Paul R. Williams. (photo courtesy of Paul R. Williams, “Architect: A Legacy of Style,” Karen E. Hudson)

When cruising through the flats of Beverly Hills, two dizzying six way stops along Sunset Boulevard beckon you to slow down and look around. Soon you’ll see a familiar green facade rising before a pink palace, and peeking above the palms, the iconic looped lettering of the Beverly Hills Hotel sign takes shape. The commanding color palette and smooth architectural curves catch the eye, but the legendary handwriting evokes the twinkle of the stars.

The recognizable penmanship is that of Paul R. Williams, known as the “architect to the stars,” and the talented mastermind behind many of Los Angeles’ most famed homes and buildings. What many people may not know is that Paul R. Williams was the first African American architect licensed to practice architecture in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. In 1923, he became the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects, in 1957 he was inducted as the AIA’s first Black Fellow and in 2017, the AIA posthumously awarded Williams its prestigious Gold Medal.

Williams’ prolific body of work spans multiple decades and explores an array of styles and structures. Set apart by his unwavering pursuit of excellence and steadfast attention to detail, Williams approached his commissions for small single-family homes with the same level of care as he did sprawling estates and large civic buildings. As Williams’ portfolio of commissions grew, so did his mastery of a variety of architectural idioms. He designed homes in the American Colonial, Spanish Mediterranean, English Tudor and California Ranch style and his larger commissions explored elements of Art Deco and ultimately showcased Williams’ leadership in heralding the Modernist aesthetic into Los Angeles and beyond.

Williams’ foray into Modernist design is on full display with his Crescent Wing addition at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He designed the Crescent Wing in 1949 as well as the iconic Polo Lounge and Fountain Coffee Room, which features Williams’ signature sinuous curves. Williams’ property updates included reimagining the hotel’s grand entrance and lobby, designing the Crystal Ballroom and adding poolside cabanas. One of his most notable contributions, however, was selecting the pink and green color palette that remains synonymous with the hotel today. The bold combination, paired with the Don Loper-selected Banana Leaf wallpaper and Williams’ loose script writing of the hotel’s name effectively created one of the most iconic and lasting “brand identities” of all time.

Tenacious beginnings 

Williams’ journey to success began long before his work at the hotel and continued for decades after. Williams’ legacy has been meticulously preserved and championed by his granddaughter, Karen Elyse Hudson, who has authored several monographs on the architect and stewarded the extensive archive compiled by his late wife Della Williams. When diving into the rich well of Williams’ accomplishments, the breadth of his success and gravity of his professional triumph against the backdrop of racial discrimination begins to take shape. As Hudson noted, “In addition to the portrait of a gentleman, gracious to a fault, who involved himself in every detail of a project, there emerged his quiet, unspoken struggle against racism.”

Williams was born in Los Angeles in 1894 and orphaned by the age of four. He was raised by his community and brought up in the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. Community engagement and civic responsibility later became a cornerstone of his work.

He enjoyed drawing from an early age and when he started high school at Polytechnic, he enrolled in the architecture course of study. He was met with resistance from the start, and Williams recalled his instructor dismissing his aspirations and saying, “Who ever heard of a Negro being an architect.” Williams later recalled in a 1963 op-ed for Ebony, “I think I told him that I had heard of only one Negro architect in America and I was sure this country could use at least one or two more.”

Williams persisted. He enrolled in architectural engineering courses at University of Southern California, studied at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design Atelier Space in Los Angeles and attended several different art schools for intensive study in interior design, color harmony and rendering. He tenaciously entered the job market, calling on every firm in the area and ultimately taking an unpaid job at an important company. The firm started paying him a salary within a week. Williams went on to hold positions at several respected organizations that helped sharpen his skills. Of his perseverance, Williams said “Without having the wish to ‘show them’ I developed a fierce desire to ‘show myself.’”

