Peter Moruzzi Collection.
Highlights in the development of modernism in Palm Springs.
| 1922 – | |
| R. M. Schindler designs the first modern building in the desert: a cabin for Paul and Betty Popenoe in Coachella. | |
| 1923 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| The Oasis Hotel, a modern masterpiece in slip-form concrete, is designed by Lloyd Wright, Frank’s son. It opens in 1925. | |
| 1928 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| El Mirador Hotel opens on New Year’s Eve. | |
| 1933 – | |
| William Gray Purcell builds a cubist modern house with protégé Evera Van Bailey. | |
| 1934 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| Albert Frey designs (with New York partner A. Lawrence Kocher) the Kocher-Samson office building on North Palm Canyon Drive, an important international style structure. | |
| 1935 – | |
| The avant garde, all-concrete Community Church on Baristo Road, designed by Charles Tanner, is built. | |
| 1936 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| The Plaza Shopping Center, designed by Harry Williams, is introduced as one of the first car-oriented shopping centers in the nation. | |
| 1936 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| Earle Webster and Adrian Wilson design a streamline/nautical moderne house known as “The Ship of the Desert.” | |
| 1937 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| Richard Neutra designs the Grace Lewis Miller house, which includes her Mensendieck posture therapy studio. | |
| 1938 -39 – |  Peter Moruzzi Collection |
| Welwood Murray Library is designed by John Porter Clark. | |
| 1939 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| John Porter Clark builds an international style house for himself on the former El Mirador golf course. | |
| 1939 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| John Porter Clark designs the Palm Springs Women’s Club. | |
| 1946 – | |
| Albert Frey builds a house for famed industrial designer Raymond Loewy in what becomes the desert modern architectural style that he and others pioneer. | |
| 1946 – | |
| Albert Frey builds Villa Hermosa Resort, an ode to international style modernism. | |
| 1946-47 – |  J. Paul Getty Trust. Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photographic Archive Research Library at the Getty Research Institute |
| Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann house, where photographer Julius Shulman would take one of his most famous photographs, is built on West Vista Chino. | |
| 1947 – |  Peter Moruzzi Collection |
| E. Stewart Williams designs a house for Frank Sinatra with a pool shaped like a piano.
Read "The House He Lived In" from the February 1996 issue of Palm Springs Life. |
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| 1947 – | |
| Walter Wurdeman and Welton Becket design Bullock’s department store (now demolished). | |
| 1947 – |  Michael Stern |
| R.M. Schindler builds the Maryon Toole House in Palm Desert. | |
| 1947 – |  Palm Springs Art Museum Collection |
| William F. Cody designs the Del Marcos Motel, which wins an American Institute of Architects prize. | |
| 1947 – | |
| A. Quincy Jones and Paul R. Williams design mountainside additions to the Tennis Club. | |
| 1947 – |  Scott Van Dyke/Courtesy Desert Hot Springs Motel |
| John Lautner designs a striking, geometric modern motel in Desert Hot Springs. | |
| 1947–1950 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| Town & Country Center, designed by A. Quincy Jones and Paul R. Williams, is built downtown in the late Moderne style. | |
| 1948 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| Biltmore Hotel, designed by Fred Monhoff, opens (recently demolished for condominiums). | |
| 1952 – | |
| The Oasis commercial building, an early international style structure, is designed by E. Stewart Williams and erected adjacent to Lloyd Wright’s Oasis Hotel tower. Paul R. Williams designs the interiors. | |
| 1952 – | |
| William F. Cody designs L’Horizon Hotel for Hollywood power couple Jack Wrather and Bonita Granville. | |
| 1952-1957 – |  Tom Brewster |
