Arriving by Your Home

It was Modernism Week not too long ago here in the desert. Once again, spectacular homes in our neighborhood as well as other enclaves throughout Palm Springs were on display for anyone with $125.00 per visitor to see.

Old Hollywood died off here in the 60s and 70s. Now the real money has moved down Valley to select residential communities like Big Horn and PGA. But the allure and panache of Palm Springs continues and folks love coming here to check out the fabled lifestyle and over-the-top dwellings.

If I’m going to arrive, it won’t be via my house. Maybe I’ve already arrived and don’t even know it. More realistically, it doesn’t matter in the first place. Our first home was a small brick rambler in Baltimore County. Today it would be a great starter home. Our second was our present one in Apple Valley. A mid-60s rambler that’s proven the value of its talented carpenters and tradesmen back then. The house is still a solid, well-built structure that has gone through a number of remodeling projects inside and out.

I’ve always been interested in real estate. This was long before HGTV (Home and Garden Television) muddied the waters of reality and made real estate seem like a sure bet for the masses. The cable channel is like OxyContin for the uninitiated – stimulating but it makes outcomes appear more believable than they really are. My own experience with real estate investing was a lot more plain vanilla. Never a lot, never very fancy but solid and reliable. For your average HGTV watcher nowadays, it would have seemed boring as heck.

The one show I do enjoy watching is ‘House Hunters’, both national and international. It gives me a pretty reliable gauge of home prices around the country, assuming the show isn’t a repeat from years past. The home buyers seem pretty average and believable. None of the individuals or couples seemed to stand out from one another. Until now.

Something is going on with the series and I can’t put my finger on it. Whether it’s a trending, deliberate subtle message or a new direction, the series has now, on four separate occasions, shown couples of a certain demographic deliberately seeking out their ‘dream home’ as a sign of status.

That, in itself, is nothing new or unusual. What is unusual is their very pronounced (loud and vocal) desire to find a home that speaks to their success. They want a home that says: “I (We) Have Arrived.” These house hunters have been very focused and deliberate in stating that the house they seek must show status among their peers, wealth (supposed), and a bricks and mortar façade that stands out in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like a 60’s television version of the ‘Beverly Hillbillies.’ Novo-rich status seekers wanting to make a statement. It is simplistic and dumbed-down; often bordering on unreal or sketchy scenarios. Again, there seems to be a message here but I guess I’m too daft to get it.

‘House Hunters’ is probably the most realistic show on the channel even if some of the real estate agents shown seem to be competing for attention right off the clown car.

Another series ‘My Lottery Dream Home’ falls into the same kind of trap. ‘My Lottery Dream Home’ follows lucky lottery winners seeking to buy their first home. The host (my wife loves this guy) dresses like a clown and acts the same way. His primary job is to remind these lucky newbies that they are now millionaires and can do or buy whatever they want. And, more importantly, that they deserve it.

I still haven’t figured out the motivation behind these deliberate attempts to send subtle messages in the shows themselves. Of course, I’m not a producer and I don’t care about ratings. Still, it would be nice to have an honest presentation instead of a structured, manipulated storyline.

On a personal level, several folks I know insist that a home, not a condo, best reflects their place in the world. We seem to be at a point in this country where many consider housing to be an inalienable right along with education, public health and protection from harm (fire and police). It’s an interesting perspective and one that deserves further discussion and debate.

I’m just not sure that housing as status and deserved earnings is the right approach to take. But then again, that’s me, Mr. Plain Vanilla. Family experiences will top lumber and concrete every time.

Over The Top

After a hiatus of two years because of COVID-19, the annual Palm Springs Modernism neighborhood tours are back. Sharon and I have been docents for these home tours since they began. It’s a great way for us to see select Indian Canyon homes and enjoy their artistic venturing into new home styles.

Modernism Week is a signature event held every February and very unique to Palm Springs. It attracts thousands of modern architecture lovers from all over the country and the world. There are a host of events to showcase and highlight the very best of modernism designs and trends. There are art fairs, a modernism yard sale, vintage car show, lectures and films on historical Palm Springs architecture, as well as many events at the convention center. One of the highlights of the week are the neighborhood home tours.

