Nelson Mathew Skalbania
February 12, 1938 - present
"I only remember the good things in my life. I elect not to remember the unpleasant things, blank them out." - Nelson
Skalbania was born in 1938 into a Saskatchewan polish family of modest means. His family moved to Vancouver’s east side when he was a youngster. He likes to tell his friends that in his early days he had to stay away from school on wash day, because he only had one pair of pants and that he had to walk about ten kilometres from home to Vancouver’s Woodward downtown to buy a bag a of groceries.
In the mid-1970’s, when he was flipping real estate worth $500 million annually, he became a West Coast business icon, a flashy, on-the-edge antidote to the traditionally grey Canadian business world. He owned a private jet, along with a 180 feet yacht in a the Mediterranean and a private art collection that included Rodins and Renoirs.
"In 1971, I was a structural engineer at a job site supervising the installation of reinforcing rods at a high rise concrete apartment that I designed in Vancouver. A man approached me as I was standing outside the half finished building, and tells me he is from Chile and that he had bought an apartment site in West Vancouver. He was looking for someone to design and construct an apartment building on the site. The Chilean was of Italian origin and his name was Aldo Orezzoli. So I ended up designing and building a forty suite, ten storey apartment building on his site.
Fast forward to June 1973. Aldo calls me from Santiago to tell me about what was happening in Chile. There was a full blown Civil war underway. Santiago was under martial law, riots in the streets with a 9 pm curfew in effect. The leftist government of Salvador Allende was under siege. He tells me that the escudo black market exchange rate was $1 US for 300 Escudos, meaning for $1 US you could buy $300 US worth of Gucci ties. So what can I buy that is more or less portable? He tells me the jewels and gold has already left the country, but there are paintings owned by the rich, Monets, Renoir etc. that you can buy with US cash. Chile is mainly populated by Italians, Germans, Spanish and many of Jewish origin. But the European immigrants wanted to decorate and furnish their homes with quality art and furnishings from Europe.
As a result paintings from the early 1900's were brought from Europe via ships sailing through the straits of Magellen"- Nelson.
Nelson graduated from grade twelve in 1956 with straight A's except for one subject. He played all sports including track, baseball, rugby and basketball. He was captain of the rugby and basketball teams. He was awarded the Chris Spencer scholastic scholarship to attend UBC for his district, which included all UBC fees for five years of study.
Graduated in civil engineering from UBC with a B.Ap.Sc in 1961. During 1961 to 1963 Nelson worked as ac a structural engineer for Read, Jones Christoffersen and received a P. Eng in 1962.
Nelson wrote S.A.T. exams and applied for postgraduate studies at several universities in 1963. He was accepted with a fully paid scholarship at CalTech (California Institute of Technology) at Pasadena, CA. He graduated in 1964 with a M.Sc. (Master of Science), specializing in vibrations, seismic engineering.
Nelson joined a two man structural engineering firm, McKenzie & Snowball in 1964 and paid $1.00 for a third share of the company. It became McKenzie, Snowball & Skalbania (MS&S). In eight years, it had one hundred and twenty employees and three offices. Nelson bought his two partners out. MS&S then had three consulting divisions: mechanical, electrical and structural. The highlight was in 1970 when MS&S won the structural engineering contract for a proposed fifty story building in downtown Vancouver after a world wide competition. This contract was awarded by Premier Bennett provided SKALBANIA personally did the structural engineering for the proposed fifty storey Bennett Building at 800 Howe St in Vancouver.
Nelson worked on the design for two years, visiting every major global highrise including the New York Twin Towers. During the election in 1972, Bennet's government lost to Barrett's NDP. Barrett promptly fired all the original consultants and hired a new team. At the same time they bought the full city block south of 800 Hornby, flipped the fifty storey design on its side, covering the two blocks with two three storey buildings, which is currently still occupied by the Vancouver Law Courts.
Nelson has married twice, first, to Audrey Anna Lynn Leschynsky (1938-2018), with whom he had two daughters, Rozanda Lyn and Taryn Gae, and, later, divorced and then married Eleni in 1980. Eleni was a native of Santorini, Greece, who later founded with Nelson Vancouver's Wedgewood Hotel & Spa.
Nelson played chess internationally, skied, ran athletic track and nine marathons, including New York, Venice and the original Marathon to Athens. He also played squash, tennis and racquetball at least once a week for fifty years.
Nelson lived in his waterfront home at 3585 Point Grey Road, described as a “breathtaking one-of-a-kind property located on the most prestigious street of Vancouver - The Golden Mile" for over 35 years.