A piece of 1960s Desert Modernism in Palm Springs, California, is now hitting the market for $839,000.
Named Steel Development House Number 2, the steel-and-glass prefab property was built in 1961 by local architect Donald Wexler, and his partner, Richard Harrison; it is featured in a series of seven prefabricated residences lying at the foot of the towering San Jacinto Mountains.
The kitchen units, bathrooms, and stainless steel walls were realised in a Los Angeles factory before being transferred to the desert for on-site assembly that took barely three days.
Arranged so to benefit of the sweeping mountain views, the structures were originally conceived as low-budget vacation homes for the flourishing middles class of the time who generally hid away in this sunny California destination.
Indeed, Palm Springs owes its reputation not only to the thermal facilities, luxury resorts, gold courses, and SPA centres, but also to the fair amount of prototypes of Modern Architecture tracing back to the mid-20th century.
Stretching over a 130 square-metre area, Steel Development House Number 2 has been keenly preserved over the decades. The two-bedroom property has been updated into a more modern environment, and boasts the addition of a swimming pool and new landscape design penned by Wexler himself.
Actually, Wexler and Harrison’s original project had to include 38 houses but it never reached completion due to the prohibitive steel prices, which made the whole affair no longer financially sustainable.
Today, the property is widely acknowledged as one of Wexler’s most relevant works, an evocative and illustrious part of Palm Springs’ architectural heritage.
Currently up for grabs through American real estate agency Paul Keplan Group, the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012 thanks to the efforts of its owner, thus debuting as the first mid-century modern buildingin the area to snatch such classification.
