William Levy Alexander (1909-1997)
Owning Institution: UC Santa Barbara, Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design and Architecture Museum
About this Collection
William Levy Alexander (birth name Alexander Levy) was born in Brooklyn in 1909, the youngest of 15 children. In 1929 he enrolled in architecture school at New York University (NYU) where the curriculum was a balance of traditional Beaux-Arts and European modernism. During one summer, Alexander spent six weeks at Taliesin West but could not afford the tuition, so he decided return to schooling at NYU. Alexander graduated from NYU with a degree in architecture in 1934. After school, he worked briefly for Raymond Hood, Ely Jacques Kahn, and for the Works Progress Administration supervising a slum clearance project in Brooklyn.In 1936, Alexander was commissioned to build a house for Richard Halliburton in Laguna Beach, California. After the Halliburton project was completed, Alexander practiced independently in Los Angeles and New York, always working alone. In 1939, he was commissioned to remodel Arnold Schoenberg’s Brentwood music studio. In 1940, Alexander completed several military commissions. After the war, Alexander completed the Greggory house in Encino, built himself a house in the Hollywood Hills, and worked on several commissions in Mexico (one of which was Hotel Las Cruces Palmilla). In the late 1950s, Alexander abandoned architecture, became for a short time a character actor, and later a benefactor. William Levy Alexander died in 1997. View collection guide.
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