| Palm Springs City Hall, designed by Albert Frey and John Porter Clark and the firm of Williams, Williams & Williams, is built. | |
| 1953 – |  J. Paul Getty Trust. Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photographic Archive Research Library at the Getty Research Institute |
| Albert Frey remodels the desert modern house he built for himself in 1940 and adds a futuristic, spaceship-like second story. | |
| 1953 – | |
| E. Stewart Williams’ Edris House is built. | |
| Circa 1953 – |  Thunderbird Country Club |
| William Cody remodels the clubhouse at Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage (recently rebuilt). | |
| 1953 – | |
| William Cody designs the clubhouse at Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage (now extensively altered). | |
| 1956 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| Ocotillo Lodge, a collaboration between the Alexander Co. and the architectural firm of William Krisel and Dan Saxon Palmer, opens. | |
| 1956 – | |
| Albert Frey designs the compact Carey-Pirozzi house, perched on stilts on a sloping lot. | |
| 1957 – | |
| Twin Palms, tract homes designed by the architectural firm of Palmer and Krisel, are built for the Alexander Co. They sell quickly, establishing a template for affordable modern homes. They are the first of more than 2,500 Alexander homes built here. | |
| 1957 – |  Bill Anderson/Courtesy Palm Springs Historical Society |
| William Cody’s Huddle Springs restaurant, a superior example of Googie style, opens. | |
| 1957 – | |
| Albert Frey designs Christian Science Church with concrete block and screen wall forms. | |
| 1957-1958 – | |
| Hugh Kaptur’s Impala Lodge (now Triangle Inn) is built with fantastic forms and painted icons. | |
| 1958 – | |
| Richard Pereira and Charles Luckman design the Robinson’s department store on Palm Canyon Drive. | |
| 1958 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| Ground is broken for the Sandpiper condominium development in Palm Desert, designed by William Krisel, who also designed the landscape architecture. | |
| 1958 – |  Palm Springs Historical Society |
| Santa Fe Federal Savings Building designed by E. Stewart Williams with wraparound glass walls, is built on South Palm Canyon Drive. | |
| 1959 – |  Bill Anderson/Courtesy Palm Springs Historical Society |
| City National Bank (now Bank of America) opens. It is designed by Victor Gruen Associates as an homage to Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp chapel, built five years earlier. | |
| 1959 – |  Peter Moruzzi Collection |
| Construction begins on the Spa Bathhouse and Hotel, designed by William Cody, Donald Wexler, Richard Harrison, and others. | |
| 1959 – | |
| William Cody and Ernest Kump design the clubhouse at Eldorado Country Club in Indian Wells (now extensively altered). | |
| 1960 – |  |
| E. Stewart Williams designs the Coachella Valley Savings and Loan (now Washington Mutual) building at South Palm Canyon Drive and Ramon Road. | |
| 1960 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| Alpha Beta Shopping Center, designed by Albert Frey, is built (now demolished and replaced by Ralphs Shopping Center, designed by James Cioffi with a nod to Frey’s design). | |
| 1960 – | |
| Howard and Lawrence Lapham design the 666 Palm Canyon Drive office building. | |
| 1960-62 – | |
| William Cody designs a futuristic gas station on North Palm Canyon Drive. | |
| 1961-62 – | |
| Seven experimental steel houses, some with folded plate roofs, designed by Donald Wexler and Richard Harrison, are built. | |
| 1962 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| Don Saxon Palmer and William Krisel build “The House of Tomorrow,” best known as the honeymoon hideaway of Elvis and Priscilla Presley. | |
| 1963 – | |
| The Maslon house, designed by Richard Neutra, is built at Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage. | |
| 1963 – | |
| Albert Frey builds another house for himself (Frey II) on a steep lot with a boulder as a room divider and practical aluminum roof. | |
| 1963- 1965 – |  Michael Stern |