Beginning in the mid-40s, architects originated a design movement specific to the greater Palm Springs area. It became known as Desert Modern. Their buildings featured groundbreaking techniques such as post-and-beam supports, floor-to-ceiling glass walls and a wide array of colors to match the surrounding mountains and desert. Now famous architects such as William Krisel, E. Stewart Williams, Albert Frey, William F. Cody, Richard Neutra and Donald Wexler were among the masters of this design.

Our neighborhood was included in the home tours this year so Sharon and I once again volunteered to be docents. It was a great opportunity to meet more of our neighbors and peek in on the lives of the design-conscious, artsy-types who created these one-of-a-kind homes.

Most of the home owners are warm and wonderful folks, truly modest in their accomplishments and extremely welcoming to all their guests. A few are snobs without credentials who think they’ve hit a homerun from third base. We’ve been lucky to have had fun, accommodating home owners whenever we’ve been docents.

It was fascinating to see what had been done to these retro houses and how the other half lives. Most of the homes were owned by interior designers…no surprise there. Each was a designer’s delight. Stunning is not too strong a word to describe some of those settings.

The house where we were docents had been totally remodeled and was stunning in its décor. It was a fitting tribute to the glitz and glamor that many imagined was old Hollywood. Older visitors seemed genuinely interested in the tales of its past occupants. The newer ones just liked the mid-century design. So it goes in the land of fact and fiction, rumor and innuendo - but always a good story to tell.

Over the years, we’ve had the privilege to visit those homes most people would never see. I think it’s fair to say that most of these artistic palaces are ‘over the top.’ One particular home that Sharon still talks about had two complete kitchens and then a separate catering unit set up in the garage with oven, stove, microwave, frig, etc. Fair to say, the owners liked to entertain a lot.

I took a lot of pictures of those six homes and thought it would be fun to share just a few of the images of the ‘lifestyle of the comfortable and accomplished.’

LIVING ROOMS

KITCHEN AREAS

BEDROOMS

OUTDOOR ENTERTAINMENT

Another home tour ended and we retreated to our more modest, comfortable sojourn in the desert. It’s certainly not ‘over the top’ nor Hollywood regency like most of those homes on the tour were. Instead, it’s a reflective habitat where Sharon can paint and I can write and we don’t have to worry about the newest in design challenges and keeping up with our neighbors down the block.

Nobody is From Here

One of the many unique things about living in Palm Springs is that nobody is ‘from’ Palm Springs. We/they all come from someplace else. While not unique to other American outposts like Key West, Las Vegas and Taos, New Mexico, it’s certainly different than most rural and many urban communities.

Historically, the many ‘faces/facades of Palm Springs’ seems to congeal into this melting pot of divergent personalities through many different pathways. It might be as a tourist destination or a weekend getaway. Many folks have second homes in the desert and seek a different kind of life style out here.

This ‘not from here’ phenomena continues in the many diverse neighborhoods of Palm Springs. Each seems to attract an eclectic collection of personalities from ‘other places.’ Like a mountain man rendezvous, the folks come from many different directions to gather and socialize and share in like-minded attitudes towards life.

Festivals like Coachella and Stagecoach bring in the masses from all over the country. Local Palm Springs specific events like the International Palm Springs Film Festival and Modernism Week also bring in a plethora of attendees from around the country. You get an even more intimate peek into these phenomena when the locals cross paths with one another.

It might be at an early morning Starbucks run or around poolside or on top of a local mountain hiking trail. Wherever folks gather, the conversation usually circles around to where they came from and how they got here.

This is not surprising, since in the past, the average population of Palm Springs had usually hovered around 47,000 year round. Early on, the demographics were usually heavy in the blue collar, working class ranks. Since the mid-forties and forward, more and more folks have moved to the area on a permanent basis. Thus ‘born and raised here’ started to become the rarity it is today.

