The living room of Stephan's Folly in Palm Springs.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KELLY PULEIO
Say the name Jack Stephan to just about any Boomer or Gen Xer who grew up watching television in Southern California, and the reply is reflexive: “Stephan! Jack Stephan!” For more than two decades, the earworm permeated ad campaigns for Jack Stephan Plumbing & Heating, opened in 1946 in Los Angeles by a Navy man who went on to become “Plumber to the Stars.”
His signature scarlet suits, low-budget commercials (including catchy ones for Adee Plumbing & Heating, a company he founded in 1949), and lavish Palm Springs vacation pad reveal a sly sense of humor and penchant for theatricality. Here, in Deepwell Estates, Stephan was ready to party.
Robert Lewis & Associates designed the house in 1965 for Dr. and Mrs. Sanford Ehrens in an enclave where neighbors included Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher, Eva Gabor, and William Holden. Stephan purchased it at the turn of the ’70s and completed a radical transformation. Subsequent homeowners have maintained his chromatic vision — the custom furnishings, wallcoverings, and even the bathroom carpeting. In an era of rash neutral-swathed remodels and teardowns, the home lives on as an immaculate ode to what previous owner Ross Klein describes as “a statement house of affluent, high-roller living.”
“It’s not just a time capsule,” Klein says. “It’s audacious.”
When current owners Jeff Weiss (standing) and David Bailey first toured the home, they walked in on real estate agent Matthew Reader raking the shag. They’ve since become expert carpet rakers.
Stephan realized his One Thousand and One Nights–inspired fantasy, known as Stephan’s Folly, with the help of friends in the design and furniture industry. No interior designer has been formally credited with the work. The comprehensive adornment of all surfaces speaks to the entrepreneur’s desire to stand out. “In keeping with his attention-grabbing advertising style,” the Los Angeles Times reported in his 2014 obituary, “Stephan drove Rolls-Royces and maintained a flashy wardrobe, including mega-carat diamonds and suits in his favorite color, red.”
Current owner Jeff Weiss describes a coordinated mélange of “paisleys and plaids and abstracts and stripes … in pinks and oranges” with flashes of ochre and avocado green in the kitchen and bathrooms. He and his partner, David Bailey, have tallied about three dozen graphic motifs. “The design of the interior is so perfect,” Weiss says. “You walk in, and you’re wide-eyed.” This reverence inspires a commitment to keeping things as they are, especially because finding exact replacements on Amazon isn’t an option.
During Klein’s tenure in the home, from 2015 to 2016, he found an expert installer to painstakingly patch damaged areas using surgically removed wallpaper remnants. His efforts caught the attention of the Palm Springs Modern Committee, which honored Klein in 2015 with a preservation award.
“If I had to classify [the style], it’s that period of ‘Casino Chic,’ ” he says. “That moment of late ’60s and early ’70s maximalism.” In addition to its visual decadence, Stephan’s Folly shares another parallel with Las Vegas. With tinted windows and heavy window coverings, which help to explain the astounding level of preservation, Klein says, “you’d never know what time it was. It was cocktail time all the time, because it was hermetically sealed and had brilliant air conditioning.”
The Great Spirit, a compendium of Indigenous texts and lithographs by Anthony R. Quinn, decorates the coffee table.
Weiss touches up a knick on the primary bedroom door.
“That was one of the longest home inventories I’ve ever done,” recalls real estate agent Matthew Reader, who has sold the property three times. “You can’t imagine how many things were in that house. The liquor cabinet was [an] amazing walk-in with a deadbolt. You name it, that house had every gadget.” Stephan and his third wife, Barbara, were fully prepared when it came to hosting their many friends and neighbors, whether it was cooking hot dogs with the Hot Dogger device manufactured by Presto, setting the evening’s soundtrack with the 12-carousel 8-track player stashed in a custom AV closet, or getting glamorously dolled up for the night’s card game using the wall-mounted hard-bonnet hair dryer.
Decorator Tony Duquette’s oft invoked “more is more” adage rings true here. Frances Liberace, Jack Webb, and Julie London were among the neighbors and friends whose addresses are noted in a historical record of Deepwell Estates residents, a vestige of the home’s illustrious past. Weiss keeps it tucked away “either inside the custom glass china cabinet drawer, or in the drawers behind the sunken bar if we are entertaining and need to summon Hef’s lawyer,” he jokes.
Blueprints and a historical record of area residents are among relics prior owners left behind.
A commodious corner bar in the living room abuts the formal dining room, beyond which a card room or breakfast nook leads into the kitchen.
A David Hockney lithograph circa 1965 (the year the house was built) adds a pop of blue; faux flowers are thought to be original.
Stephan owned the house until he passed away in 2014 at the age of 96. Barbara, to whom he was married for 45 years, cites some of her fondest memories as “being there with him and seeing how much he enjoyed our beautiful home. ... Of course, entertaining our friends [was] always a highlight,” she shares via email. One specific indulgence, however, was not allowed — the “No Smoking” sign posted at the front door certainly plays into the design’s longevity.
How best to clean the bathroom carpeting and techniques to avoid back injury while making the beds with heavy quilted velvet comforters are questions most people don’t have to think about. At Stephan’s Folly, these tasks are routine housekeeping.
At one time, this small sitting room appears to have been lockable from the outside. Weiss and Bailey suppose folks may have played games like Seven Minutes in Heaven here.
When Weiss toured the four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath house before purchasing in 2019, he recalls walking in on Reader, the listing agent at the time, while he was tending to the floors. “He’s standing in the living room over the pink shag, raking with a carpet rake,” Weiss remembers with a laugh.
From the living room, where guests still gather around the curved bar and fireplace-facing L-shaped sofa, to the plush bedrooms and baths, these spaces don’t hold back. “The actual house is a good example of Deepwell period architecture, but from the outside, you’d never know what’s roiling on the inside,” Klein says. “I love that dichotomy.”
What is it like to steward this legacy? “It truly is inspirational — different and exciting,” says Weiss, who has used the property as a winter retreat. “We live there, we party there. We’re fairly gentle with it.”
But it’s time to move on and pass the home to its next caretaker. The 3,250-square-foot residence, now listed with Alex Dethier of The Paul Kaplan Group at Bennion Deville Homes, recently hit the market and was priced at $2 million at press time.
The bedrooms feature plush tufted headboards that extend along the ceilings and heavy drapery to keep out the sun.
A hard-wired bonnet hair dryer services the primary bathroom.
Warm lighting and eccentric fixtures add to the allure.
Jack Stephan’s heavy hand set the precedent for subsequent owners to maintain a light touch, a one-of-a-kind heritage that all those involved hope will endure well into the future. “Sometimes the best thing to do to a house is nothing,” Klein observes.
“It really represents that time,” Reader effuses. “It’s my favorite house hands down in Palm Springs. I will never see another one like it.”
Vintage trinkets and vials, including a bottle of Aramis cologne that came with the house, congregate atop a mirrored vanity.