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Paul R. Williams-designed houses are featured in three recent books, and the houses could not be more evocative of the architect’s stylistic scope.
Diane Keaton
California Romantica: Spanish Colonial and Mission-Style Houses
Text by D.J. Waldie, Photographs by Lisa Hardaway and Paul Hester
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 2007
California Romantica: Spanish Colonial and Mission-Style Houses with texts by D. J. Waldie and photographs by Lisa Hardaway and Steve Hester is published by the actor Diane Keaton, who is recognized for her work in historic preservation of this architecture. One of the twenty houses in the lavish book is the Guerra Estate in Flintridge, designed by Williams for James Degnan in 1927. The exquisite photographs focus on broken tile mosaics, densely decorative stuccowork, iron railings and wood details. Beautiful as these are, there is little sense of the house as a complete design.
Alan Hess
Forgotten Moderns: California Houses 1940-1970
Photographs by Alan Weintraub
Gibbs Smith, Publisher, Salt Lake City, Charleston, Santa Fe, Santa Barbara, 2007
At the opposite end of his creative spectrum and much more satisfactory for those seeking a representation of the completeness of Paul R. Williams’ designs, is his 1946 house in Ontario for Dr. Robert Williams as presented in Forgotten Moderns: California Houses 1940-1970, with text by Alan Hess and photographs by Alan Weintraub. Also featured on the cover and copyright page, the exterior and interiors are beautifully documented, and the composition of glass, brick, painted and stained wood, and plaster planes may surprise those who expect Williams’ characteristic curves.
Michael Stern and Alan Hess
Julius Shulman: Palm Springs
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 2008
The most important new trove for seekers of Paul R. Williams’ buildings is this volume produced in conjunction with the exhibition at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Julius Shulman, the great architectural photographer, documented with his usual brilliance P.R. Williams’ house for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and his additions to the El Mirador Hotel and his collaborative designs with A. Quincy Jones for the Town and Country Center and the Palm Springs Tennis Club.
