E. Stewart Williams Dies

E. Stewart Williams, an architect who designed spaces for Frank Sinatra and Raymond Loewy, died in his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 95

After Williams received a master’s in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, he began his professional career in New York in the office of Raymond Loewy, where he worked on projects for the 1939 New York World’s Fair and the Lord & Taylor store in Manhasset, N.Y. After serving in the United States Navy, he returned to Palm Springs to set up his own shop.

In 1947, actor and singer Frank Sinatra commissioned Williams to build a new house for him. Despite Sinatra’s stated preference for Georgian architecture — which Williams thought out of place in the desert environment of Palm Springs — Williams began his “desert modern” portfolio with a space influenced by the Scandinavian architects Gunnar Asplund and Alvar Alto. It was a sleek, warm home of glass, wood and stone that harmonized with the desert landscape and offered panoramic views of the surrounding mountains.

The Sinatra house included many of the elements later associated with the desert modern style: the use of natural materials, a sophisticated contrast of textures and an elegant flow between inside and outside.

His most prominent public building, and his favorite, was the Palm Springs Desert Museum, which opened in 1976. In 1993, he came out of retirement to design a new wing for the museum.