Eugene Birch Willey

Eugene Birch Willey, a former downtown merchant who loved fishing and Fort Lauderdale, died Tuesday at age 88.
Willey, known to everyone as “Birch,” owned the Hobby House camera and photo equipment shop, long before iPhones made cameras ubiquitous. He developed film for customers before the digital age, and gave out extra flash cubes to his daughters’ friends.
A great-nephew of Hugh Taylor Birch — the Broward pioneer and owner of the land that’s now Hugh Taylor Birch State Park — Willey loved the outdoors.
He wasn’t a drinker but enjoyed Heineken occasionally, and was particularly fond of strawberry milkshakes.
Gale Butler, a civic leader and now executive director of Friends of Birch State Park, said she and Willey became fast friends decades ago, when he had his camera shop and she worked for what was then Landmark Bank.
Willey brought Habitat for Humanity to town, she said, and put her on the board — her first such appointment. She said he was a great oral historian of “Uncle Hugh” Birch.

He also adored his wife of 66 years, Claudia.
Just a few years ago, Butler asked Claudia Willey to tell her about when they met.
“She said, ‘I can tell you one thing, he’s the best kisser.’ They were still in love,” Butler said.
Longtime family friend Leslie Shailer Curley, who grew up as a neighbor to the Willeys, said one thing everyone knew about Willey was that he was frugal. When his wife needed a haircut, he carefully snipped away.
She said the family made a touching discovery in Willey’s wallet recently:
Willey carried a small piece of paper that listed important moments: his first date with Claudia, the day they started going steady, the day they got “pinned” as a couple, their engagement and their wedding day.
He also carried a beautiful piece about Alzheimer’s, a disease that struck his wife, and a “tender poem about the outdoors,” Curley said.
Willey was born in Marion, Ohio, and earned a degree from the University of Arkansas. He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.
When he moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1957, it was a small town.
He and his wife lived on Ponce De Leon Drive in Rio Vista, neighbors to the Shailers. Philip Shailer is a former Broward state attorney. Another neighbor was Boyd Anderson, a county judge and namesake for a local high school.
The Willeys adopted two daughters, Jean and Diane, both of whom still live in Fort Lauderdale.
Birch Willey loved fishing, and is seen here in 1968 at the L67A canal in the Everglades. (Courtesy photo)
“He had an earnestness of purpose and this willingness to give that in my mind is unparalleled,” Curley said.
Besides giving the kids extra flash cubes, Willey was “famous for this Coca-Cola machine that was in the back” of his store,” Curley remembered. “He’d let all the kids go back, and they had those tiny bottles of Coke.”
The Willeys eventually moved to a condo on the New River downtown, just south of Las Olas Boulevard.
They were living in an assisted living center in Wilton Manors when Willey suffered health complications and died, with his daughters and very close family friends around him.
In the days before he died, he mouthed “I love you” to his daughters, Curley said.
He loved to freshwater fish, former Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle remembered. Naugle’s father had a paint store downtown, and he remembers Willey’s Hobby House.
“He was very well-liked by everyone,” Naugle remembered. “He was active in things like the Downtown Council and the Chamber.”
A 1988 article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported he was moving his store farther down Las Olas Boulevard.
"We consider it moving out of downtown," Willey is quoted as saying. "It's gotten too metropolitan.”
The article describes Hobby House like this: “ … A treasure trove of 20th Century Americana, offering icons of a bygone era alongside high-tech, computerized items. Wooden model airplanes and 8-track tapes are displayed as prominently as exercise videotapes and fully automatic cameras.”
Birch sat on city advisory boards, including planning and zoning.
“Birch really made a huge difference in Fort Lauderdale,” former Mayor Jack Seiler said. “More than anybody, Birch knew the past, understood the present, and saw the future.”
In 1980, Willey was the first person to be honored as Downtowner of the Year. In 1996, the city named him Distinguished Citizen of the Year. Willey is survived by his two daughters and his wife. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Friends of Birch State Park, 3109 East Sunrise Boulevard Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33304. A visitation is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 19, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Baird-Case Jordan-Fannin Funeral Home, 4343 North Federal Highway Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
A service will be held at First Presbyterian, 401 SE 15th Avenue, where Willey was a member, officer and teacher, on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 1 p.m. A private burial will take place at Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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