H. Roy Kelley, 95; Architect and Designer

H. Roy Kelley, the revered architect whose credits date to his appointment to a 1931 Presidential Advisory Commission on Home Building by Herbert Hoover and who helped popularize ranch-style homes in the West, has died.

The designer of RAND headquarters in Santa Monica, the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences in Los Angeles and winner of several first prizes from House Beautiful magazine, was 95. He died Saturday in Altadena.

Born in New York, he was educated at Cornell University, served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France in World War I and settled in Los Angeles in 1920.

Here he won the first of several national competitions for house design in 1929, served on the architectural advisory board of Good Housekeeping magazine from 1931 to 1938 and was commissioned by Life magazine in 1937 to design a model home for all the nation.

He served on the architectural advisory committees for Bel-Air Estates and Palos Verdes Estates and designed many homes in those communities.

During World War II Kelley designed camouflage for Douglas Aircraft and in 1944 was named by the War Department to design military installations. After the war he designed the RAND headquarters and several hospitals, churches and office buildings.

Kelley was a past board member of the American Institute of Architects, past president of the Los Angeles Architectural Club and a member of more than a dozen service and civic groups.

He was a widower whose friends ask contributions in his name to the John Tracy Clinic of Los Angeles, where he was a board member. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at Sunrise Chapel, 2227 N. Raymond Ave., Altadena.