Paul R. Williams designed some of the most familiar pieces of Beverly Hills: the script lettering on the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Georgian Revival headquarters on North Crescent Drive and the Moderne interiors of the old Saks on Wilshire. Today most of that work can only be seen from the sidewalk. The drawings, photographs and stories behind it go on view Nov. 15 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Since May, you can get there from Beverly Hills on a single subway stop.
"Paul R. Williams: Architect for Living" opens in LACMA's Resnick Pavilion and runs through May 31, 2027, Beverly Press reported. It traces Williams' career from public housing to the Beverly Hills Hotel. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he became the first Black architect licensed in the western United States in 1921, and his practice covered homes, civic buildings, churches, stores and hotels.
Three Buildings, Mostly Seen From the Curb
Start with what's in town. The exhibition names three Beverly Hills commissions, and each one is open to the public in a different way.
| Building | Address | Williams' role | What you can see today |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Beverly Hills Hotel | 9641 Sunset Blvd. | Renovated existing sections, designed additions including the 1949 Crescent Wing and its handwritten "The Beverly Hills" lettering | A working hotel; the original 1912 main building is by Elmer Grey |
| Former Music Corporation of America headquarters | 360 N. Crescent Dr. | Designed it for Jules Stein in 1938, then expanded it after MCA sold it to Litton Industries | Exterior from the street; a city landmark |
| Saks Fifth Avenue's historic building | 9600 Wilshire Blvd. | Interior architect and designer of later exterior additions; the exterior is by Parkinson & Parkinson | Exterior only; the store has moved next door |
The hotel is the easiest to experience. Its lettering may be the most photographed Williams detail in the city, and the hotel currently offers a stay package that includes an expert-led architecture tour.
The MCA building is a street-level view. The Beverly Hills Courier reported that City Council designated the MCA/Litton Headquarters Complex a local landmark on Sept. 21, 2021, and named Williams as the architect of the 1938 commission. The best way to see it is from Crescent Drive. The interiors that once defined it now appear mainly in the archive.
Saks Moved Next Door, and 9600 Wilshire Waits on City Council
The Saks building shows best how far Williams' Beverly Hills interiors have moved out of daily use. LACMA's show highlights the Moderne interiors Williams designed for Saks Fifth Avenue. Shoppers who walk into Saks today are not in those rooms. The Real Deal reported that the women's store moved from 9600 Wilshire into the former Barneys building at 9570 Wilshire in 2024. Saks lists the 9570 store as open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.
The historic building has an approved plan but no start date. The city's development tracker, dated Oct. 15, 2026, records Planning Commission approval on Aug. 14, 2025, for a six-story office building, a seven-story office building, two six-story residential buildings with up to 70 units in total, and a rehabilitation of the historic Saks building as a private social club with 40 hospitality suites and spa uses. The tracker shows no City Council action after that. Beverly Press reported in January that Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 on Jan. 14, 2026, and that the effect on the redevelopment was unclear.
So the Williams interior most closely tied to everyday Beverly Hills is closed to shoppers, and its future depends on a council vote. The material in the Resnick Pavilion is the closest look anyone can get at it this year.
Inside the Resnick Pavilion
The exhibition has more than 120 drawings, photographs and other materials from Williams' archive, many never shown before. One object is a piano Williams customized for his own home, which was recently donated to LACMA. The show opens with that 1952 house, a modern residence in a neighborhood that had only recently stopped barring Black homeowners.
"Williams received numerous accolades in his lifetime, but has remained an understudied figure within architectural history," Staci Steinberger, LACMA's curator of decorative arts and design, told Beverly Press.
Steinberger curated the show with architectural historian Sarah Locke. The Beverly Hills material appears in two places. The MCA headquarters and Saks interiors sit in the galleries on Williams' practice, and a hospitality section covers his renovations and additions at the Beverly Hills Hotel next to the Ambassador Hotel, the Hollywood Knickerbocker and El Mirador in Palm Springs. The same section covers his role in the early development of the Las Vegas Strip.
Williams became known for celebrity homes and luxury estates, and the exhibition also examines his commitment to moderately priced housing, including public housing for defense workers, suburban developments for returning veterans, and homes in historically Black communities in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It ends with preservation, including the conversion of the 28th Street YMCA into apartments.
