* Paul W. Speer; Building Contractor for Wright

Paul W. Speer, 88, contractor who built homes designed by architects Frank Lloyd Wright and John Lautner. Born in Oil City, Pa., Speer was one of five sons of a general contractor and grew up surrounded by construction talk. In 1936, he moved to Los Angeles and in a few years became a contractor himself. He built prestigious custom houses, among them Wright’s Sturges House and Eagle Feather Gate and Tea House and a number of Lautner buildings. But Speer never confined himself to houses. During World War II he worked with a Los Angeles organization called Structon to build government hospitals, bomber bases and training facilities. In 1949 he organized Paul W. Speer Inc. and was soon simultaneously building an auditorium, a health center and a manufacturing plant. Speer’s company was one of the first in the Western United States to build sound control structures for jet aircraft, eventually expanding that work to locations in Alaska, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, as well as California. On Nov. 17 in Burbank.