William "Bill" G. Hepworth

December 12, 1935 - February 1, 2023

U.S. Veteran

William G. Hepworth, 87, of Paw Paw, WV passed away on Wednesday, February 1, 2023 at his residence.

Born in Brooklyn, New York on December 26, 1935.

He attended High School in Stratford Connecticut. He joined the US Navy at 17 and while there, earned his GED as he served as a Navy Corpsman. Bill attended Miami University after his discharge.

He followed in his father and grandfather’s footsteps in the heavy structural construction industry starting out as an assistant to his father in marine construction in 1950’s in Florida where he met and married his first wife, Nancy Shue, with whom he fathered four children. He returned to New York and continued a career in heavy construction notably working on the Verrazano Straights Bridge, the New Jersey Turnpike bridges and byways. He also was as superintendent for Stone and Webster Engineering on the Mount Storm Power Station in West Virginia and a bulk mail facility in Durham, NC, etc. He spent a year in Viet Nam building military installations for Brown and Root Engineering.

In the 1970’s, Bill came to work on the Blue Planes Water Treatment Plant in the Washington DC area, where he remained for the next 45years. Eventually, Bill started his own contracting company, and became the go-to designer for Washington “Fern Bars” including The Bottom Line, Marigolds, Mike Palm’s, the Foundry, Timberlake’s, The Sign of the Whale, The Club Down Under, and renovations of the Georgetown Club and Nathan’s, to name a few. During this time his first marriage ended in divorce and he subsequently married his current wife, Joanne Roney Hepworth and bought a home in Glen Echo Heights, MD. In addition to restaurant work he also did home renovations, repairs and additions. After exhausting the DC market for new saloons, Bill went to work for Geffen Construction as superintendent for the building and installation of all the restaurants and food services at the new Redskins Stadium in Lanham Md. He went on to install food services for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stadium in Florida, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball stadium in St. Petersburg, the Atlanta Hawks Stadium in GA, Seattle Seahawks Stadium in WA, etc. Bill retired from Geffen in 1999.

In the early 90’s Bill and Joanne purchased a 3.6 acer lot on the Cacapon River in Hampshire County WV on which stood an old red “hunter’s cabin” reportedly placed there by General Shupe the Commandant of the Marine Corps. After his retirement, Bill came to West Virginia, which he affectionately called ‘Merica’, and built a beautiful vacation log cabin on the site of the “hunter’s cabin”. In 2003 he built a 4000 sq foot addition on their house in Glen Echo Heights MD. Eventually, he left the hustle and bustle of Bethesda to retire in the cabin overlooking the Cacapon, where he resided with his wife of 43 years until his death on February 1, 2023.

William is survived by his loving wife, Joanne Roney Hepworth; children, Kimber Cortese, Heather Embrey and son-in-law Robbie, and William J. Hepworth and daughter-in-law Vickey; four grandchildren, Wendy Cortese, William Preston Hepworth, Alyssa Hepworth, Kevin Embrey; sister Marie Hepworth Rankin;, and two beloved Yorkshire Terriers, Mouse 14 and Minnie, 5.

Memorial donations may be made to Hospice of the Panhandle, 330 Hospice Lane, Kearneysville, WV 25430.

All arrangements are private and being handled by McKee Funeral Home, Augusta, WV.

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