To match the galleries to the sidewalks, the PRW Career Mapper has an interactive map and timeline of Williams projects you can sort by date, location, use and client type.
Getting There Is Now One Stop
Until this spring, a trip from Beverly Hills to LACMA meant a drive and a parking garage. The D Line's Wilshire/La Cienega station opened May 8, 2026. At the time, the Beverly Hills Courier reported a 22-minute ride from Beverly Hills to downtown Los Angeles. Wilshire/Fairfax, the museum stop, is the next station east.
A planned maintenance closure shut the three new stations on Oct. 23, and service was scheduled to resume at 4 a.m. Monday, Nov. 2, Beverly Press reported. The trip:
- Enter at the northeast corner of Wilshire and La Cienega boulevards, beside Restaurant Row.
- Pay the $1.75 regular fare. Metro caps fares at $5 a day, according to its opening guide.
- Expect trains every 10 minutes for much of the day on weekdays and weekends, and every 20 minutes early in the morning and later in the evening. Those figures date from the May launch, so check metro.net before you ride.
- Ride one stop east to Wilshire/Fairfax. LACMA is at 5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Metro is not adding parking structures at the Beverly Hills stations. The city's station FAQ says riders are expected to use existing public parking within a half-mile walk.
Plan around the museum's schedule, too. LACMA is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends. It is closed Wednesday. Adult admission for L.A. County residents with valid ID is $25, or $21 for seniors, students and visitors with disabilities, and general admission is free after 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. General admission covers all current exhibitions, so the Williams show needs no separate ticket. That makes a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday after 3 p.m. the cheapest visit, and Friday leaves the most time before closing.
The Williams Calendar Through Mid-December
The exhibition is one of three running at the same time. The Getty Research Institute and USC School of Architecture acquired Williams' archive from his family in 2020, and these are the first shows to draw on it.
| Date | Program | Where | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Now through March 13, 2027 | "Paul R. Williams: An Architect Considered" | USC Fisher Museum of Art | Focused on his multifamily housing and urban Black communities |
| Nov. 15 | "Architect for Living" opens | LACMA, Resnick Pavilion | Included with general admission |
| Nov. 18, 7 p.m. | "Paul R. Williams and the Idea of Home" | LACMA, East West Bank Commons | Karen E. Hudson, Brigette Romanek and Darren Walker, moderated by Sandra Jackson-Dumont |
| Nov. 21, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. | "PRW Was Here" self-guided tour | South Los Angeles sites | $35, or $30 for LA Conservancy members |
| Dec. 15 | "Paul R. Williams: Architecture Across the Color Line" opens | Getty Research Institute | Free with a timed-entry reservation; parking extra; through March 14, 2027 |
| Dec. 18, 7 p.m. | "How Paul R. Williams Made Los Angeles" | LACMA, East West Bank Commons | Artist Janna Ireland with curators Steinberger and Locke |
The Nov. 21 tour is run with the Los Angeles Conservancy, and it leaves Beverly Hills behind. Its listed stops include Founder's Church of Religious Science, Second Baptist Church, the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building, First African Methodist Episcopal Church and the J. Phyromn Taylor Residence. LACMA says the ticket includes admission to its Williams exhibition but not parking. It pairs well with the Beverly Hills buildings on your own street, since the show's early galleries cover Second Baptist Church and the 28th Street YMCA next to the MCA and Saks commissions.
On the way home, the station puts you on Restaurant Row. Lawry's The Prime Rib at 100 N. La Cienega Blvd. is listed among the restaurants there by the city's visitor site. The restaurant's calendar lists Thanksgiving dinner on Nov. 26 and Dickens' A Christmas Carol dinners on Dec. 3 and Dec. 9.
Closer to the Saks building, the next station is under construction. Beverly Drive station, with its entrance at the southwest corner of Wilshire and Reeves Drive, is expected to open in spring 2027, according to the City of Beverly Hills. Crews are now building a landscaped median on Wilshire between Crescent and Reeves, with two lanes open in each direction. When that station opens, the walk from the subway to Williams' Wilshire frontage will take just a few minutes.
At Team Stacy White, we love how Beverly Hills holds onto its architectural stories, and this fall the Williams archive puts more of them on public view than usual. If a Williams building on your own block has you curious about its history, or about what preserving a landmark like it involves, we'd be glad to talk it through with you.
