He designed affordable bungalows for first-time homeowners and luxurious mansions for Southern California’s elite, though as a Black man he wouldn’t have been allowed to live in some of the neighborhoods where those mansions were built.
Architect Paul Revere Williams also designed some notable Las Vegas buildings and contributed to the valley’s historical landscape by creating homes for middle-class Black residents in the Historic Westside and Black workers in Henderson.
Now 41 years after his death, Williams may not be a household name, but many of the homes, churches and other buildings he designed stand as testament to his impact here and in Southern California.
“He was a trailblazer in the architecture community,” said Dave Cornoyer, who has researched and written about Williams’ work in Las Vegas. He created “a very diverse collection of buildings and really thoughtful plans that are far ahead of (his) time.”
Early adversity
Williams was born in Los Angeles in 1894 and lost both of his parents to tuberculosis by the time he was 4, said Leslie Luebbers, project director of The Paul R. Williams Project (paulrwilliamsproject.org), a collaboration of the University of Memphis, the Memphis chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the National Organization of Minority Architects.
He was taken in by a woman who was “variously called his foster mother or adoptive mother. It’s not clear what the relationship was,” Luebbers said. “But they were very devoted to his education.”
He was the only Black student in his elementary school, Luebbers said. In an essay, “I Am a Negro,” published in American Magazine in 1937, Williams wrote that, as a child, he “played with white children without being conscious of the stigma attached to color.
“Nothing prepared me for the shock of the discovery that someday those children who then accepted me as one of themselves would learn to treat me with a strange admixture of patronage and contempt, intolerance and condescension. There was nothing to warn me that coveted opportunities would be denied me because my face was black.”
Designing a career
Williams recalled that even as a child he had “an instinctive interest in the design of buildings” and decided to become an architect while in high school. But when he told his teacher of his plans, “he stared at me with as much astonishment as he would have displayed had I proposed a rocket flight to Mars. ‘Who ever heard of a Negro being an architect?’ he demanded.”
Williams worked his way through university and got a job as a draftsman. Along the way, he “won several national awards for design that brought him to the attention of people,” Luebbers said. “So he sort of interned, but he was basically so good he actually got paid to work for a number of very high-profile architecture and engineering (firms).”
By his early 20s, Williams had opened his own firm, cultivating a mostly Southern California-based practice designing small, efficient homes for average people, mansions for Hollywood stars, churches and public buildings, and became “enormously successful,” Luebbers said.
He was a wealthy man. His power within the (Southern California) Black community was very strong, and he did a lot of pro bono buildings for the community. He was very generous and contributed to Black causes.
Leslie Luebbers, project director of The Paul R. Williams Project
“He was a wealthy man. His power within the (Southern California) Black community was very strong, and he did a lot of pro bono buildings for the community. He was very generous and contributed to Black causes.”
Yet…
Read More: Black architect Paul R. Williams designed some of Las Vegas most distinctive