Desert Sun - Barry's old Palm Springs house
Scooter
AID=/20061130/LIFESTYLES01/611290337
Desert Sun - Nov. 30, 2006
Ahhh, to dwell here: Check out some of the cutting-edge architecture in the
valley
Bruce Fessier
Desert Post Weekly
Looky-loos aren't objects of derision during home tour season.
They're a prized, upscale tourist segment that has helped the Coachella
Valley become internationally known as a center for mid-century modern
architecture.
The season begins in earnest this weekend with a conference sponsored by
Dwell Magazine for "practitioners and consumers" of cutting-edge
architecture. It features tours on Sunday, Dec. 3, of great examples of mid-
century modern architecture in Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs.
Also Sunday, the Rancho Mirage Chamber of Commerce is having a Winter Home
Tour of finely designed Rancho Mirage houses and Palm Springs Modernism
Committee member and architectural historian Tony Merchell is presenting a
Palm Springs Modernism slide show in the former home of the builder whose
name has become synonymous with Palm Springs Modern, the late Robert
Alexander.
It's indicative of how popular Palm Springs mid-century modern designed homes
have become that the house at 1350 Via Ladera Circle is called the Alexander
home by Merchell and the property's manager instead of its more populist
name, the Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway.
And the house at 470 W. Vista Chino is known worldwide as the Kaufmann House
- reflective of the Pittsburgh retailer who hired Richard Neutra to design it
after hiring Frank Lloyd Wright to design his Fallingwaters estate in
Pennsylvania - instead of the first Palm Springs house owned by Barry
Manilow.
Merchell, who also sits on the board of the Architecture and Design Council
of the Palm Springs Art Museum, often gives tours to architecture students
from universities and museums around the world. He has one booked with the
Society of Architectural Historians for January 2008.
But he gave a specially-designed tour for Desert Post Weekly of Palm Springs
houses he says even a novice architecture fan should see.
[snip to]
The Kaufmann House
Where: 470 W. Vista Chino
Designed by: Neutra. Privately owned and not open to the public.
"This underwent tremendous restoration by Marmol Radziner in the mid to late
1990s and it's probably the most famous house in Palm Springs. There's that
famous photograph of Julius Shulman of the house that is his single most
published photograph of his career. It really is just an iconic building.
"First off, it has a second floor, and that was illegal. The zoning in the
flats of Palm Springs only allowed for one story, although you could have two
stories in pillars. So, what Neutra did, he built as little of a room as
possible - a floor and a ceiling and no real walls, only these movable
aluminum vanes. Then he basically bullied the City Council: 'That's not a
room, that's a gloriette,' a word he made up.
The house is 2,700 square feet. Barry Manilow sold it to the owners who
restored it. When these owners bought it as a tear-down, it was over 5,000
square feet. Every owner had altered it."
[snip]
--
Scooter
http://scootertalk.blogspot.com/
Deb.
>
> [snip]
thats something people do... to make it more... 'their own'.
deb ;)