An orphaned child with a talent for sketching, Paul Williams

shaped his own destiny as an architect. His design influence

upon the Los Angeles cityscape makes his story nothing less than a modern-day saga of

conquest.

An orphaned child with a talent for sketching, Paul Williams

shaped his own destiny as an architect. His design influence upon the L.A. cityscape makes his story nothing less than a

modern-day saga of conquest.

“He was completely undaunted by racism,” says the architect’s granddaughter, Karen Hudson, who has authored two books on his career and life. Against all odds, Williams designed hundreds of important public buildings and palatial playgrounds for the elite, in the process becoming one of Southern California’s signature 20th-century architects.

“He was completely undaunted by racism,” says the architect’s granddaughter, Karen Hudson, who has authored two books on his career and life. Against all odds, Williams designed 100s of important public bldgs and palatial playgrounds for elite, in the process becoming one of S. California signature 20th-century architects.

In a career spanning 50 years and some 3,000 projects, Williams perfected a style at once elegant and relaxed, one that helped shape the Southland when it was still emerging from the orange groves. Los Angeles International Airport, the Ambassador and renovated Beverly Hills hotels, the Saks Fifth Avenue department store – all bear the Williams stamp.

“One of the greatest assets in preserving our democratic society is the American home,” he once wrote, “and even though the industrial revolution has caused many families to break up their old homes and move to greener pastures elsewhere, we are still the greatest nation of homeowners in the world.”

As ever, Williams’ emphasis was on comfort and livability; each of the floor plans had not only dimensions, but tips on colors, materials, labor-saving devices and the other little things that make a house a home.

“He was very concerned with the problem of low-income housing… ” says John Johnson, founder of Johnson Publishing Co., whose Ebony magazine over the years published essays by Williams. “He showed this by his tremendous commitment in writing and speaking about the issue. He was thinking about how you can build something for yourself with a small amount of money.”

This sketch is an aerial view of Paul R. Williams’ proposal for the … Compton Imperial Housing Project. During World War II, several large housing projects were built for the City of Los Angeles in the Compton area, including Williams’ Nickerson Gardens, which was the largest in physical size and population.

Beverly Sunset Medical Center 1962 by architect Paul R. Williams | 9201 Sunset Boulevard | Hollywood | Los Angeles

In a 1997 article in Harvard Design Magazine, architect Max Bond described Paul R. Williams’ residential designs as “affable, well-mannered, gracious and graceful, a mite different but not so different as to shock… a California style of self-assured, easy worldliness.” Who then but Williams would be the choice of the most popular entertainment couple of 1950s America—Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz—to create their weekend home in Palm Springs.

Second Baptist Church Building, 1925 – Paul R. Williams, 2412 Griffith Avenue

This is part of the Encounter restaurant at

the LAX airport. The architects

are Paul R. Williams, Pereira &

Luckman, and Robert Herrick

Carter.The construction

was finished in 1961

The Mocambo. Ciro’s. The Cocoanut Grove and a dozen other posh gathering places. During Hollywood’s golden age there was no shortage of places for the stars to play. But when they wanted to relax—and perhaps have a little fun too—they often drove two hours and up a couple of mountains to the region around Lake Arrowhead and, more often than not, to one of the most striking resorts in the country, the Arrowhead Springs Hotel. “The Swankiest Spot in America,” proclaimed one newspaper when it opened in December 1939. But what else would you expect from a hotel that was bankrolled by a bevy of studio executives and two of the screen’s most sophisticated stars, Claudette Colbert and Constance Bennett?

Williams always referred to architecture as his “hobby.” He didn’t socialize with clients or bring work home. Once home, he rarely discussed his dazzling clientele. Weekends were for family…He was a doting family man who would pick up his grandchildren from elementary school in his Lincoln Continental and always brought presents home from business trips. “He worried about whether you got good grades, whether you sat upstraight, whether you blew bubbles in your milk,” Hudson says.