Kaufmann Desert House
- Architect
- Richard Neutra
- Year
- 1946
- Style
- Mid-Century Modern
- City
- Palm Springs, CA
- Collection
- desert modernism
Richard Neutra designed the Kaufmann Desert House in 1946 as a winter retreat for Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the Pittsburgh department-store owner escaping harsh winters back home. Julius Shulman's 1947 photographs, and later Slim Aarons' 1970 image "Poolside Gossip," turned the house into one of the defining images of Palm Springs modernism.
the building
Shulman and "Poolside Gossip". The house's fame rests as much on photography as on design: Julius Shulman photographed it in 1947, and in 1970 Slim Aarons shot the poolside scene that became the widely reproduced image "Poolside Gossip."
the style
The house has been described as "an architectural marvel that helped define the modernist aesthetic of the resort city of Palm Springs" and is considered a textbook exemplar of desert Mid-Century Modern residential design.
More on Mid-Century Modernthe architect
Richard Neutra, a foundational modernist architect, designed the house in 1946 for Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. — the same client who a decade earlier, in 1935, had commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.
More on Richard Neutrasignificance
Designated a Class 1 Historic Site by the Palm Springs City Council. After Kaufmann's death in 1955 the house sat vacant, then passed through owners including singer Barry Manilow and San Diego Chargers owner Eugene V. Klein, undergoing renovations that enclosed a patio, added floral wallpaper to the bedrooms, and removed a wall for a media room addition.
more by Richard Neutra
nearby
- Carey House
- Hamrick House
- Edris House
- Racquet Club of Palm Springs
- Kocher-Samson Building
- Sieroty House