I experienced this through my involvement with the Palm Springs Writers Guild. Even after ten years of engagement, I have yet to meet a ‘native Palm Springs person.’ My fellow writers come from across the country with a large percentage from the West Coast area. Sharon found the same thing with her fellow early morning swim class participants.

None of our neighbors are from the area. They come from Texas, the Midwest, the East Coast, the Deep South and the Southwest. The single thread that seems to connect all of them is their disdain for winter weather as well as the inclusive nature of our community.

Our bi-annual Indian Canyon Neighborhood Organization parties are another example of this on a much larger scale. Of the four hundred and fifty homes in our neighborhood, very few are passed down generational abodes. The vast majority are permanent retirement homes or second homes for folks from someplace else.

McM

Mid-century modern design was hot in the Coachella Valley back in the Forties and Fifties. It was seen as a cost efficient, unique style that lent itself well to the harsh desert environment. These mostly second homes were modern and attractive for weekend owners and visitors alike.

Beginning in the mid-40s, architects originated a design movement specific to the greater Palm Springs area. It became known as Desert Modern or McM (Mid-Century Modern.) Their buildings featured groundbreaking techniques such as post-and-beam supports, floor-to-ceiling glass walls and a wide array of colors to match the surrounding mountains and desert.

‘Palm Springs Modern’ became the catch phrase for anything and everything young and hip among the trend setters from L.A. and San Francisco. Hollywood embraced this self-serving, indulgent, narcissistic approach to self-realization. All was well with the world until reality came rumbling into the picture in the form of global tourism.

The burgeoning global tourism industry whisked annual vacationers, including many Hollywood stars, out of the country on jetliners bound for Europe and Asia. This mass deflection curtailed cross-country road trips and put resort destinations like Palm Springs and the Hawaiian Islands on the back burner.

By the mid-seventies, twenty years of population and construction booms had left Palm Springs exhausted and depleted. Proposition 13 did little to help the city’s finances. A building moratorium was declared and consequently the 70s became a period of no growth for Palm Springs.

While Palm Springs stagnated, down Valley communities like Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, and Indian Wells offered building opportunities that Palm Springs no longer could. Young families and the wealthy moved east into gated communities and country clubs.

Palm Springs lay dormant and undisturbed for another twenty years until the mid-90s when interest in mid-century modern architecture and designed started to swell once again. The 1950s were reevaluated as a period that produced an explosion of ideas and a purity of design that has not been matched since.

Never one to miss an opportunity to blow its own horn, Palm Springs jumped on the McM bandwagon about ten years ago and has never looked back. Modernism Week became 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. There were art fairs, a modernism yard sale, vintage car show, lectures and films on historical Palm Springs architecture, as well as many events at the convention center. One of the highlights of the Week are the neighborhood home tours. Our Indian Canyon neighborhood was included as a part of this year’s home tours.

The historic Indian Canyons 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 homes stark lines and heavy furniture spoke of status and class among the Jewish upper crust of the coastal cities; their intended demographic.

The North Course was built 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.

In years past, Sharon and I had volunteered to be docents for these home tours of our neighbor-hood.

The home where we were docents, at 2,800 square feet, was built in 1966 by Harry Kelso. Its current owners purchased the home in 2017 and spent 16 months gutting the home and doing a complete remodel.

The home features a modern kitchen and all new windows and doors, including tall custom sliders which hide into pocket walls in the living room. It’s a smart home and owners can control the lighting, shades, music, HVAC, security, etc. remotely from almost anywhere.

It was a great opportunity to meet more of our neighbors and peek in on the lives of the design-conscious, artsy-types who created these one-of-a-kind homes in our South Palm Springs neighborhood. Those homes are as much a statement as anything else. They speak of great taste in design, opulence, class, and status.

Fortunately, my taste doesn’t lean toward mid-century modern architecture or eclectic furnishings. I’m too old-fashioned for a $10,000 sofa designed by some ancient Italian or a chair made out of Plexiglas. Give me a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee and mountains as my backdrop. That’s all I need.

Still, it’s fun to look.