(first posted 12/19/2016) Hows this for a genuine brougham-style bathroom? Wouldn’t this cheer you up in the morning? Just don’t miss when you take a pee.
This 1969 Palm Springs house is a genuine time capsule, virtually unchanged from the day it was built in 1969, except for the kitchen (sadly). It’s for sale ($835,000), and the full listing and more pictures are here, but I just had to share some of these with you. Truly broughamtastic!
That bathroom obviously is part of the master suite.
Even the tv looks original.
Here’s the dressing room, or makeup room, or the fine art gallery.
The Grand Ville living room.
And from the other side.
The well-padded bar.
In the den.
Love that padded edge on the table. Baby-proof? Or designed to catch spills?
The guest bedroom?
The kids’ bedroom? Naw; no kids ever lived here.
The rather spartan guest bathroom.
The dining room.
Those chairs are simply to die for. They look like they’re from the Emerald City in Wizard of Oz.
Hallway.
The outside isn’t much to look at, although the ironwork looks impressive.
So what cars are you going to buy to park in the double garage?
I don’t think I am alone when I declare the period from, say, 1968-73 to be the absolute nadir of home decorating. I hated that stuff then and I still hate it. I cannot imagine hipsters seriously liking this “retro” style at any time during the rest of my life, or beyond.
My parents’ bedroom still features their original bedroom set from the year they were married, 1974. Dark wood Mediterranean style. It’s…unique. And because they’re cheap, and it’s in good shape, it’s not going anywhere any time soon. I think you’re right that early 70’s styles will never reappear in mainstream decorating, but I think you severely underestimate the ability of hipsters to find enthusiasm for the truly tacky, ugly, and odd.
They also still have their ’74 model coffee table and end tables in the living room, sitting uncomfortably next to a perfectly normal ~2010 couch. The end tables are hexagonal and all three have rough-cut slate tops. I not so secretly love the coffee table and see a fight brewing with my wife at some point in the future because I want it for the basement…
My parents have a kidney-bean shaped glass topped coffee table – sort of a Herman Miller Noguchi knockoff – and matching end tables. They finally replaced them back in the late ’90’s and relegated them to basement duty.
When I bought my house in 2006 I asked them if I could have them, but they wanted to keep them. A few years later, they offered them to me, but I’d already bought furniture – plus I wasn’t sure they would survive my cat or the 4 hour trip from their house to mine
My house was butt in 1972, my parents bedroom has yellow and orange shag carpet and our bathroom is yellow with a bunch of flowers on the wall.
That era is bad, but I don’t know if I think it’s the worst. The late 1980’s was pretty awful itself with that weird “perpetual Easter” meets “modern” theme. Glass tables. GLASS TABLES!
The glass tables are for the coke to celebrate your latest hostile takeover.
“I cannot imagine hipsters seriously liking this “retro” style at any time during the rest of my life, or beyond.”
Nobody who would have designed this or lived in this cares one whit about hipsters.
But a lot of people I respect who WOULDN’T live in this, also don’t care one whit about hipsters.
Nobody who would have designed this or lived in this cares one whit about hipsters
That’s a rather obvious statement, since hipsters weren’t invented yet.
So tell me how you really feel about hipsters.
There were hipsters, but they were pretty obscure. You probably hadn’t heard of them.
The first couple of interior shots reminded me of “The Gobbler” in Wisconsin. Sadly torn down now, but here is a “review” of the hotel: http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/index.html
An easy way around this mess:
Bring in a couple back hoes & bulldozers, rake the lot clean of this mistake, and start over. THIS TIME WITH TASTE, TACT, and VISUAL APPEAL.
Just a touch too modest and restrained to be truly broughamistic. but I’d plump for it if I was in the market…..
Wow that’s really something Paul. They say interior design trends precede those in automotive and with that in mind I nominate the Mark IV for a spot in the garage.
I hate Green 70’s exterior paint, but I do indeed love the tu-tone Green Interiors.
A 1968 Cadillac Eldorado in some vibrant color. It just can’t clash with the rest of the house.
Those dining room chairs are likely vastly more comfortable than they look. I used to have a set with that general shape and, despite their avocado green vinyl façade, they were marvelous for sitting.
