Destination: Modernism

The gasps were audible as 50 pairs of eyes settled on the scene: a circular living room covered by an enormous, weighty cement dome, floor-to-ceiling glass walls revealing a stunning panoramic view of the city. If there is such a thing as an architectural nirvana, this may have been it.

The setting was the Elrod house, designed by John Lautner and now used primarily for entertaining by its current owner, former supermarket magnate Ron Burkle. The house was part of a tour and symposium last weekend sponsored by the Palm Springs Desert Museum titled “Modernist Residential Architecture in the Desert.” The second annual two-day program included lectures, a panel discussion and a rare tour of sleek, dynamic homes by Lautner, Richard Neutra, E. Stewart Williams, William Cody and Crombie Taylor. While perhaps not household names even among those familiar with architecture, these were some of the American and European-born architects who were drawn to the desert’s harsh, beautiful terrain from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Although many only know this resort town for its high kitsch and tacky factor and as a haven for golfers, former presidents and aging, overly tanned entertainers, it’s received another distinction in recent years: mecca of modern architecture.

Modernism may be in the spotlight today simply because of the cyclical nature of tastes and styles, but there could be more to the attraction than just fashion. These homes exude a kind of pure peacefulness, an antidote to our frenetic lives.

The chance to experience such architecture up close drew hundreds of people from the area, as well as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and even Belgium. Some described it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these classic homes and to discover how owners approach restoring, decorating, maintaining and living in them. Under uncharacteristic gray skies, architects, artists, historians, designers and those with an intense passion for modernism convened to see in three dimensions some of the iconographic homes they had only seen in photographs. “In college, I had the Kaufmann house done by Neutra above my desk,” said Palm Springs architect Michael Coon. “There are so many more hidden gems around.”

From the clean, rectilinear lines of Neutra to Lautner’s sensuously drawn, grand-scale designs, it’s easy to see why architects chose this arid, bumpy terrain with its breathtaking vistas as their life-sized laboratory, constructing houses that used the then-virtually untouched landscape as foundation, frame, background and decoration, welcoming and utilizing the elements, making them an integral part of the home instead of shutting them out.

Lautner’s Elrod house, the first stop on Saturday’s sold-out bus tour, is a supreme example of modernist principals. Guests doffed their shoes and explored the living room, master bedroom suite, kitchen and guest rooms. Lautner’s incorporation of organic elements was everywhere, from the boulders that pierce the house through various walls and windows to lacy vines that creep indoors. An infinity pool begins in the living room and ends outside, separated by huge glass motorized windows that can be retracted, completely opening up the living room to the outdoors.

It was, as Alan Hess, author of “Palm Springs Weekend,” pointed out in his Sunday lecture, a supreme example of Lautner’s use of natural metaphor (the cave-like entrance) as well as “an interpretive expression of the natural setting” and “a powerful sense of design. This is massive architecture.”

“I could spend a lot of time in there,” said one woman, gazing at a sunken marble tub in the master bath. A guest house below the main house features distinctive chevron pattern tiles and a rock-walled bathroom with a free-standing stone basin.

Dispelling Myths About Modernists

Neutra’s Kaufmann house was another obvious favorite. This 3,200-square-foot 1946 home was bought by Brent and Beth Harris in 1992 and has undergone extensive restoration. It welcomes the outdoors through aluminum louvers, sliding-glass walls that retract to remove barriers to the outdoors, and a gloriette, a protected upper deck that creates more living space without violating the city’s no-second-story ordinance.

Guests meandered through the house and grounds, marveling at the serenity of the design as they listened to Brent Harris’ tales of his laborious restoration, including mining abandoned quarries to find the same stone used for an outside wall. The couple built a small pool house on the property that’s used for living and entertaining, preserving the main house as a stunning and pristine example of Neutra’s work.

The house also serves to dispel the myth that modernists like Neutra designed structures that were bare, stripped down and cold.

“Using natural materials was the ornamentation,” explained Adele Cygelman, author of “Palm Springs Modern” and another Sunday lecturer. The Kaufmann’s use of terrazzo floors, natural stone, wood and water echo the landscape’s textures and colors as well as soften the hard edges.

