Palm Springs Modern Committee

Palm Springs Modern Committee Non-profit organization dedicated to the appreciation and preservation of Desert Modern architecture and design.

LIBERACE, TARZAN & A PALM SPRINGS TIME CAPSULEIn 1958, Liberace and Tarzan buried a time capsule outside a Palm Springs ...
08/30/2026

LIBERACE, TARZAN & A PALM SPRINGS TIME CAPSULE

In 1958, Liberace and Tarzan buried a time capsule outside a Palm Springs department store. Because of course they did.

It was opening day at the brand new J.W. Robinson’s on Palm Canyon Drive. Liberace and Gordon “Tarzan” Scott joined Ann Miller, Ginny Simms, Mike Romanoff, and Robinson’s president Donald Buckingham to bury a time capsule beneath the flagpole.

Its stated mission? To show the people of the future “what natives of 1958 looked like.” And the future was asked to be patient. The grand opening instructions set the unsealing for 2058!

The building sitting above that hidden capsule was just as spectacular. Designed by power duo Pereira & Luckman and dubbed the “fashion jewel box of the desert,” the sleek structure took home a prestigious AIA First Honor Award that very same year.

More than five decades later, PSModCom stepped in to help make sure that jewel box stayed sparkling. Then president Chris Menrad spoke in support of its protection, and in 2013 the City Council voted unanimously to designate it a Class 1 Historic Site. PSModCom continued to champion its preservation and adaptive reuse through its 2016 restoration.

PSMODCOM HAPPY HOUR HISTORY:

Pereira & Luckman designed Robinson’s specifically to flex on the desert elements. Deep floating overhangs shaded massive glass walls, while a raised clerestory flooded the aisles with natural light and framed views of the mountains.

They essentially turned buying a hat into an indoor outdoor living experience. Only in Palm Springs!



Archival newspaper clippings: The Desert Sun, via Newspapers.com. Additional archival images via PSModCom.org.

08/30/2026

In 1958, Liberace and Tarzan buried a time capsule outside a Palm Springs department store. Because of course they did.

It was opening day at the brand new J.W. Robinson’s on Palm Canyon Drive. Liberace and Gordon “Tarzan” Scott joined Ann Miller, Ginny Simms, Mike Romanoff, and Robinson’s president Donald Buckingham to bury a time capsule beneath the flagpole.

Its stated mission? To show the people of the future “what natives of 1958 looked like.” And the future was asked to be patient. The grand opening instructions set the unsealing for 2058!

The building sitting above that hidden capsule was just as spectacular. Designed by power duo Pereira & Luckman and dubbed the “fashion jewel box of the desert,” the sleek structure took home a prestigious AIA First Honor Award that very same year.

More than five decades later, PSModCom stepped in to help make sure that jewel box stayed sparkling. Then president Chris Menrad spoke in support of its protection, and in 2013 the City Council voted unanimously to designate it a Class 1 Historic Site. PSModCom continued to champion its preservation and adaptive reuse through its 2016 restoration.

PSMODCOM HAPPY HOUR HISTORY

Pereira & Luckman designed Robinson’s specifically to flex on the desert elements. Deep floating overhangs shaded massive glass walls, while a raised clerestory flooded the aisles with natural light and framed views of the mountains.

They essentially turned buying a hat into an indoor outdoor living experience. Only in Palm Springs!



Archival newspaper clippings: The Desert Sun, via Newspapers.com. Additional archival images via PSModCom.org.

Apparently, you wanted to bring the whole gang… We listened! By popular request, tables for six are now available for th...
08/26/2026

Apparently, you wanted to bring the whole gang… We listened! By popular request, tables for six are now available for the 2026 Architectural Preservation Awards.

Join us Saturday, October 10 at the Palm Springs Art Museum for an evening celebrating the people, places and projects shaping the architectural legacy of the Coachella Valley.

Your table includes admission for six to the awards ceremony, apéro dînatoire and valet parking.

Availability is limited. Reserve your table now at psmodcom.org.

We are proud to recognize the generous sponsors making this year’s celebration possible: Presenting Sponsors Design Within Reach, Intersect Palm Springs, and The S**g Store, Architect Level Sponsors Banc of California and Santa Barbara Designs, and Supporting Sponsors LifeSource Water Systems, CFR Patio and Arizona Tile.

08/23/2026

Gene Autry went looking for radio rights. He came home with a Major League Baseball team. Then he bought them a hotel!

In December 1960, the Singing Cowboy arrived at Major League Baseball’s winter meetings hoping to secure the broadcast rights for a new Los Angeles team. Instead, executives talked him into buying the whole franchise.

Just like that, the Los Angeles Angels were born.

With two months to assemble a roster and pick a spring training spot, Autry knew right where to go: “There’s a nice little stadium in Palm Springs.”

The Angels set up camp at the old Polo Grounds. Soon after, Autry bought a hotel nearby and turned it into their desert headquarters.

