An interesting aside, this home was made famous when Howard Hughes crashed his plane into it in 1946, destroying the house.įranchon Beerup House, post-crash and rebuilt, PAUL REVERE WILLIAMS, FAIA (1894-1980), U.S. An example is the Franchon Beerup house in Beverly Hills, designed in 1929, and one of his earliest homes to be featured in Architectural Digest. ĭuring the 1920s, California’s real estate boom ignited, during which time, Williams gained a reputation as a skilled designer of small, affordable houses which led to commissions for historical revival-style homes for wealthier suburban clients.

Despite his teacher’s horrible advice, he became certified as a building contractor in 1915, a licensed Californian architect in 1921, opened his own practice, and became the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1923. Yet Paul Williams persevered in the face of racism and his personal tragedies not only to successfully navigate school but also to become a well-recognized, professionally respected architect. When he did get married, his first son, Paul Revere Williams Junior, died before reaching one year of age. At Polytechnic High School, a teacher counseled him not to be an architect because no white clients would want him and there weren’t enough black clients to afford one. At this time, Los Angeles was 36 th in the nation based on population but only 3131 out of 102,000 residents (3%) were black. In 1908, he graduated with honors as the only black child in his entire elementary school. He was placed in a separate foster home from his brother, with Mr. Both his parents died of tuberculosis, his father when he was two and his mother when he was four. To begin, not only did Williams persevere in architecture in a difficult historical era for a black man, but he overcame significant personal tragedies to do so. Shockingly, Williams participated in some 3000 projects over the course of his life, and yet was awarded the AIA Gold Medal only in 2017, almost 40 years after his death. Based on his work, Williams should be better known and better represented in the standard canon of trailblazing architects.

An analysis of Williams’ work reveals a sad truth about the field of architecture: not only are black architects underrepresented in their field, those black architects are not as recognized nor celebrated for their achievements compared to white contemporaries. Without question, his contributions should be more widely recognized for his influences on both architecture and interior design. How did this happen? In this paper, I will show how the work of black architect Paul Williams (1894-1980), with his extraordinary five-decade career, is far more relevant to the architectural history canon than is demonstrated by his representation within it. Paul Williams in front of the Theme Building at LAX Airport (FN US ) In fact, the one building this man IS known for, the TWA terminal at LAX, he had nothing to do with designing! (It was actually designed by Gin Wong of Luckman & Pereira).

Yet the man who connects them (more on that later) has remained relatively unknown except in elite architectural circles, like the AIA board. Williamsįrank Sinatra Lucille Ball Howard Hughes Sharon Tate the Beverly Hills Hotel: These all represent exciting and well-known names and stories in the Hollywood lexicon. The True Hollywood Star: The Work and Legacy of Paul R. Twitter Icon Facebook Icon Pinterest Icon Instagram Icon

Paul r williams