Benedict B. Walter

As President of CWS Architecture + Interior Design and one of the firm’s founders, Ben has been a guiding force in leading CWS since its inception in 1992. From the beginning, Ben has focused his practice on the design of multifamily, special needs and senior residential communities, corporate office, and municipal facilities. Ben is also passionately dedicated to promoting smart-growth urban design, environmental sustainability, historic preservation, and affordable housing in the Maine community and has received numerous awards and citations for his work on those efforts.

Right out of college in 1986, Ben moved to Portland, Maine from Texas with a dusty pickup truck full of everything he owned, an architecture degree and forty-six dollars in cash. Two days later he started working for the predecessor firm to CWS. Today, Ben and his wife Cathy live in Portland with their two Golden Doodles ‘Baxter’ and ‘Blue’ and have two grown daughters. On top of his love of architecture, and in the Texas tradition, Ben is a lifelong musician, multi-instrumentalist, recording enthusiast, and songwriter. Ben is a passionate supporter of the arts and advancing environmental sustainability in building design, housing affordability, and social services in Maine. Ben and his family enjoy getaways to their family camp on a lake in the Maine woods and his family’s ancestral homelands of western Montana.

Current Member of the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition Board of Directors

Former President of the Greater Portland YMCA Branch Board of Directors

Former President of Uptown and Company, dedicated to creating and vitalizing Portland’s Congress Street Arts District in the early 1990s

bwalter@cwsarch.com