E Stewart Williams; Guardian obituary (architect of Sinatra's house)
Hyfler/Rosner
Architect whose design for Frank Sinatra's house launched a
style of desert modernism
Christopher Reed
Tuesday November 1, 2005
Guardian
It would be an exaggeration to claim that Frank Sinatra
started an architectural movement in the California desert,
but certainly his choice of a contemporary design over the
Georgian mansion he originally preferred set a trend with
international influence. Sinatra's architect, E Stewart
Williams, who has died aged 95, vividly recalled the singer
placing his order on May 1 1947. He walked into the
Williams' family office in Palm Springs, the resort then
popular with Hollywood stars, wearing a sailor's cap and
sucking an ice cream. "I wanna house," he barked.
It was to be Williams' first commission, but to his alarm he
realised that Sinatra wanted the building ready by Christmas
for a party. To make matters worse, the singer favoured a
Georgian mansion, a style hardly suitable in an arid,
cactus-dotted valley where summer temperatures could reach
120F and exceeded 100F for weeks on end.
So Williams presented Sinatra with two drawings. One showed
the Georgian design, the other a single-storey house with a
"shed roof" - flat but slightly sloping - and long,
horizontal lines, windows down to the ground, and framed not
just with wood or brick, but steel and aluminium. It was a
variation on the emerging style that became known, through
Williams and his fellow regional architects such as Albert
Frey and Richard Neutra, as desert modernism.
Today, because of buildings they and others erected there,
Palm Springs is a focus of modernist architecture, with
structures from the town hall to banks, public buildings and
private homes displaying an inspirational style that, sadly,
disappeared in the 1970s. Sinatra's was one of the first and
remains one of the most famous.
Williams' drawings persuaded the singer to go modern, and
the house on Alejo Road was finished in time for the party.
As Stewart's architectural partner, his brother Roger, said:
"I'm so glad. We'd have been ruined if we'd been forced to
build Georgian in the desert." Sinatra's house was known as
Twin Palms after the two trees that still stand beside it,
and featured a swimming pool shaped like a grand piano.
Williams always insisted this was accidental, but with the
sun at a certain angle it even casts shadows that look like
piano keys.
Sinatra lived in the property with his first wife Nancy and
family, and then with his second wife, Ava Gardner. In the
late afternoons he would hoist a flag bearing the Jack
Daniels whiskey logo to signal to neighbours that it was
cocktail time. He stayed there for 10 years.
After divorcing Gardner, he lived in nearby Rancho Mirage
until shortly before he died, occupying a huge compound and
an architectually less distinguished property.
Williams' style was influenced by a 1930s trip to
Scandinavia, which gave him an affinity for simplicity - and
introduced him to his wife of 60 years, Mari, who died in
1998. "His modernism took the international style and warmed
it up," explained Peter Moruzzi, an architectural historian
and founding president of a Palm Springs society of
preservationists. "Stewart combined contemporary, or modern,
with natural materials in a sublime way."
In a 50-year career, Williams dotted Palm Springs and the
surrounding Coachella Valley region with numerous works.
Many survive, but some were demolished before the area
belatedly awoke to its architectural heritage. Half a
century after completing the Sinatra house, Williams came
out of retirement to expand the Palm Springs Desert Museum
he had designed in 1976.
The main building is sheathed in volcanic cinder,
cantilevered over a sunken sculpture garden. His other
projects included the graceful Edris residence on a hill
surrounded by native plants; a 1956 home for his own family,
with a V-shaped roof that created shelter for outdoor living
and a garden that spilled into the living room; the upper
station of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway; and several bank
buildings that make the casual visitor stop and stare.
Williams was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of a well-known
architect, Harry Williams, who when he received a commission
in Palm Springs liked it so much he stayed. Stewart studied
architecture at Cornell University and took a master's
degree in 1934 at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught
for several years at Bard College, New York, and studied
such modernist architectural masters as Mies van der Rohe
and Walter Gropius.
After returning from his Scandinavian tour, Williams worked
for architect Raymond Loewy, who assigned him to the 1939
New York World's Fair. By 1943, he was designing ships for
the US navy, and after the second world war he joined his
father in Palm Springs.
He is survived by his daughter and two sons.
· Ernest Stewart Williams, architect, born November 15 1909;
died September 10 2005