Welcome to their Casbah

When it’s too hot to stroll outside but too beautiful to sit indoors, Marilyn Malkin and Larry Wolf can lounge somewhere in between, in their Rancho Mirage atrium. Cooled by water and roofed by the wide desert sky, the outdoor room contains a swimming pool and simple, understated greens--potted bromeliads, a palm, a single olive tree. Gauzy, pale-toned drapes define seating alcoves, and cushioned benches enhance the flavor of a private casbah where one might while away an afternoon. In fact, at first glance, it’s hard to tell where the terrace ends and the house begins, so seamless is the indoor/outdoor scene. What’s more, the atrium and pool, both original to the couple’s 1960s house, are hidden from the street in the style of a walled Moroccan or Spanish garden and surrounded by the home’s glass-and-stucco wings. In contrast, the lot’s public side features a desert-dry landscape that captures the spirit of the terrain 12 miles east of Palm Springs.

Not surprisingly, both the local desert and the palm-edged oases of Morocco inspired landscape designer Marcello Villano when he began the garden three years ago, after Chicagoans Malkin and Wolf bought the property as a winter retreat. Insight West, a Palm Desert design firm, updated and remodeled the house, adding bedrooms, dropping the garage underground and changing finishes to reflect the shades and textures of the setting. Both indoors and in the atrium, the firm’s designers used sea-grass rugs and Indonesian teak furnishings to evoke an exotic, hot-climate theme.

Villano carried their color palette to the front garden, where he replaced carob trees and a lawn with palms, succulents and native plants. His towering date palms bring the tall house down to earth without obscuring views of the nearby San Jacinto Mountains. Silver brittle bush, which grows wild on local slopes, extends in soft mounds at ground level, exploding with daisy-like gold blooms. Then there are the bristling pincushions of golden barrel cacti, the swords of century plants and the wild wisps of ‘Regal Mist,’ an ornamental grass that flushes red when it plumes. Stitching these foliages together are slabs of Mexican coco stone and sweeps of Mexican shiners, a large-size gravel in earthen tones.

More Mexican shiners surround an entry fountain inside the front gate, where the mood shifts to the contemplative. Here Villano’s job was to clear away a clutter of pots stuffed with geraniums, tomatoes and other disparate plants and introduce greener elements. In a planter along the water’s edge, he replaced petunias with Korean grass, and where the many pots once stood, he reduced their number to two. One, of centuries-old Thai stone, holds terrestrial orchids; the other, a modern glazed terra-cotta, shows off water-loving bromeliads. And mixed in among the teak are several mid-century Richard Schultz garden loungers. As Villano suggests, “You don’t have to be a slave to any one aesthetic tradition.”

More important, he believes, the Southern California desert has the right accouterments for life: “Here, you can throw the doors open, hang lights outside, and relax in simple elegance.”

Marcello Villano’s Global Inspirations:

Giant stone wells for watering camels in Morocco.

English garden-maker Russell Page, who emphasized the importance of context in determining a landscape’s style and plant palette.

The simplicity of temple gardens in Kyoto, where “a sweep of moss with a rock can express overwhelming joy.”

Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi and his celebration of beautiful natural forms.