He renamed it Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch and dialed up the luxury: first class suites, tennis courts, rowdy bars, and a second swimming pool reserved exclusively for the team. Because nothing says athletic preparation like a private pool 🙂

Soon known simply as the Gene Autry Hotel, it became the ultimate desert crossroads where cowboys, Hollywood royalty, and professional ballplayers gathered under one glamorous roof.

Autry even built a private two bedroom villa for himself on the grounds.

After a legendary 30 year run, Autry sold the property in 1994. Today, the former Gene Autry Hotel is the Parker Palm Springs.

Yes, that Parker.

And Autry’s private midcentury villa is still standing on the grounds. You can even rent it for the weekend.

PSMODCOM HAPPY HOUR HISTORY:

Before becoming Gene Autry’s Hotel, the property opened as California’s very first Holiday Inn!

Built by local developer Milt Hicks, the modest cinderblock setup sat on what was then the far edge of town. Clearly, it had ambitions!


*Color home movie footage provided by Palm Springs' local home movie archive Deserted Films ( #702. [“California, 1964, #1.”] 8mm. Color. Silent. https://desertedfilms.org/our-region/

08/20/2026

THIS HOUSE IS LANDMARKED. THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S SAFE.

Perched over a steep canyon in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood sits one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s smallest masterpieces.

And right now, it’s in trouble.

Built in 1939 for George and Selma Sturges, the 1,200-square-foot Sturges House is Wright’s only Usonian residence in SoCal. His fix for an impossibly steep lot? Anchor the house into the hillside and thrust a dramatic 21-foot deck straight out over empty air.

Supervising construction was a young John Lautner, fresh off his Taliesin apprenticeship and a name Palm Springs would come to know intimately.

In 1993, the house became an LA Historic-Cultural Monument. Today, it sits vacant, neglected, and rotting.

The reports decaying structural beams, crumbling original redwood, and gaps leaving that famous cantilever exposed. The city issued an official Notice of Code Violation, giving the owner 30 days to act. Those 30 days are up, and an Order to Comply is effective August 24.

It’s a stark reminder: landmark status alone isn’t preservation. It doesn’t put a roof over a building’s head or fix the rot.

Visit www.laconservancy.org and see how you can help protect the Sturges House. We’ll be watching August 24 very closely.

PSMODCOM HAPPY HOUR HISTORY:

That “unbuildable” piece of Brentwood real estate? George and Selma Sturges bought the lot for $10 (roughly $240 today) then hired Frank Lloyd Wright to handle the rest. Best ten bucks ever spent in LA history!

08/20/2026

Perched over a steep canyon in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood sits one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s smallest masterpieces.

And right now, it’s in trouble.

Built in 1939 for George and Selma Sturges, the 1,200-square-foot Sturges House is Wright’s only Usonian residence in SoCal. His fix for an impossibly steep lot? Anchor the house into the hillside and thrust a dramatic 21-foot deck straight out over empty air.

Supervising construction was a young John Lautner, fresh off his Taliesin apprenticeship and a name Palm Springs would come to know intimately.

In 1993, the house became an LA Historic-Cultural Monument. Today, it sits vacant, neglected, and rotting.

The reports decaying structural beams, crumbling original redwood, and gaps leaving that famous cantilever exposed. The city issued an official Notice of Code Violation, giving the owner 30 days to act. Those 30 days are up, and an Order to Comply is effective August 24.

It’s a stark reminder: landmark status alone isn’t preservation. It doesn’t put a roof over a building’s head or fix the rot.

Visit www.laconservancy.org and see how you can help protect the Sturges House. We’ll be watching August 24 very closely.

PSMODCOM HAPPY HOUR HISTORY:

That “unbuildable” piece of Brentwood real estate? George and Selma Sturges bought the lot for $10 (roughly $240 today) then hired Frank Lloyd Wright to handle the rest. Best ten bucks ever spent in LA history!

08/16/2026

Charles Hollis Jones looked at a slab of industrial plastic and thought: fabulous.

And the wild part? He was right.

Starting in the 1960s, Jones took acrylic out of the factory and turned it into the s*xiest furniture in California. Naturally, Hollywood lost its mind. Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Dean Martin, Diana Ross, and Tennessee Williams all had to have it.

Then came Palm Springs.

Jones teamed up with heavyweights Arthur Elrod and John Lautner to deck out some of the desert’s most jaw-dropping pads, including the legendary 1968 Elrod House. Lautner supplied the concrete, curves, and sheer drama. Jones supplied furniture you could see right through.

Then, James Bond crashed the party.

The Elrod House and Jones’s futuristic Lucite pieces took center stage in the 1971 007 classic Diamonds Are Forever. Because concrete, high-concept plastic, and Sean Connery in one room was just peak 1970s swagger.

Jones spent his entire career proving that plastic could be pure luxury, furniture could have undeniable s*x appeal, and mid-century modernism definitely didn’t need to play by the rules.

Charles Hollis Jones passed away on August 7 at 81.

Mr. Lucite, transparently speaking, you made the future look completely fabulous.

