Strange California Connections

Around 1968, Paul Whiteman, a well-known big band leader from the 20s and 30s, built his west coast home in a new California development called Canyon Country Club Estates.

Canyon Country Club Estates had been carved out of the barren desert just south of downtown Palm Springs. It was meant to be a welcoming enclave for Jewish families who in the past had been denied membership in the other country clubs around the Coachella Valley. It turns out, this was just the first of a number of strange California connections for me.

Back up some forty-plus years and this same Big Band Leader and composer was performing in a midwestern auditorium as part of his nationwide tour for that season. A young adventurous woman named Hildegarde Noll was in the audience along with her girlfriends. They were all experiencing the big cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul for the first times in their lives. Hildegarde had moved down from Sterns County. She was one of eight children raised in a strict German Catholic farming family. She and her friends all worked as maids for well-to-do notables along Summit Avenue.

Hildegarde’s California connections run shallow and deep at the same time. She moved out west with several girlfriends and all secured jobs as maids for the monied elite who lived on Seventeen Mile Drive in Carmel. Her job allowed her to move from one millionaire’s home to the next, serving Hollywood stars and East Coast Industrialists.

As the kids and I drove along 17- mile drive by Carmel-by-the-Sea a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t help but think about what it must have been like almost one hundred years earlier for my mother. She would have been in that same neighborhood, going into Monterey for household supplies and doing sundry chores. She probably walked the same wharf and along Cannery Row years earlier. It was as if we were both breathing in the same salt air. Sadly, all of that ended when her father got sick back on the farm and Hildegarde returned to Minnesota to care for him.

Fast forward a number of years later on and my mother, now separated from her husband (my father), was solicited for household help once again on the West Coast. Upon arrival, the job around Santa Barbara had unexpectedly disappeared. Hildegarde was left almost penniless with two toddlers in hand and no new job prospects. After spending less than a month there, she was forced to return to Minnesota once again.

As the kids and I drove around Monterey, Carmel-by-the-sea, Big Sur then down to Santa Barbara, I couldn’t help but reflect on what might have happened if my mom had gotten that job and stayed in California. Is it unreasonable to think that if she had stayed there, I might have found myself living an entirely different lifestyle rather than the one I had in St. Paul? I guess I’ll never know.

There is one thing I am sure of. Paul Whiteman only stayed in Canyon Country Club Estates for less than five years. He missed his old bandmates back east and returned to New Hampshire where he passed away shortly thereafter.

His home went through a series of owners until the mid-2000s when, once again, a Minnesota connection reappeared. Long-since enamored with California, this couple, a writer, and an artist, bought the house without knowing it’s past owner. My recent jaunt with the kids along the PCH only reinforced an over-active imagination that wondered: ‘What if?’

Mom, I’m back in California once again. Sure do miss you here.

Four Houses on Three Continents

California is often referred to as the golden state and that has little to do with the gold rush of the 1800s. By its size alone, the state has a lot of everything; the good, the bad and the in between.

The state’s economy is the largest in the United States, boasting a $3.137 trillion gross state product as of 2019. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world’s fifth largest economy, ahead of India and Germany.

It’s always been a given that many things are simply more expensive here. So it’s of little surprise that along with its size goes the sad fact that 13.3 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. In its defense, the state can boast about the near-perfect weather, a cornucopia of diversity in a myriad of areas and technology giants that roam the globe and cyber world far and wide.

Having traveled up and down the Southern California Coast as well as the Central California Coast, I can confirm that housing and commerce are a bit out of the world for most Americans; especially the average Californian. But it is what it is; the state of California.

Spending as much time as we do in the state, Sharon and I have become a bit immured to the sometimes crazy and unworldly things that happen around us. We see it as just part of the Zen of California and our little desert community. There has long been a realization among Palm Springs residents that our little community isn’t like the rest of the state. This came into clearer focus a while back when Sharon and I were docents for a tour of our neighborhood during Modernism Week.

Modernism Week is a signature event held every February in Palm Springs. This year, it attracted over 150,000 modern architecture lovers from all over the country and the world. There were 350 plus events to showcase and highlight the very best of modernism designs and trends. One of the highlights of the week was the neighborhood home tours. Our Indian Canyon neighborhood was included as a part of this year’s home tours.

Click here to view the Canyon Country Club Estates brochure in full - PDF format link

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Our neighborhood, originally known as the Canyon Country Club Estates, was built in South Palm Springs in the early 1960s. Developers created a variety of high-end homes and condominiums with famous architects like William Krisel, Stan Sackley, and Charles DuBois among others. The North Course was built first in conjunction with a 1.5 million dollar stunning midcentury modern clubhouse designed by Donald Wexler and Richard Harrison. To make the opening of Canyon Country Club spectacular, Walt Disney, who owned several luxury homes built along the second fairway, donated a fountain that shot water into the sky from a floating lily pad.

Now known as Indian Canyon, our neighborhood has gone through a subtle yet very real demographic shift over the last ten or so years. Neighborhood parties used to be pretty much fifty-fifty split between straight married and gay couples. That has now changed to probably seventy-thirty in favor of the DINKs (duel income, no kids) which includes gay couples, lesbians, unmarried couples among other arrangements. Most of our neighbors have become great friends of ours. But their economic disposition is different than ours as are their family obligations. In other words, it often puts them in a different economic class than their Midwestern neighbors.

It’s never mattered before nor does it now. But it can sometimes cloud ones perspective of what is normal or average when everyone around us lives in high end homes or is in the process of remodeling and raising their present abode to that level of equity. After a while you begin to think ‘this must be normal. Everyone lives like this.’

It’s like thinking you hit a home run when, in fact, you were born on third base.The temptation is to think that somehow you had something to do with rising home prices or demographic shifts in your neighborhood. It’s a slippery slope of self-congratulations instead of simple gratitude for your good fortune.

This struck home for Sharon and me when we visited one of the homes on the Modernism tour of our neighborhood. The house was a lovely mid-century modern rebuild. The owners had spared no expense in bringing all the rooms and outdoor living areas back to life. It was stunning in its color palette, use of modern furniture throughout, high-end appliances, and expansive use of glass throughout the house.

The owner was a lovely woman anxious to show us around. As we were leaving and throwing yet another compliment back at her (all sincere and honest) she said just as casually that this was but one of their homes. “We have four homes on three continents,” she said matter-of-factly.  I stopped in my tracks, not wanting to let this tidbit of delectable information get away, but Sharon pushed me ahead to keep on schedule. “No surprise” was all Sharon could say as we piled onto our Camry and went on to the next house on the tour.

Thinking back on the recession of 2008, I was a bit surprised by the number of ‘For Sale’ signs that suddenly blossomed in our neighborhood. But as my neighbors pointed out, most of the homes listed for sale were but one of three or four homes their owners owned across the country. They had to sell one or more of them and Palm Springs seemed the most likely spot to move quickly in that kind of down market.

Palm Springs, like several select communities in California and other states, is an island in and of itself. It doesn’t reflect the average suburban town or community in this country. Through a mixture of history, terrain and attitude this desert community has separated itself from the rest of the masses. It’s a bubble; bright and colorful and sometimes quite luxurious. Nevertheless, a mylar illusion of what average means for most folks.

That’s OK, Alice in Wonderland had quite a ride and lived to write about it. Sharon and I get to watch and listen and learn. We’re both out of the Midwest; Minnesota born and raised. We will never close the door on that label above our heads.