This Retro Desert Town Is a Mod Design Mecca

It goes by many names: The Alexander Estate, The House of Tomorrow, Elvis’ Honeymoon Hideaway. But no one knows exactly who designed the spiraling tri-level of perfect circles on 1350 Ladera Circle. All that’s known is that it was built for one of the city’s most prolific developers, Robert Alexander, as a 5,000-square-foot family home, in 1960. The Alexanders enjoyed local fame with their Hollywood neighbors by hosting pool parties and gatherings under the desert citrus trees in the backyard.

The national press took notice, too. Look Magazine featured their unique home,  with its art deco interiors and endless living room carpet in a 1962 spread. But in 1965, the entire family died in a tragic plane crash, leaving the estate behind. After making appearances in a few films, the home was finally leased to high-profile tenants Elvis Presley and his then-girlfriend, Priscilla, in 1966. Nine months later, Elvis and Priscilla covertly flew to Las Vegas for the day to wed, immediately returning to Palm Springs to christen their post-marriage pad the Honeymoon Hideaway.

As the on-site restaurant of the historic Spanish-modern Hotel Trinidad, guests in the 1950s and 60s would often be treated to impromptu performances by frequent visitors Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. Sinatra owned a home nearby (see #6), and was reportedly a regular and favorite, according to the stories told by the bar’s staff and management.

However, the swingin’ 60s and funky 70s eventually did end, and one day, the place had completely gone out of style. But thanks to a renovation and restoration of the modernist interior design of the 1950s, the club enjoys hauntings of its former splendor with big-name bands playing standards of the era and 1960s musical impersonators. One of those is the club’s current owner, Michael Holmes, who dresses in drag to perform as Judy Garland on Sunday nights.

The legendary architect Albert Frey, trained in Beaux Arts design in Zurich, built some of the most admired modernist landmarks in Palm Springs, including City Hall (see #8) and the Aerial Tramway Gas Station (see #10). He moved to the city in 1934 and built two homes for himself over the course of his long career. The second, an 800-square-foot treasure built into a small plateau in the San Jacinto Mountains, is made of floor-to-ceiling glass windows and mountain boulders. Most furniture, shelves, and storage areas are built seamlessly into the walls and floors–a hallmark of the space-saving, sleek modernist aesthetic. After Frey’s death, he left the house to the Palm Springs Art Museum, which now hosts tours of the home and property atop Palm Springs.

The second location of the Palm Springs Art Museum is, quite naturally, a repurposed modernist bank building designed by E. Stewart Williams, constructed in 1961 in downtown Palm Springs. The flat roof, glass walls and steel frame of the raised structure sit inside a rim of desert cacti and is filled with a daily bath of sunlight. In 2014, when the museum took ownership of the building, it was renovated and restored based on the original design. Today, visitors can compare the adapted redesign to original photos in the lobby. Architecture exhibitions rotate inside the main hall, but it’s also a resource for architecture tours in the city. That includes public tours of the Albert Frey House (see #3).

With colorful canvases depicting the flat, simple planes of modernist architecture as well as the extravagant, colorful atmosphere of the mod lifestyle that came with it, Nat Reed’s work epitomizes the sun-drenched, happy-go-lucky soul of Palm Springs modernism. While some of the work re-creates Palm Springs landmarks, even the composite pieces evoke a forever-young Zeitgeist that stays in the air of the city. The artist’s gallery in downtown Palm Springs exhibits his work, which has also been featured in magazines and exhibitions across the city and in Miami, another modernist mecca.

The densest concentration of modernist homes—although sprinkled generously with their funky architectural cousins, Spanish revival style—can be found in the Movie Colony, a neighborhood named for its many celebrity residents. Many of the 170 homes in the neighborhood were designed by modernist architects E. Steward Williams, William Cody and Donald Wexler and its most famous landmark, the Twin Palms Estate, was designed by Williams for Frank Sinatra, who catered parties there for his swingin’ set of friends, like Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Gloria Swanson, Dinah Shore, and many other famous neighbors. Today, the neighborhood’s allure has returned to the architecture instead of the celebrities, with tours available from the Palm Springs Historical Society year-round.

In 1951, the midcentury apartment and shopping complex Sunset Towers was opened to the public in Palm Springs. Two years later, it’s street-facing storefront was occupied by Don the Beachcomber, a tiki bar chain created in the 1930s in Hollywood, spawning the bizarre tiki bar culture that was popular from the 1930s until the 1950s. With dreams of Hawaii and Polynesia in mind, the proprietor of Don’s spun mystery around tropical regions that were mostly unexplored by Americans, marrying those legends with exotic, complicated and fruity drinks named after celebrity clientele. Don’s eventually closed and the building fell out of use for many years, but a sparkling, new renovation in 2014 restored its modernist design, fusing it with hints of that old, kitschy tiki-style spunk. The retro Bootlegger Tiki restores that mystery and fascination of tiki-times with a craft cocktail spin.

If it hadn’t been designed by four of the modernist architectural stars of 20th century Palm Springs, it would just be a bureaucratic building with another flat, rectangular portico in front of some windows. But the giant hole in that shade structure makes way for a trio of palm trees, just one of the many unique aspects of this building. Others include the shade screens made up of smaller, circular structures that let in just enough light while blocking the heat, and desert-classic turquoise underneath the facade. Designed by Albert Frey, E. Steward Williams, Robson Chambers and John Porter Clark, visitors can admire the synergy of the best of Palm Springs’ modernist minds, all while applying for permits and marriage licenses inside.

As the first independent commission for architect William Cody, the Del Marcos Hotel has been popular and well-regarded since it first opened in 1947. The hotel integrates sandy red stones and redwood, two classic California materials, into its flat modernist design scheme, with floor to ceiling windows facing its pool and u-shaped courtyard. After being declared a historical landmark in 2012, the hotel underwent a deep-clean restoration, maintaining the building’s classic look while updating and modernizing some of the guest features. Each room today is clean, simple and minimal, livened with midcentury furniture, a touch of color, and just a few nods to celebrity clientele of the 1950s and 60s. 

From the sky, it could be mistaken for the Starship Enterprise (or at least the Enterprise’s uniform logo). But no, the building that looks like a soaring triangle, thin and smooth, arching up ever so slightly into the desert sky, is actually a modernist icon designed by Albert Frey and his fellow modernist Robson Chambers in 1965. These architects worked together in the firm Frey and Chambers on many of Palm Springs’ modernist designs, but this one strikes a special chord with many visitors because it’s the first point of contact for anyone entering the city from Highway 111.

Today, what was built as a humble gas station at the bottom of Tramway Road has achieved landmark status, and is now used as a Palm Springs Visitor’s Center, welcoming mod-hunters and spa tourists alike.