Architect Paul Revere Williams left an indelible mark on his native Southern California.

Among the more than 2,000 buildings he designed are the curving arches of the LAX Theme Building, much of the redesigned Beverly Hills Hotel, Saks Fifth Avenue and houses for entertainers such as Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra and real estate tycoon Barron Hilton.

Locally, he designed the 190 homes making up the distinctive SeaView area of Rancho Palos Verdes, where one resident lauded Williams for bringing “the glamour of his designs for Hollywood stars to the affordability of the middle class.”

Eight of his projects have been included in the National Register of Historic Places.

Williams accomplished all this as a black man in an all-white industry at a time when racial discrimination in America was rampant.

In 1923, he became the first black member of the American Institute of Architects and, in 1957, he was the first African-American elected a fellow of the organization.

Earlier this month, AIA bestowed its highest honor — the Gold Medal — on Williams, making him the first black to receive the award.

When Karen E. Hudson heard the news that her grandfather had been honored posthumously with such a prestigious award, she was sitting in a Los Angeles dining room of his own design.

And she was shocked.

“It was more emotional for me than I expected, because I knew how thrilled he would have been to get it,” Hudson said.

Williams, born in 1894, opened his own architectural practice in the 1920s and worked for decades before he retired in 1973. He died in 1980.

The process to decide the winner began early this year, when a pool of architects was nominated. From there a jury whittled the list down to three candidates, and the AIA board of directors chose Williams. The recognition was announced on Dec. 9.

Hudson, and many in the architecture industry, believe the award is long overdue in a field that’s been repeatedly critiqued for its lack of diversity.

Williams managed to grow his practice during a time when plenty of clients would have slammed the door on him because he was black, said Philip Freelon, an architect with global firm Perkins+Will and the architect of record for the recently opened National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

It was a testament to his perseverance and talent that he was able to make headway during decades when such discrimination made any career difficult for African-Americans.

“The business of architecture, it’s relationship based. These clients have to trust their … design professional with what is most often the largest outlay of financial resources an individual or company will ever make,” Freelon said.

His architectural accomplishments aren’t what Hudson remembers most about Williams, however.

“He was an even better grandfather than he was an architect,” she said. “He was a gentleman with a dream and an incredibly loving grandfather.”

Williams would have prized the Gold Medal as a validation of his work, but also as a way to broadcast to other, younger architects and people of color that if he could break down barriers to make his career in the architecture industry, so could they, Hudson said.

“I think if this encouraged just one child who thought he could not do it to become an architect and fulfill his dreams that way, it would make my grandfather overwhelmingly proud and happy,” she said.

As a young, black architect Williams was a source of inspiration for Freelon, but that inspiration didn’t grow out of studying Williams’ work from mainstream architectural textbooks — Williams wasn’t in them. Instead, up and coming designers like Freelon had to go searching for information on Williams and his work to find a black architect they could emulate.

Now that Williams has won the award, there’s a greater possibility that young people of color in the field will have more exposure to a successful architect they can relate to, said Drake Dillard, an architect with Perkins+Will as well as president of the Southern California Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects and board member for the LA chapter of the AIA.

“As a student, in particular as an African-American student being in most cases … the only black in my class … Paul Williams was one of the few African-American architects that we could look up to,” Dillard said.

Exposure of black and other minority architects is critical to improve diversity in the field, Dillard said. Without bringing attention to the lack of diversity in the field, it’s a problem that’s unlikely to change, he said.

The AIA recognition of Williams is a step in the right direction, Dillard said. And that’s critical for up-and-coming African-American designers looking to relate to a professional who’s come through the field before them, Freelon added.

“For those of us who are African-American or people of color, who have come into the profession, it’s almost by chance and circumstance that we were able to learn about it,” he said.

The Gold Medal award, and the momentary recognition for Williams that comes with it, can’t be the last step, though, Dillard said.

“And that’s even more important, otherwise it becomes just a moment in time where you recognize someone and you just move on and nothing happens,” he said. “So, what happens next is very, very important and I’m hoping we do something with this besides just giving the award and moving on.”