How a boy from Coolock became California's star architect

Irishman Paul McClean counts Beyonce and Calvin Klein among his clients

Tower Grove, Beverly Hills, a signature McClean design, dissolving the barrier between indoors and outdoors. Picture: Simon Berlyn

PAUL McClean, “architect to the stars” and southern California’s “unofficial McMansion king” has always been drawn to light and glass. His earliest memories are of sitting between the net curtains and the big glass window of his Dublin council house front room, playing with Lego sets and drawing.

That window was his favourite feature in their mid-70s home in Ferrycarrig Park, Coolock, and he carried his fascination with light, and with panes and planes of glass, into his workplace.