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The flexible floor plan and the two-bedroom attached guest quarters are perfect for separation and privacy when desired. Homeowners here can also socialize at the Old World–inspired Toscana Club Village or recharge at Spa Bella Vita. Wright might have been resentful that Neutra’s reputation had eclipsed in his own in the ’30s, when Neutra won an international reputation for work such as the 1936 Joseph Kun house in Los Angeles. In 1937, he designed an intimate living/work space for a St. Louis socialite and fitness advocate named Grace Miller. If the Kaufmann house site was considered the edge of civilization when it was built, the Miller house — which still stands — on North Indian Canyon Drive near East Racquet Club Road was in the wilderness.
Eight chocolate-brown interiors that look good enough to eat
The design and construction of the Kaufmann Desert House fall at an exciting point in American history. The war moratoriums were slowly lifted as World War II ended, but relatively strict building regulations remained enforced. However, Neutra was able to find his way around the restrictions by breaking ground on the foundation a few days before the official enforcement. The project resulted in a total cost of nearly $300,000, surpassing the current single-family residence average of $40,000. Before Frank Sinatra commissioned his Twin Palms Estate or Elvis and Priscilla honeymooned in the “House of Tomorrow,” department-store magnate Edgar Kaufmann asked Richard Neutra to design him a home in the California desert. Now, for the first time in 11 years, that house — which helped define postwar modernism in Palm Springs — is for sale.
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In 1946 Edgar Kaufmann commissioned Richard Neutra to design a winter vacation home in Palms Springs, California. A decade earlier, he hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design his renowned Fallingwater house. However, while still an enthusiast of Wright’s work, Edgar wanted a lighter feeling than their Fallingwater home and felt Neutra could deliver. Olivia Hosken is the deputy managing editor of House Beautiful, where she oversees operations across the brand's print and digital platforms.
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Its representation in popular media has played a pivotal role in shaping public perceptions of modernist architecture, portraying it as an ideal of sophistication and modern American lifestyle. Its principles of indoor-outdoor living, environmental responsiveness, and minimalist aesthetics have been echoed in contemporary architectural practices, influencing new generations to value sustainability and harmony with the natural environment in their designs. David R. Olson Architects artfully designed this impressive contemporary residence to embrace the lot’s enviable mountain views and position overlooking three fairways of Toscana Country Club’s Jack Nicklaus golf course.
Edgar J. Kaufmann House (The Desert House)
She also writes about design and architecture and was previously the style & interiors writer at Town & Country and the managing editor of Dwell. To continue their efforts of preservation, they decided to put the house for auction at Christie's auction for high profile, contemporary, art. They believed that only serious buyers interested in continuing the preservation of this historical site would purchase the house at an auction. The house sold at auction for 19.1 million dollars by an anonymous buyer but later fell out of escrow.
Arguably the most famous home in Palm Springs, in 1996 it was the twentieth1 building to be designated as a local landmark, or "Class 1 Site" as protected properties are known locally. In 2008, a small crowd of about thirty people gathered at the site for the dedication of a bronze marker denoting the designation. The crowd included a couple of friends of mine, the mayor, and owners Beth and Brent Harris who accomplished the exacting restoration. After the crowd dispersed, Beth (who is devoted to an informed public) spontaneously invited the few of us who lingered for a private tour.
How Modernism Week Started in Palm Springs: An Oral History - Palm Springs Life
How Modernism Week Started in Palm Springs: An Oral History.
Posted: Fri, 06 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
A Landmark Modernist House Heads to Auction
The much-photographed 1946 masterwork by architect Richard Neutra might be the happiest marriage of the abstract geometry of modern architecture with the desert-and-mountain landscape of Palm Springs. Located at 470 West Vista Chino in Palm Springs, California, this masterpiece of architecture was designed to connect residents and visitors to the beautiful surrounding desert, letting the outside in and vice versa. The two-story, five-bedroom, five-bathroom, home was built in a pinwheel design with low horizontal planes that bring the house closer to the desert landscape, giving the illusion that it is floating amongst the mountains.
Architect-designed furniture
Along its eastern side, the walkway widens into an outdoor terrace between the living area and the guest rooms. Neutra created another outdoor seating area by placing a lookout pavilion above the living area of the otherwise one-story building. The pavilion’s western and northern sides are lined with the same aluminum louvers as used below, while the other two sides are left open. Neutra named this elevated room a “gloriette,” a northern European Baroque term that denotes an elevated pavilion offering views of a garden or a landscape. In 1945, Kaufmann acquired a large 200' x 300' (2.6 acre) site that was isolated near the foot of Mt. San Jacinto and studded with rugged desert landscape.
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Much was made of Neutra's skirting of local ordinances that prohibited second stories, but similar upper-level sleeping porches were commonplace in the desert. They were often included in early Spanish-style homes that, in pre-air conditioning days, had sleeping porches (or gloriettes) that caught the evening breeze and allowed locals to sleep outdoors during the hottest summer months. The origins of the house are familiar to architecture fans because of the pedigree of its owner, Edgar Kaufmann, the Pittsburg department store magnate.
This is particularly evident in the living room, whose walls of steel and glass slide outward toward the southeast, while the construction of deck and supports the hanging wall sliding moving toward the pool and spatially linking the house with it. This radial arm became the hallmark of Neutra, is the “spider leg,” the umbilical cord that merges space and building. Richard Neutra built a building in which the horizontal planes of the decks seem to float on transparent glass walls, giving the whole an overall look of lightness. The Kaufmann House is one of the most famous buildings by Neutra, who was a key figure of the modernist architecture movement.
The Kaufmann house was included in a list of all time top 10 houses in Los Angeles, despite its being in Palm Springs, in a Los Angeles Times survey of experts in December 2008. The rear facade of the house opens to the landscape and garden, while the facade overlooking the street appears closed, with its facade of ashlar stone. Everything from the special concrete–silica sand mixed floors to the Fresnel lenses on the ceiling lights has been meticulously reproduced to re-create those golden years. But one of the most memorable former owners is socialite and philanthropist Nelda Linsk, who was captured by Aarons chatting poolside with model Helen Dzo Dzo in 1970.
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