"Paul Revere Williams"(1894-1980)

Was a Los Angeles based American architect.He practiced in Southern California and designed the homes of numerous stars including Frank Sinatra,Lucille Ball/Desi Arznaz,Lon Chaney,

and Charles Correll.He also designed many public and private buildings.Orphaned at the age of four,Paul was the only African American student in his elementary school.He studied at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design and at the Los Angeles branch of the New York Beaux-Arts Institute of Design Atelier,subsequently working as a landscape architect.He went on to attend the University of Southern California,School of Engineering designing several residential buildings while still a student there.He became a certified architect 1921,and the first certified African American architect west of the Mississippi.He married Della Mae Givens on June 27,1917,at the First AME Church in Los Angeles.They had three children:Paul Revere Williams,Jr(born and died June 30,1925,buried in Evergreen Cemetery,Los Angeles);Marilyn Frances Williams(born December25 1926);and Norma Lucille Williams (born September 18,1928).Paul won an architectural competition at age 25 and three years later opened his own office.Known as an outstanding draftsman,he perfected the skill of rendering drawings "upside down." This skill was developed so that his clients (who may have been uncomfortable sitting next to a black architect) could see the drawings rendered right side across the table from him.Struggling to gain attention,he served on the first Los Angeles City Planning Commission in 1920.From 1921-1924 He worked for Los Angeles architect John C. Austin,eventually becoming a chief draftsman,before establishing his own office.Paule became the first African-American member American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1923.In 1939,he won the AIA Award of Merit for his design of the MCA building in Los Angeles (now headquarters of the Paradigm Talent Agency).Archibald Quincy Jones (1913-1979)was an architect,who is claimed to have hired Paul and later collaborated with him on projects in Palm Springs,including the Palm Springs Tennis Club (1947) and the Town &Country  (1948)  and Romanoff's on the Rocks (1948) restaurants.During World War 2,Paul worked for the navy Department as an architect.Following the war he published his first book,The Small Home of Tomorrow (1945),with a successor volume New Homes for Today the following year.In1957 became the first African-American to be voted an AIA Fellow.In 1951,he won the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity,inc.Man of the year award and in 1953 Paul received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP  for his outstanding contributions as an architect and member of the African-American community.He also received honorary doctorates from Howard University (doctor of architecture),Lincoln University of Missouri (doctor of science),and Tuskegee University (doctor of the fine arts).In 2004,USC honored him by listing him among its distinguished alumni,in the television commerical for the school shown during its football games.Paul was posthumously honored in 2008 with Donald J. Trump  Award for his significant impact on evolution,developed and perpetuation of real estate throughout the Greater Los Angeles.The award was accepted by his granddaughter Karen Hudson.Donald Trump presented to Karen via video presentation.Paul famously remarked upon the bitter irony of the fact that most of the homes he designed and whose construction he oversaw,were parcels whose deeds included segregation covenants barring blacks from purchasing them.Paul designed more 2,00 private homes most of which were in the Hollywood Hills and mid-Wilshire portion of Los Angeles (including his own home in Lafayette Square,part of historic West Adams,Los Angeles,California,).He also designed one home in the San Rafael district.His most famous were for Hollywood celebrities,and he was well regarded for his mastery of various architectural styles.Modern interpretations of Tudor-revival,French Chateau,Regency,and Mediterranean architecture were all within his vernacular One notable home,which he designed for Jay Paley in Holmbly Hills,and the current residence of Barron Hilton,was used as the "Colby Manson"in exterior for "The Colbys"series.Paul clients list included Bill "Bojangles Robinson,Lon Chaney Sr,Lucille Ball,Julie London,Tyrone Power(two houses),Bert Lahr,Charles Cottrell,Will Hays,Zasu Pitts,and Danny Thomas.In Contrast to these splenddid mansions,he co-designed Hilyard Robinson the first federal funded public housing projects of the post-war period (Langton Terrace Washington D.C.and later the Pueblo del Rio project in southeast Los Angeles.