| Albert Frey and Robson Chambers’ Tramway gas station (now Palm Springs Visitors Center), is built on North Palm Canyon Drive. | |
| 1964 – | |
| Hugh Kaptor designs a yellow brick fire station at Via Miraleste and Racquet Club Road. | |
| 1968 – | |
| John Lautner designs the Elrod House, famed for its part in the James Bond film Diamonds are Forever. | |
| 1968 – |  Peter Moruzzi Collection |
| St. Theresa Parish Church, designed by William Cody, is dedicated. | |
| 1968-1970 – | |
| Craig Ellwood designs the Max Palevsky House. | |
| 1973 – |  Palm Springs Life Archives |
| John Lautner designs the turtle-shell roofed Bob Hope home. | |
| 1975 – |  Michael Stern |
| William Cody designs the Palm Springs Library Center. | |
| 1976 – |  Michael Stern |
| Palm Springs Desert Museum, designed by E. Stewart Williams, opens. | |
| 1978 – |  Peter Moruzzi Collection |
| The low-slung, organic Charthouse restaurant (now Haleiwa Joe’s) designed by Kendrick Bangs Kellogg opens in Rancho Mirage. | |
| 1993 – | |
| Marmol Radziner Associates begins to restore Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House. | |
| 1997 – | |
| Palm Springs Preservation Foundation is founded. | |
| 1999 – |  Jay Jorgensen |
| Palm Springs Modern Committee is founded to save the 1955 Albert Frey-designed Fire Station No. 1 from being torn down for a parking garage. | |
| 1999 – |  Rizzoli Books |
| Rizzoli International publishes Palm Springs Modern by Adele Cygelman with photography by David Glomb. | |
| 1999 – | |
| Palm Springs Desert Museum initiates annual Architecture and Design Symposium. | |
| 2000 – | |
| Palm Springs’ annual Modernism Show is inaugurated. | |
| 2000 – | |
| Palm Springs Modern Committee begins its annual Modern Home Tour. | |
| 2001 – |  David Glomb/Courtesy Orbit Inn |
| Orbit In, a motel designed in 1947 by Herbert Burns, is renovated in iconic style, prompting the renovation of other period motels. | |
| 2001 – |  Chronicle Books  |
| Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Midcentury Oasis by Alan Hess and Andrew Danish is published by Chronicle Books. | |
| 2001 – | |
| Palm Springs Historic Site Foundation sponsors “When Mod Went Mass: A Celebration of Alexander Homes,” a weekend tour/celebration. Celebrations in succeeding years honor desert Polynesia, William F. Cody, Spanish Colonial Revival, and E. Sterwart Williams. | |
| 2001 – | |
| Architectural expert Robert Imber begins Palm Springs Modern Tours. 760-318-6118 | |
| 2002 – |   David Glomb |
| The Maslon house in Rancho Mirage, designed by Richard Neutra in 1963, is summarily demolished without city review, setting off an international outcry. | |
| 2002 – | |
| Palm Springs Modern Committee presents its inaugural Modern Preservation Awards. | |
| 2004 – |  Courtesy Palm Springs Art Museum. |
| Palm Springs Desert Museum changes its name to Palm Springs Art Museum and emphasizes modern architecture with its exhibitions and Architecture and Design Council lectures. | |
| 2005 – | |
| Marmol Radziner Prefab builds the Desert House in Desert Hot Springs. | |
| 2005 – |  Maxx Livingstone Modern Homes |
| Maxx Livingstone Modern Homes reintroduces William Krisel’s original Alexander home designs with updated features. | |
| 2005 – |  Palm Springs Art Museum Collection |
| Palm Springs Modern Committee issues its first lifetime achievement award posthumously to E. Stewart Williams. | |
| 2006 – |  Peter Moruzzi Collection |
| Palm Springs Modern Committee founder Peter Moruzzi produces Desert Holiday, a DVD documentary with narrated history of the Coachella Valley using vintage postcards. | |
| 2006 – | |
| The first feature-length documentary on postwar architecture in the desert, Desert Utopia: Mid-century Architecture in Palm Springs, is released. | |
| 2006 – | |
| Dwell magazine presents a conference (“Dwell on Design”) on postwar architecture and design in Palm Springs. | |
| 2007 – |  Palm Springs Modern Homes |
| Palm Springs Modern Homes, Modern Living Spaces, Contempo Homes, and others replicate midcentury modern homes. | |
| 2008 – | |
| Palm Springs Art Museum exhibits Julius Shulman/Palm Springs, Feb. 20-May 18 |