Having the misfortune of looking at way too many houses in my having purchased four different homes, it’s amazing what people do with and to their homes. Surprisingly, some elements of this place remind me of some I’ve looked at.
One house this one puts me in mind of was here in Jefferson City. It was a fairly spacious house, owned by people without children as the master suite was about one-quarter of the upstairs and the only other bedroom was about 50 square feet. The decorations in the master suite weren’t unlike some of those seen in these pictures. The best part of the place was the 3000 square foot, two-story atrium that had been added to the rear of the house with dual spiral staircases leading to the lower level. It had the requisite hot tub and swimming pool with enough unencumbered floor space for about nine holes of golf.
Sadly, while the price was a bit too high for my tastes (although about a quarter of the asking price of this featured house), I passed. Too much maintenance. And, next door to my big boss at work.
I love going through old original “time capsule” homes, and have walked through several. I always love seeing them, and would almost always vote to leave them alone, like the late 1940s ranch house I once saw with an ancient syrup fountain for soft drinks and mixers in the basement rec room.
But this – call the HGTV emergency response team! 🙂 Actually, I am starting to wonder if aluminum wiring was as popular in California at that time as it was in the midwest? One more reason to stay far, far away.
Aluminum wiring and cheap Korean galvanized water pipe, 2 of the deadly sins of houses built in the 50’s through the 70’s
Don’t forget orangeburg sewer pipes.
Perhaps other areas of the country moved to it earlier, but aluminum wiring is not common in central Indiana in houses built before, say, 1964. Those built from 64-70 around here almost all seem to have it.
My house from 1958 seems to be in a sweet spot – the old electrical stuff like BX cable and fuse boxes were gone, and aluminum wiring and other “improvements” had not yet arrived.
Our house in Tucson was built in 1971. No aluminum wiring, thank goodness, but they all had galvanized plumbing. Ours hasn’t succumbed yet, but lots and lots of houses in the neighborhood have the telltale pipes going up to the roof; they’re a sign that the house has been replumbed because something gave way in the slab.
Apparently our house had gone on the market first without any repainting or other redecorating, and Pepto-Bismol pink was apparently the theme. When we first saw it, it had been entirely repainted, in a sort of Navajo white-French vanilla color, and the carpets were all new. Only the master bedroom and master bath had some leftover window treatments that betrayed the original pink theme.
Lots of houses in our neighborhood, ripe for redecorating and remodeling, because they were built 1968-1973.
You have me thinking of my house in St. Joseph, Missouri – yeah, it is the home of the Pony Express and where Jesse James was shot.
This is the best house I’ve ever had. Built in 1968 the master bath was powder blue and the hall bath was salmon. It had the best built quality of anything I’ve owned.
When we bought it two of the bedrooms still had DuPont brand shag carpeting; when I pulled it up, the tag said “Psychodelic, Red”. There were pristine hardwood floors beneath all the carpet upstairs.
The driveway has gone to pot and the retaining wall is new. I planted the trees that are covering half the shot. This post has got me all nostalgic, which is rather out of character for me!
Yeah, ’58 renovations are not bad–my mom’s 1913 Craftsman in Maplewood, NJ was (ahem) upgraded in the kitchen, bathrooms and electrical then– the electric is all right all around; the “kitchen of tomorrow…today!” has, despite all odds (and my mother’s vocation as an architect wanting to renovate it), stayed much the same save appliances and flooring. The cabinets are indestructible. The toilets (we replaced one a few years back) and tiling in the bathrooms are done up in the finest 1958 motel style (for serious, I’ve seen the exact same bathroom patterns in Googie motels all over America), along with the patriotic-themed American eagle wallpaper, completely at odds with the chestnut wood details, amazing tongue-in-groove flooring, and beautiful plaster work original to the house (we’re the third owners I believe?) and the lovely restoration work my mom has done otherwise. I do miss the original 1913 toilet in the basement we had until recently (just wasn’t worth fixing). That thing was a monster.
From the perspective of this homeowner’s insurance underwriter, aluminum wiring = big red flag!
Plus, I bet you are also quite familiar with the rash of breaker boxes built in the 1970s that were recalled. I’ve seen a bunch of houses with those.
