Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building
- Architect
- Paul R. Williams
- Year
- 1949
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
This 5-story, 84-foot office building at the intersection of Adams Boulevard and Western Avenue was designed by Paul R. Williams in 1949 as headquarters for Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest African American-owned insurance company in the Western United States and the first insurer to offer life insurance to all people regardless of race. Founded in 1925, the company had outgrown its first headquarters on Central Avenue by 1946, prompting the move to this West Adams site. It's the company's second building to carry the Golden State Mutual name.
the building
A landmark for an unserved market. Golden State Mutual grew through the 1920s and '30s by insuring Black Angelenos whom mainstream insurers refused to cover, and this building was raised as the visible headquarters of that success.
the style
Williams gave the headquarters a Late Modern design, presenting Golden State Mutual's stature through a restrained, formal commercial facade rather than historicist ornament.
the architect
Paul Revere Williams, one of the most prominent African American architects of the 20th century, designed the building as the second Golden State Mutual headquarters, following the company's original 1928 building on Central Avenue.
significance
Designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
nearby
- Ramsay-Durfee Estate
- Engine House No. 18
- Frederick Hastings Rindge House
- Eugene W. Britt House
- Lucy E. Wheeler/Martin E. Weil House
- Second Church of Christ, Scientist