Real Estate Features Archive

GRAND LUXE

Offered for $75 million by Christie’s Great Estates, Porcupine Creek hides behind the placid Mirage Cove neighborhood, where houses typically cost less than 1 percent of that price.

BY JANICE KLEINSCHMIDT

The Developers - Warren Coble

Coble put up some impressive buildings — buildings like Alan Ladd's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Las Casuelas Nuevas in Rancho Mirage, Ocotillo Plaza, Prickly Pear Square, Sinatra Medical Education Center, Canyon Hotel Racquet and Golf Resort and the Palm Springs Airport fountain and buildings.

The Developers - Ernest Hahn

Even someone who wouldn't know a developer from a dirt farmer can't help but respond to the name "Ernest Hahn." In the Coachella Valley you can hardly say "shopping center" without including some reference to the omnipresent Mr. Hahn.

The Developers - John Wessman

Wessman came to the desert in 1960 from "across the mountains" (Hemet) where he worked for contractors "on and off" from the time he was 10 years old. He began his Coachella Valley building career as an employee with Warren Coble and Arthur Press.

The Developers - Walt Colglazier

There's a strong rush of nostalgia in Walt Colglazier's John Wayne-drawl as he talks about the desert in 1937 — the year his father, who was a general contractor, brought the family to Cathedral City. It seemed like a good spot.

The Developers - Roy and Bob Fey

When Roy Fey moved his family to Palm Springs from Chicago in 1956, he intended to finish construction of the Desert Skies Hotel and then move on to other interests. Developments such as Canyon View Estates, Canyon Apartments, Canyon West Estates and Canyon Vistas Estates are all projects built by Fey

Editors Letter for May 2010

As this issue goes to press, a new housing report aired on NPR indicating that home prices had inched up about three-tenths of a point, continuing a slow but steady trend that may signal market stabilization.

BY STEVEN BILLER

Wealth - May 2010

Rita Pacheco often travels between La Quinta and her 5,000-square-foot oceanfront home on the Mexican Riviera in Mazatlan. “I go every other month and stay for a month. Between my computer and Skype, I can do business from there,” says Pacheco, who manages vacation properties she owns in the desert. She says her five children thought she had flipped out when she announced she was building a home in Mexico.

BY ELLEN PARIS

What Your Money Buys Now

With house prices down 30 to 50 percent across the Coachella Valley and in Palm Springs, savvy buyers with hard cash and platinum credit have been snapping up prime properties that were likely beyond their price range four years ago. Calgary car dealer Gary Sartorio and his wife, Barbara, for example, scored a great deal at Mirada in Rancho Mirage.

BY ELLEN PARIS

Wealth - Carpe Diem

Inside the building — the 7,200-square-foot headquarters office of HK Lane — President/CEO Harvey Katofsky appears to have perfectly timed the company’s debut