Federal Pacific or Federal Pioneer breakers if I recall correctly.
Zinsco is another brand of panel that was once quite popular that is problematic like the Federal Pacific.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with aluminum wiring if terminated properly. The wires coming into your house panel from the utility are made from???
Aluminum.
Where you run into trouble is wirenutting it to copper – those connections will burn up.
Square D is another brand, if I recall correctly
Square D boxes are problematic? Only the 70’s models, or in general? That’s what ours is, but I think it dates to the early 00’s (panel was upgraded to 200 amps when the kitchen was remodeled by the 2x previous owner). Inspector didn’t seem to have a problem with it.
I used to live in a high-rise apartment built around 1962 that had Federal Pacific Electric electric panels, and I can attest that these don’t always trip when overloaded. These become even more reluctant to trip as they get older. The problem was exacerbated by insufficient number of circuits to handle now-common items like microwave ovens, window A/Cs, and 1800 watt hair dryers. I had to run long heavy-gauge extension cords to distribute the load evenly. FPE is long out of business of course.
I too love to find the time capsule homes and explore them. The syrup fountain sounds very cool.
Oh my dear lord. That’s the backlash to mid-century modern, right there. (Though I do like the tall windows in the living room. And the emerald city chairs.)
If you can wait a year until 1970 the garage will undoubtedly contain a revival Stutz Blackhawk. Kitschy opulence to match the home–If you look at the listing, in the view from the pool the living room windows even look like a neoclassical radiator grille.
To go along with the Blackhawk? A convertible Deville. Triple white. Gotta have a little bit of class.
I think this was what Mrs. Douglas was going for on Green Acres, but on a smaller budget. 🙂
A convertible DeVille, triple white………….in other words, Boss Hogg’s car. 🙂
Yes, but minus the steer horns. Of course that would be silly.
rent it out as a set to film makers for a period TV show or movie set. i see an Excaliber in the driveway at least. but not white and with some exotic animal print upholstery.
Why do I feel like I’m staring at the set of a bad porno?
On the plus side, that white and green room would make a pretty cool setting for a some drunken St Patrick’s day shenanigans.
Get yourself a Boattail Riviera and it would complete the picture.
Boogie Nights. A little upgrade to Jack’s house.
Plus, when you drunkenly stumble into the coffee table or bar, it won’t hurt, because it’s padded!
+1 My thought, exactly.
I like it. Makes me want to decorate in a retro 60’s look for the house and go further with a retro 50’s look for the kitchen. Brings back memories of when I was a kid about 12-14 years old. I had a paper route and got to go into homes on my route that looked just like this, and those same homes also had a new Plum Crazy Dodge Challenger in the driveway. Some may laugh at that bright green, but I notice it has started to become popular again. The bright green seems similar to the acrylic enamel I bought to paint a Deutz Allis tractor, which is not a bad color when it is new and shiny, but when it is old, faded and oxidized, big Yuck.
At least one car in the garage has to be this one.
Some of that is pretty spectacular, some of it is awful.
All that carpet. The house I grew up in, built in ’77, had carpet everywhere, even the kitchen and bathrooms. My mom to this day still has carpet in the bathrooms and in the dining room, though there is now at least linoleum around the toilet.
Looking at the link, at least in this place it looks like the toilet is separate from the carpeted rest of the bathroom and presumably there’s no carpet in there. One of my favorite features in our house is the shower and toilet in a separate room from the rest of the master bathroom. Some sights and sounds are best left private, even in marriage. Same reason I’ll never buy a silent bathroom fan!
They even had shaggy toilet seat covers back then!
Carpet on the the toilet seat. Keeps your butt warm whilst reading the New York Times.
Who lived in this place? That Vegas piano player? What was his name? Liberace?
As to the car for the driveway or garage? The boat-tail Riviera someone mentioned above, say a 1972 in emerald green (a neighbor had one where I grew up) VERY CHIC, or maybe a broughamtastic Imperial (pre-fuselage years of course)… perhaps the ’63 with that round “plump when you cook ’em” dent thing on the trunk lid.
If you’re a Ford fan, the Lincoln Mark is a FINE choice… Mark IV would be the broughamy match to this kind of opulence, but a Mark III or Mark V would be just fine.
