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Their Bear Run country house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and better known as Fallingwater, was completed in 1937. One of the most important architects of the 20th Century, yet often overlooked, Richard Neutra has been on the forefront of modern residential architecture. After moving to the United States from Vienna, Austria in 1923, Neutra worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolf Schindler until 1930 when he started his own practice. Through its thoughtful design and integration with the landscape, the Kaufmann House exemplifies Neutra’s ability to create environments that reflect their owners’ personalities and are responsive to their natural surroundings. This home’s “premarket interest,” expert staging, and strategic pricing translated to its top 2023 performance in the Rancho Mirage market, as well as the record sale and per-square-foot price in Mirada Estates.
Next Owner of Kaufmann House Needs a Passion for Preservation - Palm Springs Life
Next Owner of Kaufmann House Needs a Passion for Preservation.
Posted: Wed, 28 Apr 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Palm Springs' Pool Gossip House is for Sale for $17 Million
On May 28, 1963, Chauncey N. Stoops and Walton W. Stoops, acting as “executors of the will of Grace A. Kaufmann, Deceased,” sold 470 W. Edgar married 34-year-old Grace Arlene Stoops on Sept. 4, 1954, in his Pittsburgh apartment. A flight of stairs in the main courtyard leads to the gloriette, a breezy outoor living room. Unfortunately, only glimpses of it can be seen from the street including its famous ‘gloriette’ roof deck.
Timeline
The area has remained landmarks of historical, modern architecture, and the Kaufmann Desert House (or simply “Kaufmann House”) is no exception. The Harrises purchased the home for US$1.5 million, then sought to restore the home to its original design. Neutra died in 1970 and the original plans were not available, so the couple brought in Los Angeles architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner to restore the design. For clues to the original design, the Harrises looked through the extensive Neutra archives at UCLA, found additional documents through Columbia University and were able to work with Shulman to access some of his never-printed photos of the home's interior. They were able to obtain pieces from the original suppliers of paint and fixtures; and they purchased a metal-crimping machine to reproduce the sheet-metal fascia that lined the roof.
Materials
Look inside: The Kauffman Desert House - Desert Sun
Look inside: The Kauffman Desert House.
Posted: Thu, 05 May 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Its prominent features include slatted metal walls, which create breezy indoor-outdoor spaces alongside landscaping with large boulders, cacti, palms and sandy gardens. The second in our series highlighting the best buildings in Palm Springs during the city's Modernism Week is Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House, one of the most revered examples of residential architecture in the style. But the cracks in Liliane and Edgar’s marriage had become a chasm by 1950 as he spent more time in the desert and more time with Grace Stoops, his nurse/secretary since 1949, who assumed a more active role as hostess. He and Grace became charter members of the Palm Springs Historical Society, and she attended the first meeting in October 1955 as one of the directors.
Colbert’s house was convenient to a social life that revolved around the nonstop revelry of The Racquet Club. An earlier version said that Edgar Kaufmann would go on to commission Fallingwater from Frank Lloyd Wright, however, Fallingwater was built before the Kaufmann Desert House. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio were the breeding grounds for a new modern American Architecture. Many ideas that shaped the profession came from this tiny home and studio on the outskirts of Chicago.
When Kaufmann passed away in 1955, the Desert House cycled through several different owners, including Barry Manilow, and significant design changes were implemented to make the Desert House more comfortable for year-round living. Square footage expanded, the courtyard was covered, and air conditioning was added to the roof—but as a consequence of those "improvements," the house began to crumble and lose its soul. Even before my first visit to Palm Springs, the building I most wanted to see was Richard Neutra's Edgar Kaufmann Residence. I knew the 1947 photos of the house by architectural photographer Julius Shulman which are among most famous and widely known architectural images of all time. Architectural historian John Crosse assembled an 82-page bibliography citing over 150 published articles on the house (most accompanied by Shulman photos) beginning with the house's completion through Neutra's death in 1970.
Commissioned by Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the Pittsburgh department store magnate who had commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright about a decade earlier to build Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, the house was designed as a desert retreat from harsh winters. Constructed as a series of horizontal planes that seem to float over glass walls, the house seems to absorb the mood of the surrounding desert. Key architectural features of the Kaufmann House include its flat, extending rooflines that provide shade and cooling in the desert heat and its expansive glass walls, which dissolve the barriers between indoors and the natural world outside. The use of sliding glass doors and moveable wall panels allows the living spaces to be entirely open to the outdoors, a revolutionary concept emphasizing the therapeutic benefits of living in close contact with nature.

The Harrises also bought several adjoining plots to more than double the land around the 3,200-square-foot house, restoring the desert buffer that Neutra envisioned. They rebuilt a pool house that serves as a viewing pavilion for the main house, and kept a tennis court that was built on a parcel added to the original Kaufmann property. The Kaufmann House is one of the best-known designs by Neutra, a Viennese-born architect who moved to the United States in the 1920s and designed homes for the next few decades for many wealthy West Coast clients. His buildings are seen virtually as the apotheosis of Modernism’s International Style, with their skeletal steel frames and open plans. Yet Neutra was also known for catering sensitively to the needs of his clients, so that their houses would be not only functional but would also nurture their owners psychologically. That’s why the Desert House, built in 1946 by Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra for retail tycoon Edgar J. Kaufmann, stands out all the more.
Modernist architectural marvel made famous by Slim Aarons for sale for $25m

The floating effect is emphasized through a series of sliding glass doors that open up to cover walkways or patios. The way in which Neutra designed the Kaufmann House was such that when the sliding glass doors were opened the differentiation of interior and exterior was blurred as if it was a sinuous space. Material choices in the Kaufmann House also reflect Neutra’s innovative approach to architecture. He employed lightweight steel for the framework, which allowed for slender yet strong supports, and used native stone and glass extensively to enhance the connection to the environment. The integration of these materials was not only aesthetically striking but also functionally significant, aiding in the thermal comfort of the residence through passive cooling techniques that were ahead of their time. The charms of this newly renovated Mediterranean Revival–style home at Montage at Mission Hills lured back homeowners who returned to Cathedral City after a stint in Palm Springs.
Neutra tended toward the new “international style” of buildings (with plenty of airiness and rectangles), which Kaufmann felt would stand out in the desert and surrounding San Jacinto Mountains. The birth of modern architecture had originated in the early part of the 20th century in Europe. Architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Neutra were the first to introduce the style in the United States starting in the 1920’s. However, it wasn’t until after World War II that it saw its rise in popularity, with the escalation of more industrial materials being used in construction. The style was based on the use of new production technologies that generally included steel, concrete, and glass.
The west wing is used for the kitchen and service rooms and the east wing is used for the master bedroom. The family and dining areas located at the center of the home are square to conform to the boxy design of the property. The plan of the house was tailored to the always-warm California climate, which at times can be rather harsh.
The south wing connects to the public sphere and includes a marquee and two long covered walkways. These walkways are separated by a huge stone wall to give entry to the services by one side and the house on the other. The large sliding windows, whose bronze-colored blinds alleviated the silvery glow of the house, lead to an open, adjacent courtyard in the living room and in the master bedroom, open to the pool. Although one wing of the house sits on an east-west axis, the other sits perpendicular or to the cardinal directions to expand the areas of residence.