On the Home Front: Summer 2019

News worthy of more than a whisper.

Lisa Marie Hart Current Digital, Home & Design, Real Estate

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY HOMEAWAY
Full of Potential

A home doesn’t need to be 3,300 square feet and set on a fairway to succeed as a vacation rental. But it helps. Renting for an average of $800 per night, this four-bedroom, three-bath retreat provided viewers with a look at the desert’s resort lifestyle when it appeared earlier this year on the A&E reality series Vacation Rental Potential. Each episode helps homebuyers in a hot U.S. travel destination choose an investment property while sharing best practices for ROI. With a saltwater pool, hanging swings, and an outdoor dining and lounge area — all facing the mountains and the Indian Canyons Golf Course — this compound could have qualified for a show called Extreme Vacation Rental Potential. The show’s tips for the homeowners apparently work. This place has earned 4.9 out of 5 stars from HomeAway reviewers and at press time was booked for most dates in the heat of June and July.

For Your Coffee Table

This summer, pair your iced coffee with 2 new coffee table books. Ehrlich Yanai Outside-In: New California Modernism (The Monacelli Press, 2019) studies a Palm Springs home that blurs the boundaries between the built and the natural environment. It’s one of 15 private residential projects through which EYRC principals Steven Ehrlich and Takashi Yanai highlight their backgrounds in North African and Japanese architectural traditions, with site choice as the starting point. In Site: Marmol Radziner in the Landscape (Princeton Architectural Press, 2019), modern homes by Marmol Radziner in La Quinta and the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles engage the land while embodying both homeowner and the renowned architecture firm.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTHEW MILLMAN

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY PURE ATLAS

Cactus Silk From a Faraway Desert

“I like the authenticity, the quality, and the pride put into it,” says Mark Ingram of the Moroccan homewares and furnishings that fill his shop. “They make something from nothing and they do it all with hand tools using Old World ways. They either raise it, grow it, or dig it out of the earth, and they’re very good at it. It’s their livelihood, passed down through generations.” Pure Atlas opened in 2015, but many have yet to stumble upon its small corner space in downtown Palm Springs. Ingram and his partner, David Knaus, travel often to Marrakech, where they personally know the craftspeople they represent. New offerings include chairs, bags, and pillows wrapped in soft but durable agave cactus silk. These mingle with the shop’s brass lanterns and trays, time-honored textiles, hand-painted pottery, leather club chairs, hand-blown glassware, and original artwork. “With the materials they use, you can see every step of the process,” Ingram adds.  “Morocco is an ever-changing melting pot of cultures. There are always new discoveries, and our inventory reflects that.”