Paul Revere Williams began designing homes and commercial buildings in the early 1920s. By the time he died in 1980, he had created some 2,500 buildings, most of them in and around Los Angeles, but also around the globe. And he did it as a pioneer: Paul Williams was African-American. He was the first black architect to become a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923, and in 1957 he was inducted as the AIA’s first black fellow.When Paul Williams began his career, he could find no black architects to be his role models or mentors. Born in downtown Los Angeles in 1894, Williams became orphaned before he turned 4 when his parents, Chester and Lila, died of tuberculosis. A family friend raised him and told him he was so bright, he could do anything he wanted. And what he wanted was to design homes for families — perhaps because he lost his own so early in his life. Despite warnings from those who thought he was being impractical (“Your own people can’t afford you, and white clients won’t hire you,” was one such warning), Williams became an architect.
His work has come to signify glamorous Southern California to the rest of the country — and to the world. One of his hallmarks — a luxuriantly curving staircase — has captivated many a potential owner.
Bret Parsons is head of the architectural division of John Aaroe Group, a Beverly Hills real estate brokerage handling multimillion-dollar properties. He says when Williams homes come up for sale, real estate agents scramble to get the listing. “They’re gobbled up in seconds,” he says. “They’re an absolute pedigree for someone to have in their arsenal.”
Parsons says Williams homes posses grace, design and elegant proportions, which attracted people with money and taste.
Several of them were celebrities from Hollywood’s heyday. Williams built an elegant bachelor pad for Frank Sinatra when the singer was between marriages. Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz were clients. So was Cary Grant. Danny Thomas was both client and friend — Williams designed St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis gratis, as a favor to Thomas (and made Thomas promise not to tell, so he wasn’t deluged with similar requests). In recent years, Denzel Washington, Ellen DeGeneres and Andy Garcia all have lived in Williams homes.
In a 1937 essay for American Magazine called “I Am a Negro,” Williams shared some of his own philosophy.
“Virtually everything pertaining to my professional life during those early years was influenced by my need to offset race prejudice, by my effort to force white people to consider me as an individual rather than a member of a race,” he wrote. “I encountered irreconcilables who simply refused to give me a hearing, but on the whole, I have been treated with amazing fairness.”