MacGougan at Large
Notes on a Trip to Palm Springs- 2
Desert Modernism Home Design
There were precursors in the 1930s and homages in the 70s and later, but the heyday for Modernist architecture in Palm Springs was the 40s through the 60s. The city has entire neighborhoods here of nicely maintained midcentury houses. You walk around the place feeling like you’ve passed through a time-warp into a glamorous version of the 50s or 60s.
Most of these houses aren’t particularly large and don’t sit on huge lots. Many of them were built as weekend retreats. We were told that the picture-postcard neighborhoods as they exist today required many labors of love. The houses weren’t originally built to last. They were built to be attractive to look at, inexpensive to buy, and fun to spend a weekend at.
They are mostly one-story houses, with no basement or attic. What you see is what you get. The roof can be flat, gabled, or - most distinctively - a “butterfly” roof that rises on either side from a low point in the middle.
(Architectural humor: a free library box with a butterfly roof.)
They have modest front yards, sometimes shielded with a low wall or breeze blocks. The back yard is for the pool. The back of the house is mostly glass to give a good view of the pool.
The windows on the front and sides of the house run just under the roofline. They’re rectangular if you have a flat roof or wedge-shaped if you have a gabled or butterfly roof. You can’t see the street or your neighbors through those high windows, but you can see the palm trees and the mountains and they let in a lot of light.
The exteriors are white or neutral colors. The interiors are simple and uncluttered.
The house we stayed in was in the Twin Palms neighborhood, an area of 90 homes developed in the late 50s and designed by William Krisel.
Our house had been updated with modern amenities and two extra bedrooms had been added in the form of a casita alongside the pool, but otherwise felt like it was straight off of Krisel’s sketchpad.
It was pleasing to the eye and very comfortable for our group during a week’s stay.
Palm Springs! It’s like all of a sudden you and Linda have become Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner.
I smell a surefire business opportunity. I think I might start building bee hives with a desert modernist design kinda like that book box to target Palm Springs bee keepers.