No, that place is much to subtle for Liberace.
I’m not joking.
Liberace was a man of high tastes. He also refined his show to connect with the masses, and he gave them what they thought was class. You know, like leisure suits and shag rug.
Two words: Candelabra Car.
Leno drove this on his show a couple weeks ago. He’s usually pretty good at finding the positive in vehicles. But with this he’d just start laughing every time he tried to complement it.
Yes, that’s based on a Mustang, and yes, Liberace actually drove it.
Oh, dear God. I grew up in a classic 60s-70s-era house with fake wood and giant-flower wallpaper myself, but this is just too much. Needs an emergency airdrop of some Danish Modern. For the garage, though, maybe an Avanti and a suitably velour-laden conversion van.
No no no no no. An Avanti is a very midcentury modern car and has no place in the garage of this Bizarro World house. Maybe in 1969 the owners would be haning on to their 1959 Cadillac because they just didn’t make a really stylish car since then.
True; on second thought the Avanti may be too quietly tasteful for this situation. Perhaps a Beetle with Rolls Royce grille conversion instead?
This is where I’m going to turn around and run away screening…
My poor eyes. How they burn.
Needless to say at this point, that was not my favorite era aesthetically.
Just got to find some Harvest Gold appliances now and it’ll be perfect.
Even the word “hideous” is insufficient to describe this laughable monstrosity. Even though we are less than a week from Christmas, I first had to check that today’s read wasn’t one of Paul’s prior April 1st postings, and that this wasn’t Paul’s April Fools’ joke for us. Could this be a Russian Mafioso’s nightmarish vision of western decadence? The appropriate car for this house could be a ZIL with a mink brocade interior. Thanks for the laughs.
Something with Corinthian Leather!
I could see Ricardo Montalban living happily in this house.
Is this post Naugahide era?
Trying to go from modern life to this and back would be jarring to the senses, some of the pictures make my head hurt just trying to process the excesses. It’s rather shocking how everything is in such pristine condition too. Nothing ever got spilled on the carpets or upholstery? Must not have, as cleaning it would’ve been extremely difficult and replacing it impossible.
Grand Ville you say?
Maybe without the donks. They’re not period accurate. ?
Only one choice:
My thoughts exactly: A Stutz Blackhawk and an Excalibur.
Wow, just wow.
Since I’m an AMC guy I’ll park my burgundy 1974 Matador 4-door sedan in there with it’s vel-oooor interior.
On second thought I’ll need a smaller car. How about a Datsun 510, with a cot, bar fridge and hot plate for the second bay so I can live in the garage and never have to go in the house.
Matador Barcelona, you mean. 🙂
Sitting empty now…..Zsa Zsa passed away yesterday !
A pearl white Stutz Blackhawk with gold trim, then a Zimmer Golden Spirit.
Laverne as portrayed by Cher would be its inhabitant!
I like the exteriors of a lot of Palm Springs houses and I trust they’re not all this ghastly inside. I’m struggling to find one thing I like.
If I was building a house, there would be carpet in my kids’ bedrooms, maybe in the master. Hardwood or that clickdown “wood” flooring everywhere else, tiles in the bathrooms. Carpet is not worth it. And in a bathroom? Are they English?!
It has to be that Stutz (Bearcat?). This house is not to my taste but should be preserved as the outstanding example it is of an era that clearly was confused bewteen modern and classic….and tasteless is excess.
I really don’t think I could actually sleep in those bedrooms! The intense colours would close in on any poor victim. As for the green room, sitting in there would feel like being swallowed by some carnivorous tree!
Never thought I would appreciate – indeed yearn for – neutral tones but having seen this I have a pressing need for beige!
This over the top house is nowhere representative of houses in California at that time. I lived in a new housing development in the San Fernando Valley in 1966. Another new home 1968 in San Diego. Last, another one in the East Bay area of Northern California in 1972. Not our houses nor any other house I was ever in back in that time period looked like that in California. The fact that this is Palm Springs, circa 1969, is a dead give away that the town was a resort town for those with money back then.
Excuse me while I go barf up my lunch.
In all seriousness though, I enjoy time capsule houses such as this, especially one that was considered quite glamorous in its day. I think I could actually warm up to spending some time in a posh house that was very 1980s, but this is a little too dated for me.