The museum-like Neutra home was a stark contrast to another of the architect’s homes, the 1963 Maslon house, part of Sunday’s tour. Designed for Samuel and Luella Maslon, the Neutra style was evident in the home’s retractable glass walls, roof overhangs and dormitory-style rooms. But the Maslons have put art on every available inch of wall space and every flat surface. Works by Frank Stella, Henri Matisse, Claes Oldenberg, Robert Motherwell and Andy Warhol bump up against the mundane evidence of everyday life such as books, alarm clocks and candy dishes. Guests were as fascinated with how the art fit into the comfortable, casual attitude toward the house as they were with the objects themselves. Luella Maslon, 91, even greeted some guests from her bedroom and seemed happy that others were enjoying her house.

Meandering through these homes, while ever respectful of them and their owners, some visitors couldn’t keep their thoughts to themselves. One man, having glimpsed changes made to a William Cody home (including the addition of shag carpeting), refused to set foot inside.

A woman ambling through a U-shaped gallery-like Crombie Taylor house murmured, “It certainly is austere.” The same house produced this exchange between two men:

“If he had put the [walkway] over here, then you could enter here,” said one man, gesturing to the living room.

“Yes, there are definitely some unresolved issues.”

But at a cocktail party Sunday night hosted by the current owners of the Firestone house, built in 1958 by William Pereira, the group mingled, drank wine poolside and took inventory of what they had seen.

Recapturing the ‘Era of Peace’

Sheryl Hamlin, a computer systems designer from Sausalito, declared the Pereira house her favorite for its integration of indoor and outdoor space. Her affinity for modernism’s simplicity also reminded her of “an era of peace and prosperity and people coming here for vacations,” she added. Having recently purchased a Palm Springs house, she has been influenced by the architects’ choices of colors and textures.

The Pereira home was also Kevin Guerrini’s favorite. Although this Palm Springs-based building project manager is currently working with designer Marc Sanders on some vintage modernist homes, seeing these works by master architects first-hand helped him understand “the way the architects wanted to lay out the home on the property, and to see the way people live in them.”

James Van Damme, an art gallery owner from Brussels, said his affinity for Palm Springs and its architecture is “getting kind of addictive.” He says he’s always been interested in modern architecture and discovered Palm Springs’ cache last year. He’s been coming back frequently since then and called the symposium “a weekend to remember.”

Patrick Day, who, with Paul Legvold, bought the 8,200-square-foot Pereira house two years ago, said both were attracted to its history and warmth. “Even though it’s a contemporary house, it has a warm feeling to it with the flagstone and slub-stone walls,” Day said. “We also wanted to preserve the house--there was talk about tearing it down and subdividing the property. But I love the light and the cleanness of it, the indoor/outdoor aspects. You wake up and look outside, and it’s beautiful when the light comes in.”

An Eye Toward Preservation

Many of these homes were built on low budgets--some for as little as $14,000--yet houses like these now sell for prices ranging from several hundred thousand dollars to more than a million. “There was a lot of intelligence applied to the design,” Cygelman said. “They were very well thought out, with clear stories that let the roof float and let the light in.” And, given that many of these were second homes primarily used for vacations and entertaining, architects were allowed more freedom and had less restrictions on their designs.

Half a century later, however, the city and its environs are not as much an incubator for experimentation, although L.A. architect Michael Rotondi’s much-loved remodel of Miracle Manor is seen as an encouraging sign of innovation. However, as more interest becomes focused on these historic commercial and residential modern structures, movements to preserve and restore them are becoming stronger. The Palm Springs Modern Committee is dedicated to preservation, and the museum has long-range plans for incorporating architecture into its collections and programs. The museum considers the gift by architect Albert Frey--who died in 1998--of his Frey II house both a coup and an inspiration to keep this interest alive.

“There’s a growing interest in architecture worldwide,” said Sidney Williams, the Desert Museum’s director of education and programs (and daughter-in-law of architect E. Stewart Williams). “I think people are longing to find examples of some real purity of thinking and sensibility, and I think you see that in the work of these architects. I think people appreciate that use of space and the thoughtfulness in creating beautiful spaces.”