A Gathering Without Class

There were two Bentleys in the driveway and a classic convertible parked in the street. Aside from those glamor queens, the obligatory BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus, and other sundry desert chariots were all scattered about. I would have driven my Camry (I love that car) but the party was only a block away.  ‘High season’ had, once again, begun in Palm Springs.

Snowbirds, seasonal visitors, and other part-timers were returning to the desert and ICNO was there. ICNO, the Indian Canyon Neighborhood Organization, was hosting its annual get-acquainted party for the neighborhood. ICNO sponsors one party in the fall and another in the spring. The events are always hosted at someone’s house in the neighborhood. They’re great fodder for stealing decorating ideas, catching up on neighborhood gossip and renewing acquaintances with other seasonal players in town.

Last fall, the hosting house was a newly remodeled four-level custom designed home owned by two gentlemen from the coast. I always look forward to these parties because of the folks who attend. A lot of them are nearby neighbors and some are active on the ICNO board as I was a couple of years back. Then, there’s usually an eclectic assortment of newcomers rubbing shoulders with the old regulars who have been around since Frank Sinatra stalked the golf course with a martini and close friends under both arms.

The thing I appreciate most about these parties is the lack rarified air so typical of many West Coast gatherings. This isn’t a West Hollywood party where everyone is angling to hook up or a party in the canyons where movie deals are made around the swimming pool. It’s not like the gathering of those closed societies down valley in their cloistered gated communities. ICNO could be like that but never has been.

What sets these neighbors apart is an almost total lack of pretentiousness. These are accomplished folks who are comfortable in their own skin. Yet despite their financial success, they are charming, engaging, and fun to talk to. Most have fascinating backgrounds and abundant stories to share. It’s like meeting other seasoned world travelers who just want to share their travel ad-ventures. No one is there to impress. In fact, the ones who try to impress soon find themselves odd man (or woman) out. It’s a class of folks without a hint of class.

On a more personal level, it’s an interesting dichotomy for me to observe. I have several acquaintances and casual friends who now ‘have money’ but lack the panache to pull off what these folks can. These accidental associates seem to have forgotten where they came from. They were born middle class but feel they have out-grown their roots. They have this subtle need to either be showy or consciously put down those around them who are not as financially well-heeled.

One would think in those circumstances modesty would be the order of the day. One friend hasn’t really ‘arrived’ because she was never on the journey. With a jump start from daddy, it wasn’t affluence earned so (at least in my mind) it would seem best to be a little humble. As for the other friend who did make it on his own, I see no reason to put down those back home with less affluence. Both these folks seem to have forgotten the core values that are an intrinsic part of their common class roots.

Years ago, Sharon spent a great deal of time in her hometown of Wabasha, Minnesota. She was there to help sell her mother’s house, move her mom into assisted living, plus handle a laundry list of chores directly related to her mother’s care. This entailed dealing with the locals on a daily basis.

Wabasha is a small town. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. They either knew Sharon or knew of her; where she went to school, what she did afterwards and where she is now. There are few secrets in a small town. Sharon was constantly on display… but it hardly mattered. She treated everyone as she always has…with respect and common curtesy.

In many ways Palm Springs is a small town little different than Apple Valley. While it’s true Palm Springs has as many Yoga studios as Apple Valley has daycare centers, there are enough similarities to see that both worlds run on parallel tracks. On one level, there are different cultures, tastes and lifestyles between the two cities. Yet on the other end of the spectrum, there are a lot of similarities.

The movie star Alan Ladd once had a hardware store in Palm Springs and used to make home deliveries. Bob Hope used to stroll down Main Street to get his ice cream downtown. A precursor to the rat pack hung out at Chi-Chi’s nightclub and burned the midnight oil at Canyon Country Club.

Canyon Country Club, the precursor to Indian Canyon, had a storied history. Over the years numerous movie stars and noted celebrities made their homes there. Now it’s a curious mixture of gay couples, retired folks from the coast, Canadians and east coast transplants who don’t like the Florida scene. They’ve all come to enjoy our golf courses, spectacular mountain scenery and the whole Palm Springs atmosphere. Indian Canyon carries on that tradition of open hospitality and egos left at the door. There is comfort level here among neighbors equal to that back in Apple Valley.

The ICNO party was a great success. We renewed old acquaintances, made new friends, and planned for a very active season. Sharon and I are very fortunate. We’ve have been able to straddle these two worlds and live comfortably in both…without losing sight of where we came from.

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.

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.