To me it is so dated it makes it incredible! Where else can you find a time capsule like that? It is actually an incredible house, architecturally speaking. It is a shame that someone will come in and gut it. My only real beef (no pun intended) is the kitchen. Way too tame for such outlandish decor. And that decor cost a ton of money back when that was originally done. How did the fabrics not get faded? And stained/soiled? Maybe only parts of the house got any real usage.
As far as a car in the garage, the 1976 Dunbarton Green Eldorado convertible comes to mind!
I’d say that the owner used this as a weekend home and purchased it and furnished it when they first made it big. Being a weekend home of a successful person probably means that it only got used a few days out of the year. Most of the time it probably sat all closed up but carefully looked after by a local caretaker that made sure when it’s wealthy owner showed up there wasn’t a blade of grass out of place and the house was cooled to the desired temp.
Reminds me of a suite I stayed in once at Trump’s Atlantic City casino a few years back.
Look for gold bathroom fixtures to make a comeback over the next four years.
Wonderful! I recently spent a little time in Palm Springs. Interesting that this house is oh-so 70s as the city is a wonderful place to see loads of perfectly preserved MCM homes and public buildings. However, unlike the Eames furniture which graces those spaces, I feel the furniture and other furnishings of this home are simply too outre to ever come back into fashion. Its a fascinating time capsule; i hope whoever buys it keeps it as is! Money really can’t buy good taste and this is possibly the best example i’ve ever seen!
Dear Lord, there’s such a lack of appreciation for camp in these comments. That Dining Room is basically my Uncle Albert & Aunt Robertine’s home in Newark, California (Furnished in 1974) and not too off from Aunt Dorothy’s living room in Houston (furnished in 1968).
Yes it’s over the top, flamboyant, but of a time we’ll never see again, and we “hipsters” have long priced any remaining Mid Century Modern furnishings to way beyond the average consumers vintage tastes alongside the repros of that era.
For a number of names that I’ve seen that have waxed poetically about some truly laughable GM, Ford and Chrysler interiors of a few years later than this home’s furnishings as the height of luxury…
As a child of the 50s and 60s, I can say that this really was the flip side of the mid-century modern, Danish- and Bauhaus-influenced “contemporary” style of the 1960s. The style of this house’s furnishings and decoration was not rare; the intensity of the colors, though, is a bit more than one often encountered then. And I’ll bet those over-the-top carpets feel fantastic under one’s feet.
We have a room in our house that we left alone when we moved in. It’s a bathroom suite (the tub and shower are in a separate room from the sink, and the toilet has its own enclosure), papered in a green grass-cloth sort of pattern, with big faux-chinoiserie pictures pasted over it, and travertine floor. The cabinets are an antiqued olive green. It’s not our style, but we respect it. Our living room is a mishmash of 1950s contemporary (a 1959 Fisher stereo), with some Victorian era pieces, a huge Oriental rug, a small pipe organ with casework dating back to the late 19th century, and so on.
I hope someone buys this house in Palm Spring with the intention of respecting it, but I won’t hold my breath. It looks like it would function perfectly well as a house and home, as is, for the right people.
Given Palm Springs’s rather notorious reputation as a West Coast equivalent of Fire Island, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would get bought and preserved by a Gay Man under 50 of means that has a special place in his heart for the decor of the 1970’s tract home in suburbia he grew up in granted if he has a strong, healthy bond with his childhood and his own upbringing weren’t very repressive and…well, there were a couple of rooms in Cranberry that happened to match an interior of a Cordoba or Electra 225 in the family fleet at some point.
When I was a kid this color palate was still around in most of the set decor of ‘The Price Is Right’ alongside older relatives homes that hit income surplus in the late 60’s through 1975-ish.
For all the gaudy, there’s a lot to be said about the quality of the materials that are used in this home, the glaring difference is shown in the milquetoast remodel of the kitchen. There’s a few Freewheeler/Great Autos of Yesteryear members that I could think of forwarding this link to.
I’ve been to a couple of the Great Autos Of Yesteryear events, Laurence. One at the Big Blue Whale in W Hollywood. Great shows.
