Paul Revere Williams is synonymous with Golden-Age Los Angeles, helping to transform the Western outpost into a glamorous metropolis. The architect, who died in 1980, designed numerous homes for Beverly Hills and Hollywood luminaries. He was lauded for his domestically scaled interior design of the expanded Saks Fifth Avenue at 9600 Wilshire Boulevard, and for his $3 million, 11-year renovation of a nine-story French Renaissance apartment house into the famous Beverly Wilshire Hotel. His work spanned from local YMCA buildings to LAX, for which he was a member of the airport’s joint-venture design team.
Williams’s accomplishments were made even more impressive by this fact: In 1923, a year after opening his own firm, Williams became the first documented African-American member of the American Institute of Architects. He also was the first African American to become a Fellow of the AIA.Paul Revere Williams is synonymous with Golden-Age Los Angeles, helping to transform the Western outpost into a glamorous metropolis. The architect, who died in 1980, designed numerous homes for Beverly Hills and Hollywood luminaries. He was lauded for his domestically scaled interior design of the expanded Saks Fifth Avenue at 9600 Wilshire Boulevard, and for his $3 million, 11-year renovation of a nine-story French Renaissance apartment house into the famous Beverly Wilshire Hotel. His work spanned from local YMCA buildings to LAX, for which he was a member of the airport’s joint-venture design team.
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