While with the firm of John C. Austin, he assisted in the drawings for several important buildings including the Shrine Civic Auditorium and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. In his early years, Williams developed a few skills that set him apart, including drafting with incredible speed and precision, noting that he had to become a bit of a showman and salesman to earn the trust and business of clients. Williams developed the ability to draw upside down so he could, as he described it, wow his clients by sketching their vision in real time as they sat across from him. Modern scholars surmise that this gimmick also precluded a white client from sitting next to Williams. Again, what Hudson described as her grandfather’s quiet struggle against racism comes back into focus.

When former classmate Louis Cass offered him the commission to design his new home in La Cañada Flintridge in 1921, Williams met the moment. Cass was the original underwriter of the Automobile Club of Southern California and the commission for his stately La Cañada home would offer Williams the financial opportunity to open his own office, secure in the knowledge that he had at least one client. With the important commission under his belt, Williams established his own firm, Paul R. Williams & Associates. The beautiful English-Tudor style Cass residence still stands today in La Cañada, as do several other Williams homes.

Williams soon became the architect among the wealthy communities of Southern California, designing the sprawling Mediterranean-style James Degnan estate in La Cañada, the iconic Jack P. Atkin Tudor English “Castle on The Hill” in Pasadena, several stately Hancock Park homes and the famous Jay Paley residence in Bel Air – often considered a crown jewel among Williams’ commissions.

Paul R. Williams’ script writing of the Beverly Hills Hotel created one of the most iconic and lasting brand identities of all time. (photo by Andy Kitchen)

Building communities, finding community

As Williams increasingly built homes in neighborhoods that did not include members of his own African American community, he looked for opportunities in civic engagement and sought out projects that could help shape his community. Williams held a seat on the City Planning Commission of Los Angeles from 1920 to 1928, served on the Housing Commission, was appointed to several presidential commissions by  Coolidge, Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower, and later served on the Advisory Committee of California U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Williams took genuine pride in being able to influence the look and environment of his own community. In 1924, Williams designed Second Baptist Church, the first African American Baptist Church in Southern California and one of the first major construction projects in the Central Avenue area of Los Angeles. In 1926, Williams designed the 28th Street YMCA with a facade that featured intricate moldings and relief portraits of Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass. Williams surmised in his notes that the “transition between a shabby YMCA clubroom and a new spick-and-span environment has a tremendous influence on the conducts and habits of youngsters.” These two buildings were among Williams’ first nonresidential projects in the Black community. Williams made it a point to work on other community-driven projects for the rest of his career, including the 1963 construction of the new site of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in West Adams, the church in which he was raised.

Beyond building the physical spaces to foster growth and advance progress, Williams acted as a pillar of Black excellence in his community. Williams helped found and served as vice president of the Broadway Federal Savings and Loan, the oldest federal African American savings and loan west of the Mississippi. The bank provided services to minorities who were not being serviced by any of the existing financial institutions in the greater Los Angeles area.

Williams and his wife Della were quite active in the burgeoning African American society of Los Angeles, cultivating friendships with the likes of Jesse Owens and Lena Horne and rubbing elbows with NAACP leaders Walter White and Mary McLeod Bethune. Paul was active in the Omega fraternity and Pacific Town Club men’s organization, and Della was a founding member of the Wilfandel women’s club and an active member of the Los Angeles chapter of The Links.

Though Williams was running in increasingly glamorous and influential circles in Los Angeles, it’s important to understand that he was still forced to sit in segregated train cars when traveling through the Jim Crow South. Williams believed that architecture could advance social progress and found that his accomplishments in building impressive homes and buildings coupled with his work in fostering community made strides in the fight for racial equality. Williams worked within his community while continuing to take on larger projects and honing in on his own unique architectural style.

Refashioning the Pink Palace

Williams’ early career was marked by his ability to realize the unique vision of his clients and execute homes and buildings in an array of traditional styles. With his success and growing renown came the opportunity to define his own creative identity. Soon, Williams was at the forefront of heralding the Modernist aesthetic into Los Angeles – his work on the Beverly Hills Hotel illustrates this creative ingenuity.

Completed in 1912, the original Mediterranean Revival building of the Beverly Hills Hotel was designed by Elmer Grey. From the start, the hotel was a hot spot for the rich and famous and a glamorous retreat for the stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. When a group of investors led by Hernando Courtright purchased the hotel in the 1940s, they knew that the property needed an updated look to once again attract the high-profile clientele they desired.