PSMODCOM HAPPY HOUR HISTORY:
Arthur Elrod once confessed to Charles Hollis Jones that he’d used Jones’s furniture in over 500 houses, then immediately swore him to secrecy.

The reason?

Professional jealousy.

Elrod told him to publicly dial it down and just say it was “over 100.”

Jones took that enforced modesty about as seriously as he took European design royalty.

Years later, while reflecting on his 1968 Sling Chair, Jones acknowledged that legends like Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray certainly knew their way around a drafting table.

And then:

“I did this f**king really simple chair… and it’s better than anything they ever did.”

He caught himself a second later.

“I’m sounding like Trump all of a sudden.”

Mr. Lucite, ladies and gentlemen. Legend.

08/12/2026

Eero Saarinen designed Washington Dulles International Airport to look like the future.

In 1962, it was.

The swooping roof. The concrete “trees.” The futuristic mobile lounges. The whole thing was practically Jetsons before The Jetsons had finished unpacking!

Now Dulles is getting a $22.5 billion makeover.

And yes, the airport needs an upgrade. Those beloved-by-absolutely-no-one diesel mobile lounges have been hauling passengers around since 1962. A new underground AeroTrain will finally connect the entire airport, and new concourses will replace the outdated ones.

The good news: Saarinen’s iconic main terminal is slated to stay.

The less comforting news? The surrounding transformation is enormous, and some of the renderings circulating online are… well, let’s just say Saarinen might need to sit down.

This is exactly where preservation matters.

Modern buildings were designed to evolve. But modernization shouldn’t mean erasing the very architecture that made a place worth preserving in the first place.

Dulles is one of the great works of American Modernism. What happens to it matters far beyond Virginia.

Because the question isn’t whether a landmark can change. It’s how much of the landmark we’re willing to change before it stops being the landmark.

Modernism belongs in the future, too.

PSModCom will be watching. And you should be, too!

THE FUTURE, CIRCA 1962Eero Saarinen designed Washington Dulles International Airport to look like the future.In 1962, it...
08/12/2026

THE FUTURE, CIRCA 1962

Eero Saarinen designed Washington Dulles International Airport to look like the future.

In 1962, it was.

The swooping roof. The concrete “trees.” The futuristic mobile lounges. The whole thing was practically Jetsons before The Jetsons had finished unpacking!

Now Dulles is getting a $22.5 billion makeover.

And yes, the airport needs an upgrade. Those beloved-by-absolutely-no-one diesel mobile lounges have been hauling passengers around since 1962. A new underground AeroTrain will finally connect the entire airport, and new concourses will replace the outdated ones.

The good news: Saarinen’s iconic main terminal is slated to stay.

The less comforting news? The surrounding transformation is enormous, and some of the renderings circulating online are… well, let’s just say Saarinen might need to sit down.

This is exactly where preservation matters.

Modern buildings were designed to evolve. But modernization shouldn’t mean erasing the very architecture that made a place worth preserving in the first place.

Dulles is one of the great works of American Modernism. What happens to it matters far beyond Virginia.

Because the question isn’t whether a landmark can change. It’s how much of the landmark we’re willing to change before it stops being the landmark.

Modernism belongs in the future, too.

PSModCom will be watching. And you should be, too!

Before boutique shopping was a desert sport, Bullock’s was delivering high fashion, furniture, and maximum glamour strai...
08/09/2026

Before boutique shopping was a desert sport, Bullock’s was delivering high fashion, furniture, and maximum glamour straight to the oasis!

It all started in 1930 at the Desert Inn, where Bullock’s set up a seasonal resort shop stocked with desert essentials: tailored sportswear, travel gear, golf clubs, riding boots, and cosmetics.

By 1947, the brand upgraded to a showstopping location on South Palm Canyon. Designed by legendary architects Walter Wurdeman and Welton Becket, the sleek Streamline Moderne building brought floor to ceiling glass, lush gardens, and a major luxury flex: Palm Springs’ very first elevator!

Inside, it was a one stop palace for everything stylish, from fine china and modern appliances to home decor, where a young Arthur Elrod famously launched his interior design career. Bullock’s quickly became the center of desert social life!

Tragically, in the early 1990s, this architectural masterpiece was demolished when asbestos concerns made renovation seem impractical. PSModCom didn’t exist yet to fight for it. Today, it stands as a sobering reminder of why architectural preservation matters. Once a building is gone, it is gone. Become a PSModCom member today and help us keep Palm Springs’ next great icon standing (psmodcom.org)

PSMODCOM HAPPY HOUR HISTORY:
In 1957, Bullock’s stopped local high society in its tracks by announcing the arrival of Mr. Jay, celebrity stylist from the famous Coiffures Americana of New York.

For one week only, Mr. Jay was in town on a sacred mission: to bestow upon the desert the absolute pinnacle of mid-century hair technology, “The Feather-Do”

Promised to be “Streamlined. Sleek. With new lightness,” this was not just a trim. It was aerodynamic glamour for those willing to get properly feathered!

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P. O. Box 4738
Palm Springs, CA
92236

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