Considerable cloudiness. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..
Considerable cloudiness. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Leland Drew King, an Atlanta-based architectural model builder and third-eldest son of celebrated civil rights attorney C. B. King died of natural causes recently at his southwest Atlanta home. He was 66.
Leland Drew King, an Atlanta-based architectural model builder and third-eldest son of celebrated civil rights attorney C. B. King died of natural causes recently at his southwest Atlanta home. He was 66.
ATLANTA — Leland Drew King, an Atlanta-based architectural model builder and third-eldest son of celebrated civil rights attorney C. B. King died of natural causes recently at his southwest Atlanta home. He was 66.
King was a pioneering architectural model builder, spending his last 30 years with architect and real estate developer John Portman, who designed much of Atlanta’s downtown skyline.
“Leland was one of a very few black architectural builders in this country, and was a master at what he did,” Scott Washington, a fellow architectural model builder who worked with King at Portman and spoke at his memorial service at the Woodruff Arts Center, said. “He was a pioneer and the best of the best.”
Born April 29, 1956, in segregated Albany, King was a member of a prominent civil rights family. His father represented scores of civil rights activists during the Albany Movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.
“Lee watched Dad practice law, become the first black in the state to run for Congress in ‘64, and the first ever to run for governor in ‘70,” said Clennon King, the youngest of King’s four siblings. “But his passion wasn’t politics or law, but form and design. He spoke not with words but through his hands.”
Throughout childhood, King built model airplanes, cages for his cockatiels and a holding pen for his pet boa. In 1988 when his father died, King built his coffin with his sister on the back porch of the funeral home.
King left Albany at age 15, heading to New England to attend The Putney School in Putney, Vt. He joined fellow students in designing and building the school’s art building.
After graduation, King prepared to follow in his father’s footsteps, initially majoring in political science at Boston University, before dropping out after his junior year. He spent three years struggling for direction, supporting himself as a short-order cook, a janitor and dorm head.
In 1982, he resumed focusing on his passion, attending architecture school at San Francisco-based Cogswell College, now a part of the University of California at Davis, and later Florida A&M University (FAMU) in Tallahassee.
King worked during academic breaks and after class at multiple professional architectural model shops, among whose biggest clients were Portman Architects. The firm recruited King in the early ’90s, where he spent nearly 30 years building models for Portman and his real estate and development projects around the globe.
King’s memorial service was held July 23 at the Woodruff Arts Center Twelve-Eighty restaurant, across from the High Museum in Midtown Atlanta.
He is survived by his wife of 10 years, Priscilla Hubbard King, and siblings, attorney C.B. King Jr. of Albany; Kenyan D. King of Houston; Peggy King Jorde of Englewood, N.J., and Clennon L. King of Albany.
In lieu of flowers, King’s family asks that nonprofit contributions be made to the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) Foundation. Checks can be mailed directly to NOMA Foundation Inc., P.O. Box 7406, 421 8th Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10116.
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