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Stefanie Frith
The Desert Sun
February 19, 2006Low, slinky homes dot neighborhoods around the valley. Their unique roof lines and walls of windows invite the desert and mountains into their living rooms.
When they were built 50 years ago, they allowed for free-spirited, even sexy lifestyles for snowbirds and actors like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. The homes lent themselves to the lifestyle of sipping martinis by kidney-shaped pools.
Today, these mid-century modern homes designed by architects like Bill Krisel, William Cody, Don Wexler, Albert Frey and E. Stewart Williams are once again gaining attention.
A renewed interest in all things modern is consuming the desert, from architects like Krisel reintroducing his trademark butterfly-roof home to original Alexander homes selling for millions to mid-century furniture stores sprouting up along Highway 111.
"To us, it's novel," said Nancy Barr, who bought a mid-century home in the Vista Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs four years ago with her husband, Tom. "In Illinois (where we are from), this would not sell. They don't like this style."
This is what Nancy Barr says today. But when she and her husband bought the home, with its ice-white walls, floor-to-ceiling glass windows and natural rock fireplace, she wasn't ready to accept modernism.
The clean, sleek lines, futuristic roofs - gable, butterfly, Swiss (Alpine), flat - and patterned block walls of mid-century modern homes just weren't what she was used to.
"I told our Realtor not to show us any more of these," said Nancy Barr, lounging in her living room, gazing up at the San Jacinto Mountains. "I said, 'I would never buy one of those.' It was different and new. Now I just love it."
Finding the modern
Modern architecture is not specific to Palm Springs. There are modern clusters in Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix.
But only Palm Springs has such a concentrated mix of mid-century modern architecture. Homes, like the 2,500 designed by the Alexander Co. in Palm Springs. Hotels, schools, country clubs, mobile home parks, banks and even gas stations, like Albert Frey's soaring A-frame on Highway 111 - all have the mid-century modern features.
Most of the buildings were designed by local architects, some commissioned by stars like Sinatra to design homes for them, said Tony Merchell,
"Palm Springs has always been a resort for the wealthy," said Merchell. "When they came here, they wanted to fit in with the friends they made. So they either bought an Alexander or brought in an architect."
And this makes for a huge tourism draw, with companies like PS Modern Tours capitalizing on looky-loos, architects and even museum groups that want to see what the whole mid-century modern fuss is all about.
"It's the baby boomers looking back at the '50s with rose-colored glasses," Merchell said. "To think how cool it must have been, with the martinis and furniture."
Donna Sherwood bought her Palm Springs mid-century modern home in 1961 and has lived there ever since.A nice profit
Being able to enjoy the indoor and outdoor lifestyle is what drew Donna Sherwood and her late husband David to Palm Springs in 1961. They bought an Alexander home in the Racquet Club Estates for $19,900 as soon as they saw the model.
Forty-five years later, Sherwood is selling the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house for $629,000. And it doesn't look any different today than it did when they bought it in 1961, save for the additional bedroom and bathroom they added on, she said.
The carpet may have been replaced a couple of times, but the original peg-board cupboards, bar, stove and light fixtures remain a tribute to the home designed by Alexander architects, Bill Krisel and Dan Palmer.
"We liked it when we bought it and still like it, so we never changed anything," said Sherwood, who bought a swimming pool business when she first moved to Palm Springs. "Most people tore out the bars and kitchen cabinets. Now people are knocking on our doors to take a look."
Architect Krisel, who recently announced a joint venture with Canada-based Maxx Livington to build replicas of his butterfly roof homes - two diagonal roofs joined in the middle like butterfly wings - said it's natural current Alexander home owners would tear out the kitchens. They were small for a reason, he said.
"They were done as second homes," said Krisel. "The wife doesn't want to come down here to cook."
In fact, mid-century modern kitchens were usually hidden or partially blocked by a floor-to-ceiling bar so that if vacationers brought their maids, they didn't have to look at them, Krisel said.
Things were definitely different in the '50s and '60s, said architect Wexler.
"We enjoyed our life," said Wexler, who is best known for his seven steel homes on the north end of Palm Springs. These homes, some with folded, accordian-style roofs done for the first time in steel, were meant to be the model homes for a larger subdivision. But when the fabricator company was purchased by a new corporation and prices soared, it priced the Alexanders out of the market, Wexler said.
"It was a different atmosphere," he continued. "Young and free it was about being outdoors and by the swimming pool all summer long."
With martinis and Ol' Blue Eyes on the radio?
"We had our martinis, no question about it," he said with a laugh. "It was a pretty casual way of life."
This way of life meant a passion for indoor and outdoor living, made possible by the large windows to look at the desert and mountains. It also meant simple lines, clean, sleek, minimal furniture and large overhangs for shade and lounging outside.
"(Modernism) is a philosophy, not just a style," said Peter Moruzzi, president of Palm Springs Modern Committee, which seeks to educate and preserve mid-century architecture.
More than homes
It wasn't just homes that were designed with this philosophy. The Spa Hotel, with its sculpture-esque white canopy and designed by Wexler, Bill Cody and Richard Harrison, embodies the simple yet elegant lines of modernism.
E. Stewart Williams' building at 300 S. Palm Canyon Drive, now Wessman Development, uses steel posts, large metal screens to block the sun and floor-to-ceiling windows. The building also appears to float above the ground over a bed of rocks.
Across the street, at what used to be Coachella Valley Savings No. 2, Williams used poles to raise the building above the ground, huge metal leaves over the windows, a floating staircase and natural rock to hide the safe. The natural rock also flows into brick and glass.
"I just love this building," said Moruzzi, gazing up at the large windows while standing on Palm Canyon Drive. "It has everything."
Around the corner at Belardo and Baristo roads is Cody's 1947 Del Marco's Hotel, a Jetson-esque building melding redwood and stone walls. The door frames are angled. It's now called the San Marino.
These architects were way beyond their time, said Robert Imbler, owner of PS Modern Tours, which has seen its business quadruple in the last year. The innovation use of lighter, natural materials, glass and "wacky rooflines" changed the way people lived, he said.
"This was a very important era of historic American architecture," said Imbler. "Now the generic audience has started to discover it. It's talking to baby boomers and younger folks with cachet and panache. Because good design is good design."
