Arts and Culture

‘Architect to the Stars,’ Paul R. Williams Helped Define L.A.’s Building Style

Among his many remarkable buildings are the opulent Saks Fifth Avenue building in Beverly Hills and the flying saucer–shaped Theme Building at the Los Angeles International Airport (as co-designer). He also oversaw additions to the Beverly Hills Hotel in the 1950s. In addition to stores, public housing, hotels, and restaurants, he designed showrooms, churches, and schools.

Published

3 years ago

April 13, 2022

Oakland Post

Southern California architect Paul R. Williams. Wikipedia.org photo.

By Tamara Shiloh

Paul Revere Williams (1894-1980) was an African American architect noted for his mastery of a variety of styles and building types and for his influence on the architectural landscape of Southern California.

In more than 3,000 buildings over the course of five decades, mostly in and around Los Angeles, he introduced a sense of casual elegance that came to define the region’s architecture. His work became so popular with Hollywood royalty that he was known as the “architect to the stars.”

Williams, the second of two children, was born in 1894, shortly after his parents moved to Los Angeles from Memphis, Tenn. Both his parents died by the time he was four years old, and Williams was reared by a family friend while his brother lived with a different family.

Because his foster mother quickly recognized his talent, Williams received a solid education and followed his dream to become an architect, though there were few African American architects at the time.

His architectural aspirations remained uppermost in his thoughts. He attended the Los Angeles atelier of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (1913–16) and was certified as an architect in 1915.

While attending a program for architectural engineering at the University of Southern California from 1916-1919, he took a series of low-paying jobs at several architectural firms to learn as much as he could.

He learned about landscape architecture while working with Wilbur D. Cook and got his first taste of designing on a palatial scale at the firm of Reginald D. Johnson. From 1920 to 1922, he worked for John C. Austin (with whom he later collaborated), turning his attention to designs for large public buildings.

In 1921, Williams received a license to practice architecture in California and accepted his first commission from Louis Cass, a white, former high school classmate.

A year later, at age 28, Williams founded his own business, Paul R. Williams and Associates, and in 1923 he became the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects. He later was licensed to practice in Wash., D.C. (1936), New York (1948), Tennessee (1960), and Nevada (1964).

His designs for suburban and country estates incorporated Mediterranean, Spanish Revival, and English Tudor themes, a blend of styles that strongly appealed to California residents at mid-century. No matter what their stylistic elements, his houses were impeccably designed down to the smallest detail, and they were airy, sun-filled, and graceful.

As Williams’ reputation grew, he received commissions to design houses for such Hollywood stars as Lon Chaney, Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Bill (‘Bojangles’) Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and Anthony Quinn.

After 1950, when Modernism and its most-predominant architectural manifestation, the International Style, began to hold sway, Williams was seen as an architect of traditional (that is, old-fashioned) designs.

His gift for accommodating eclectic tastes while obeying sound design principles was seen as a drawback. But public taste eventually came full circle, and Williams-designed homes, especially, were again in demand in the early 21st century.

Williams wrote a number of articles, notably “I Am a Negro” (1937) for The American Magazine, and two books, “The Small Home of Tomorrow” (1945) and “New Homes for Today” (1946). In 1953, he was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal. Many awards and honors followed, both during and after his lifetime.

Sources: https://www.npr.org/2012/06/22/155442524/a-trailblazing-black-architect-who-helped-shape-l-a

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-R-Williams

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Williams

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Calculating the Costs: Reparations Task Force OKs Expert Team to Determine Compensation

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New Oakland Moving Forward

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Post Staff

Since the African American Sports and Entertainment Group purchased the City of Oakland’s share of the Alameda County Coliseum Complex, we have been documenting the positive outcomes that are starting to occur here in Oakland.

Some of the articles in the past have touched on actor Blair Underwood’s mission to breathe new energy into the social fabric of Oakland. He has joined the past efforts of Steph and Ayesha Curry, Mistah Fab, Green Day, Too Short, and the Oakland Ballers.

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-Elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

These visits represent a healthy exchange of ideas and plans to resuscitate Oakland’s image. All parties felt that the potential to impact Oakland is right in front of us. Most recently, on the back side of these visits, the Oakland Ballers and Blair Underwood committed to a 10-year lease agreement to support community programs and a community build-out.

So, upward and onward with the movement of New Oakland.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

1 month ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

1 month ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.