Background
Johnson was born in New York state on July 19, 1882, the son of Joseph Horsfall Johnson, who would become the first Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles from 1896 to 1928.
Johnson was born in New York state on July 19, 1882, the son of Joseph Horsfall Johnson, who would become the first Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles from 1896 to 1928.
Johnson studied architecture in Paris and then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1910 and returned to Pasadena.
His practice, based in Pasadena, California, focused on the Los Angeles area and southern California in general, with a mixture of residential and commercial work. Johnson"s later work was influenced by his progressive ideas on housing policy. His father would consecrate Saint Paul"s Cathedral in Los Angeles in 1924, designed by Reginald.
Johnson made a good living in the 1920s designing houses in Montecito and Pasadena.
Johnson made his name by designing houses for the rich, but also designed more affordable housing, a cause that assumed greater importance to him as the Great Depression wore on. Johnson designed Rancho San Pedro for Los Angeles as a public housing project in 1939.
Through the 1930s Johnson worked on the design of Baldwin Hills Village in Los Angeles, which was designed as an up-to-date community of inexpensive housing. Johnson collaborated with Clarence Stein, the planner of Radburn, New Jersey.
Member Executive Committee Los Angeles Company Museum. Fellow American Institute of Architects. Member Los Angeles Company Democratic Central Committee.
Married Kathleen Bushnell Leupp, June 9, 1910. Children: Joseph Leupp, Ethel Murdock, Constance Davis.