I was thinking the same thing, and for better or worse, I tick all the boxes except the “means” part. Hell, I’d rock this place, just for the pure kitsch factor alone. It’s a true classic.
Mind you, I think I’d need a minimalist NYC loft to counterbalance the over-the-top factor here.
Somehow that house just says “69 Thunderbird fordor” to me. And I don’t mean that in a good way…
That’s a car that came to mind for me also. In case you forgot….
Or better yet, a Bunkie Beak Bird… (although a green one might be better)
My mom’s cousins had a “Green” one. (4 door, 1969)
I like it, though the color of that red velvet cake-hued bedroom is definitely not my jam. In something like blue, perhaps.
This house looks as though straight out of “Suburbia” – an early 70’s picture book from one of my favorite photographers, Bill Owens.
The padded bar… the wood paneling… the wall sconces… I dig it, and it should be preserved.
As for the car(s) in the garage, I was thinking ’72 Ford Thunderbird, with all its broughamy, rococo goodness, but I’m going with same-year Imperial LeBaron, as that car is even *more* of that period and with no other associations outside of that time period.
There’s something about this house that makes me think of a restaurant in San Diego that closed last year: Albie’s Beef Inn. It was a 1960s-style surf-and-turf restaurant that, although located on Hotel Circle, wasn’t a tourist trap. No, it was a San Diego institution that really catered to locals. They did a great business, but the owners of the building decided finally that they wanted something else there, and so a venerable institution was forced out. Things have changed, but change does not always equal “better.”
Aw that’s sad about Albie’s. There’s another place in SLO right off the 101 called Madonna Inn. Best steaks in the Central Coast.
Aww, I don’t know about that! Next time you’re in SLO try F. McLintock’s or head south to Nipomo and try Jocko’s. But the Madonna is an interesting place to overnight and some of the rooms can give the featured house a run for its money!
That’s what I used to think too that McLintock’s was best for steaks, been there 3 or 4 times. Then one day we asked our innkeeper Sally if there were any other good steak restaurants in SLO and she asked if we had tried Madonna Inn. We said you mean the hotel with the rooms that look like bordellos? She said yes. No one thinks a place like that would have good food, let alone great steaks, so tourists don’t come in off the 101. It’s a best kept secret for the locals apparently.
We never went back to McLintock’s after discovering Madonna Inn. And it’s a real trip inside especially this time of year. If you wondered what the Palm Springs house would look like on Christmas check out the pic above. The founder Alex Madonna passed in 2004. If it’s still in the family the food should still be good.
+1 I was thinking exactly the same thing.
We overnighted there on our honeymoon in 1988. No, it has nothing to do with the pop star:
http://www.madonnainn.com/features.php
Hover over room names to see a pic.; they’re all unique & if you don’t like Broughams, see Antique Cars or Caveman. There’s even an Austrian Suite if you’re into Sound of Music or Pinzgauers. Too bad there’s no Bill Blass or Cartier Suite.
This looks straight out of Architectural Digest circa 1972. The original owners paid some serious coin to a decorator to create this. Call me crazy, but I almost think it should be preserved as a period piece–similar to high Victorian. Egads, you’d NEVER want it, but it certainly captures an era.
As for the right car to park in the garage, I think at least one should have an interior like this ’74 DeVille.
Or the 74 Fleetwood Talisman interior.
You got the “high” part right…
I’ll take a non-conventional approach to what kind of car would belong in this house’s garage. How about a Jaguar E-Type?
Now, I like E-Types, but I can really see this house’s original owner — in the late 1960s or early 1970s — owning such a car. I think the light blue example would fit in very nicely.
I can see it, but the owners would probably feel the need to improve the original styling somehow. Wide whitewalls, giant fluffy seatcovers, maybe a bunch of rhinestones….
Like this maybe?
Wow, that’s…special
The principal problem is, unsurprisingly, a lack of restraint. There’s too much going on everywhere you look. And you can bet it all cost a pretty penny in its day.
If this happy family of exuberance were separated, and each piece made the point of interest in a more calming interior the result would be just as stunning but in a good way.
I wouldn’t be throwing it all in landfill straight away.
Look for the Exner Duesenberg revival in the coach house. At the far end of the row comprised of the candidates listed above.