Courtright emphatically chose Williams to usher in a new era of glamour to the storied property. The Williams-redesigned entrance and lobby, Polo Lounge, Fountain Coffee counter and numerous suites in the new Crescent Wing showcased the appealing features of Modernist design. Sleek, clean, functional and elegant, the simplified facades and graceful curves created an invitingly comfortable and lively space.

In his notes on the project, Williams surmised, “Period styles can be made quite modern and refreshing by simplifying the moldings and combining some of the more successful modern color combinations.” Williams updated the space with modern curves and moldings and outfitted the hotel in an exuberant pink and green palette. The Polo Lounge bridged the glitz of Hollywood with the elegance of Modernism, pairing a now-iconic candy-striped ceiling with an undulating banquette of booths where one can see and be seen or slip out of view in the alcove of a corner booth. The classic Williams-style coffee counter of the Fountain Room marries Modernist functionality and simplicity with a touch of whimsy stemming from the Banana-Leaf wallpaper. And, perhaps most notably, Williams’ scrawl of the hotel name showcases how Williams’ oeuvre came to be defined by not only his Modernist aesthetic and attention to detail, but the presence of the personality of the architect himself within his designs.

Williams collaborated with Pereira and Luckman on the iconic Theme Building at LAX, showcasing new age Modernist flair. (Photo courtesy of paulrwilliamsproject.org)

Lucy’s oasis, Sinatra’s bachelor pad and The Theme Building

Williams continued to complete notable commissions throughout the 1950s, ‘60s and into the ‘70s. When they sought to build a desert oasis away from the bustle of Hollywood, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball tapped Williams to design a classic midcentury modern Palm Springs retreat.

Frank Sinatra called on Williams and his daughter Norma to design his bachelor pad in the Hollywood Hills, which Williams dubbed a “swinging hideaway of the swinging crooner.” Williams enjoyed the challenge of making a smaller home feel expansive and focused on the Modernist idea of functional, intentional design with Sinatra’s home. Williams and Sinatra enjoyed a mutually respectful friendship. In a 1956 Ebony magazine spread featuring Williams showcasing the home, Williams recalled, “Frankie moved out of the picture … after he told us what he wanted. My daughter had a free hand in the decorating, I had a free hand in the designing. Never once did he try to move in and change things.”

From individual homes to large civic commissions, Williams continued to shape the look and feel of Los Angeles throughout the remainder of his working years, even collaborating with William Pereira and Charles Luckman on the iconic Theme Building at LAX.

Safeguarding and Celebrating a Lifetime of Achievements 

Despite navigating an illustrious career filled with recognizable commissions and important contributions, Williams’ story, like the stories of so many other accomplished Black Americans, has not often been highlighted. The effort to preserve and honor Williams’ legacy has been spearheaded by Williams’ granddaughter Karen Hudson, who shares the architect’s steadfast tenacity.

When several of Williams business papers that were housed at the Broadway Federal building were lost to fires in the L.A. riots of 1992, Hudson resolved to honor his legacy by safeguarding his archive, publishing multiple monographs on the architect and searching for the right home for the archive. In 2020, the Getty Research Institute and the University of Southern California jointly acquired the substantial archive, which includes approximately 35,000 plans, 10,000 original drawings, blueprints, hand-colored renderings, vintage photographs and correspondence. The GRI is currently in the process of digitizing the archive for public use and planning a series of three contemporaneous exhibitions for fall 2026 at the Getty, USC and LACMA that tell the story of Williams. The initiative includes plans for an exhibition catalog, public programs activating several Paul R. Williams buildings and sites across Los Angeles and a research symposium.

Williams’ incredible career spanned six decades and included thousands of commissions. His ability to adapt and innovate while navigating the racial segregation of the era not only broke barriers for future generations but also shaped the look and feel of Los Angeles and defined a new age of Modernist architecture. Paul R. Williams believed that architecture could advance social progress, and his influence certainly left an indelible mark.