This is the house where my family gathered every Christmas Eve. My grandfather Ed lived here. My Aunt Bern cooked the turkey. My cousin Barney was there too."
Two parallel sequences. Hadeland, Norway, mid-nineteenth century: Mikkel Walhus leaves for America. Marienthal, Bavaria: Max Frauenthal leaves for America. Both end in America. Both become the ancestors.
Civil War reenactment or archival footage. Max Frauenthal at Spotsylvania. The testimony of a fellow soldier: "He stood at the immediate point of contact, amid the most terrific hail of lead, and coolly and deliberately loaded and fired without cringing."
Paul at his desk, looking at his high school yearbook photograph. Voiceover about running the 440 at Bayless High. Cut to archival footage of 1960s high school track meets. Paul finishes second in the conference.
Paul narrates visiting his cousin Barney and Barney's French wife Martine at 3 Sumac Lane in Ladue. The Rolls Royce. The Mercedes. Martine's welcome. The first time Paul saw what was possible.
Footage of the Urbana-Champaign campus. Paul's class of 1969. Graduation. The decision to move west.
1970s Austin. Willie Nelson at the Armadillo. Sixth Street. The cheap apartments. The warm weather. Paul decides to stay.
1996. A modem. A server. The launch of spring.com. Paul becomes one of the first independent web publishers in America.
The slow accumulation of 108 domain names over three decades. The server in New Jersey. The philosophy of ownership. The premium .com portfolio.
The story of the Choy Hok Peng lineage. Paul's practice. Footage of Yang Style tai chi. The connection between the 108 movements of the long form and the 108 websites of the WholeTech Network.
Paul teaching a class at an Austin pool. Students of every age doing the movements. Paul in his eighties, still showing up, still teaching.
April 2018. The news reaches Paul in Austin. The moment the senior generation of the Frauenthal family shifted to Paul.
November 2018. The collection sells for $323.1 million. Paul watches from Austin.
2026. Paul begins the Barney Ebsworth biography. We see him at his desk, at the archive, on the phone with distant relatives, reading his cousin's will, piecing together the story.
Close on Paul at his desk, working, the 108 websites behind him in a visual montage, the Gannon Avenue brick house in the background of his memory, the bird from Aunt Bern's house still flying in his mind. Fade to black.
Target release: July 14, 2026 (Barney and Muriel Ebsworth's birthday). Director/producer: TBD. Interview subjects: Paul himself, Alice-Ann Walhus Whiteneck (sister), Shey Roth (son), Roger Mueller (cousin), Corky King (cousin), available Austin colleagues and friends, and any surviving Cleveland High School classmates of Barney's with memories of the Frauenthal-Ebsworth family. Archival footage needed: St. Louis in the 1950s, 1960s high school track, early Austin (1970s), early Internet/BBS era, the 2018 Christie's auction. Locations: Austin, St. Louis (Gannon Avenue, Affton, Cleveland High, Bayless High), Spring Grove Minnesota, Heber Springs Arkansas, Urbana-Champaign Illinois, Hunts Point Washington (if access permitted).