Obituary: Wayne Poulsen

August 4, 1944 – April 19, 2026

Wayne Poulsen Jr., an adventurous and graceful skier, artist, and architect of rare aesthetic conviction who resided in Aspen since 1969, died Sunday, April 19, in Petaluma, California. Surrounded by his daughters, Elsa and Rose, granddaughter Lavinia, and two brothers.
Born August 4, 1944, in San Mateo, California, Wayne was the second of eight children of Wayne Poulsen Sr., a pioneering Pan American Clipper pilot, ski-jumping champion, and founder of Squaw Valley, and Gladys “Sandy” Kunau Poulsen of New York. He grew up in the wild meadows of undeveloped Squaw Valley, fishing Squaw Creek, riding ranch horses, and skiing on wooden skis long before chairlifts existed. A prolific skier, he competed throughout the 1950s in jumping and racing with a style at once powerful, graceful, and unhurried.
After the 1960 Winter Olympics were held in his family’s front yard, Wayne earned a ski scholarship to the University of Washington, then completed a Master’s in Architecture at UC Berkeley in 1968. Following seasons making ski films in the Alps, he arrived in Aspen in 1969 and never quite left. He designed the Caribou Club (Architectural Digest, September 1991), renovated the Brand Building, and built dozens of estates blending European luxury with alpine craftsmanship. His watercolor-filled sketches and travel journals were of museum quality.
In the early ’90s, he built his off-grid log cabin at 10,000 feet on Aspen Mountain entirely by hand, by himself. As a member of Aspen Sister Cities, Friends of Africa, and BioRegions International, Wayne traveled through Patagonia, Kenya, South Africa, Namibia, Mali, Nepal, Tibet, and Mongolia. For seventeen summers, Wayne worked with nomadic people of the Darhad Valley. In 2013, at 69, he circumnavigated the Altai Mountains on horseback, chronicled in his memoir “The Golden Circle.”
He is survived by daughters Elsa and Rose, granddaughter Lavinia, and seven siblings.