GN beat me to posting Cadillac’s so-tacky-it’s-awesome Maharajah upholstery in the 74-75 DeVille, so I’ll go with a ’75 Fleetwood in Monticello velour.
Let this monument to the decade of bad taste stay as it is in all of its spectacularly tacky glory.
Wow! I looked at the realtor’s site and I am in love. I wouldn’t change a thing, and I’m not sure why……I think part of it is, the house style just doesn’t lend itself to much of any other decor besides the Barry White look. And, it reminds me of the “greatest generation”….it’s the house my grandparents would have aspired to if they could have afforded it. It’s a time capsule for sure. I imagine someone born about 1909 built it in 1969 as a retirement home, a “reward” for a lifetime of work. It’s a nice reminder of how even luxury homes not that long ago had wall AC units, 8 foot ceilings, Formica counters, white appliances, etc. When even starter homes have granite, stainless appliances and the like, they lose their cachet. And nothing belongs in the garage but a Cadillac. MAYBE a 1980’s W126 Benz as time marched on and the Cadillacs turned to crap. But the 1980’s would have been the last new car purchase by this person I’m betting…..
I’m with you 100%!!
Good lord, it’s like a Tijuana whorehouse minus the subtlety.
Cadillac del Caballero
I love it, truly amazing that it has survived this long with so much of its originality intact. So nice to see all the custom period perfect upgrades like the raised platform and what ever you want to call that on the wall behind the bed. Also all the almost certainly custom built furniture. Since this is Palm Springs I’d say that someone bought this as their weekend home when they made it and in the process of making it just didn’t use it that much as years went on.
Resort/weekend homes are some the best time capsule finds. Near the town where my kids go to college there is a community that was concived as a resort community with a golf course, indoor and outdoor pools, lake front parks and a marina. Many of the homes were definitely weekend homes that ranged from a basic cabin to some that were definitely high end. Because so many of them were weekend home there are an amazing number of mint condition time capsules popping up on the market from time to time.
One home in particular I saw last year that sticks out had magazines from the early 90’s in the guest bedroom. I don’t remember what was on the cover that made me take notice and check the date.
I thought I went to RetroRennovation by accident when I saw this post, heh.
EDIT: Well well well, I’m not crazy: http://retrorenovation.com/2016/02/19/palm-springs-time-capsule-home-in-technicolor/
Wasn’t this house featured in every Quinn Martin Television Production back in the Seventies?
And I’ve got just the tree for it.
It’s not exactly my taste…and yet…I find it strangely alluring. Apart from feeling I was on the live set of a Matt Helm movie, it actually looks really comfortable.
I think a nice turquoise Mark III and the Hollyridge Strings Christmas Album playing on the combination Westinghouse Television-Phonograph would be pretty great, with a Cutty on the rocks.
’77 Olds Toronado XSR would be a good fit for this scene.
Or a Fleetwood Talisman. The four seater with crushed velour upholstery of course.
I see this look coming back strong in the White House, which some might imagine would be prettier in pink, with gilt filigrees.
I like it. I don’t know why but I do.
Go to the place in Google Earth, and do street view. What is the car under cover in the driveway?
The Stutz and Zimmer in the garage for sure. A Caddy just isn’t ostentatious enough for that garage. The place seems Libby inspired!
It’s really wierd how the realtor copy just mentions the custom drapes etc. without any characterization at all. If there weren’t any photos someone would think it sounded great and then have a truly jaw dropping experience in every room. Except the kitchen. But the listing does not mention that it was redone, and the flooring is the same as the next room. I think maybe it just seems out of place because maybe someone actually removed the silver and orange flowered wallpaper and painted the wall off white, of all things, and replaced the refrigerator. The cabinets are at least a couple decades old and they never bothered to put handles on them. And the dishwasher looks like 1969 to me, definitely not much later. Weird, but it could be an original part of the house and it just looks out of place because of what the buyer did to the rest of the place.
Not to my taste, but somehow appealing.
I suspect the original owner grew up in serious poverty in the 1930s,then made decent money in the post war boom period.This was their reward to themselves, alongside something like a Stuz Blackhawk or customised ’73 Eldorado when they retired.
Looking at the general excellent state of the furnishings, they seemed to love it a lot.
