Rediscover Paul R. Williams's Classic Hollywood Architectural Masterpieces

In 1950s Los Angeles, a home by Paul Revere Williams was a fabulous symbol not just of having "made it," but made it with your name above the marquee. The architect to the stars designed nearly 2,000 homes in Southern California, and counted Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, and Lucille Ball among his boldfaced clients. Politicians and wealthy businessmen alike commissioned him to do their residences and flocked to the hotels he designed in Los Angeles and Palm Springs. In 1997, architect Max Bond wrote that a home by Williams is "affable, well-mannered, gracious and graceful, a mite different but not so different as to shock…a California style of self-assured, easy worldliness.”

So, why isn't he a household name like Frank Lloyd Wright?

For one, Williams faced immense challenges as one of the few commercially successful Black architects of his generation; he was the first African-American member of the American Institute of Architects. A brilliant draftsman and artist, Williams taught himself to draw upside down because white peers were often not comfortable sitting next to him, so he drew sitting across from them, their commissioned projects appearing on the paper, right side up. Due to racist property laws, he could not live in the neighborhoods where he built so many of his projects. At the outset of his career a teacher told him: "Your own people can’t afford you, and white clients won’t hire you." And yet, through his diligence and immense talent, he became one of the most prolific architects in the U.S., and spoke out for Civil Rights, paving the way for other black architects. Later, he won numerous awards and accolades and today is among the many Black creatives whose pioneering work is being rediscovered by a younger generation.

Though Williams's archive of over 10,000 drawings was believed destroyed in the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the archive was actually elsewhere, cared for by his granddaughter Karen Elyse Hudson, who has worked to preserve his legacy and has published extensively on his work. It has now been jointly acquired by the University of Southern California School of Architecture (Williams's alma mater) and Getty Research Institute. Below, a look at some of the nearly forgotten photographs from the archives.

Legend has it that Desi Arnaz won this Palm Springs property in a poker game. He and his wife Lucille Ball hired Williams to build their home from the ground up in 1954.

Williams was one of several prominent architects in the era of the aspirational California lifestyle: creating open ranch-style homes, where people could move between indoor and outdoor spaces seamlessly.

While the hotel opened in the 1920s, after the Great Depression and WWII, it had been decades since El Mirador was used as a hotel (it had even been converted to a military hospital). Since the property was considered "army surplus," its investors had a $5 million budget and Williams's 1953 design instantly became a local landmark.

According to 1952 article in the Los Angeles Times, Williams's plan for the hotel was lavish indoors and out, with cabanas, sun decks, a new pool area. It attracted high society, from presidents to Hollywood stars, for years.

Williams's modern indoor courtyard featured a retractable roof: a modern novelty at the time.

This 1934 Tudor-style house in Bel-Air was more recently owned by Janet Jackson.

Williams was hired in 1941 to renovate and add to the Beverly Hills hotel, which needed an overhaul after the Depression. He worked on the project throughout the decade and much of the hotel today is still his design, including the signature reception area with the loopy Beverly Hills script.

More: The Beverly Hills Hotel Has Restored its Iconic Bungalows