I hope it gave them great happiness furnishing and living in it.
uh, trump’s cali pad?
The rooms all have window air-conditioners.
Why would a home like this have not been built with central A/C ?
Ahh velour luxury. To match the driveway, I would line it with more velour. To start: a baroque Dodge Getaway van with all the trimmin’s including captain’s chairs pour tous… next, a 1992 Lincoln Town Car with more sumptuous velour. After that, a diesel pusher RV with a chauffeur dressed in suede that has fleece blankets for its linen brigade.
Pussy cat would have a velour condo-scratching post and Fido a fur lined doggy door with button tufted doghouse in the back 40.
The Harley Brougham would have have velour button tufted seats with landau saddlebags with Harley Crest.
Finally the Tonka F-650 would come with 10 lug wire wheels, more landau, and obligatory velour.
Everything with floor pans and/or foot rests would have deep, deeep, cut-pile carpeting for ultimate comfort and luxury.
And finally, the smartphone, phone, PC, fridge, and toilet seats would be fur lined as well.
Sigh.
It’s what dreams are made of.
I can barely afford my house I paid $75K for in 08. Much less any cars to put in the garage. I’ll let you guys buy it.
OMG. What a scream. I love kitsch from the period, but there’s just too much.
I have the Better Homes & Gardens decorating books from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Definitely of a period. I know nothing about decorating, but the pictures in those books are very much like what you see with this house.
The acrylic grapes on the table are definitely up my flue as I have a good sized collection of them. Platinum grade tacky and give me pleasure every time I see them.
Additionally, my house is partially furnished with things that have been in my family since childhood: Broyhill Sculptra bedroom set, marble topped coffee and end tables and pristine chair [1963], outrageous lamps and ashtrays from the 50s and 70s I’ve scored from antique shops in Newport OR.
People don’t get it, but it makes me smile.
I’ve refinished a coffee table with marble inserts from a set my parents had dating back to 1970 [one of the lamps, avocado green and gold comes from that set] and it gives a great deal of comfort being around those things as my parents are both gone now.
The pieces are all real wood [not that wood toned particle board and “bonded ” faux leather crap made today] , high quality stone and cloth and will last another 50 years.
I actually purchased two chairs in avocado green velour at an antique mall here in Tucson to “bring the whole room together”. It’s like the living room that the kids could never enter in the 60s. I savor the reaction from service people when they walk in the door. Priceless.
But an entire house like this would suffocate me. It’s just too much.
Fandangtastic!! This is the from that era which just predates the cheesy open shirt, from the period when the protests against Vietnam war were raging- but these people were cocktailing (and pilling) it through, ignoring the outer world. Their high standards of perceived perfection were the fertile rhizome that influenced immensely successful designers of today like Kelly Werstler and Jonathan Adler. Sure, both riff mostly off the early sixties but there is definitely a link.
In the garage, three important items:
1) a Jag (referred to as such) E-type convertible
2) a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow
3) a hat box filled with slinky lingerie that the perfect wife wore when the gardener came over to attend to her non-horticultural needs on Tuesdays (while the husband was at golfing) and the exact *same* box of lingerie the husband wore Fridays (when the wife was at the tennis club) for the pool boy’s visits, attending to more than just the pool, if you get my drift. All this precision was undoubtedly balanced by an unexpected kink or two.
A guest suite at Trump Tower?
Gotta be honest-love the house! But then, I’m a sucker for vintage stuff.
I like it too, if for no other reason than for being a “survivor” (whatever that is in house enthusiast terms). You just know it’ll be gutted and flipped into another boring ass house with crappy disposable modern sensibilities.
The only saving grace here is that it’s in Palm Springs, where if anywhere there just might be a buyer interested in preserving something like this. Obviously it’d be wiped off the map if it was in Peoria, but in Palm Springs it’s actually got a chance.
Time capsule is the verbiage in house parlance. I always cry a little bit when I see savage whiny spoiled entitled brats smashing beautiful 1950s tilework so they can put boring crap from Home Depot in and have the same granite or quartz kitchen that all their friends have.
xequar: I’m with you. My first RE purchase was a condo built in 1957 that had absolutely perfect chocolate brown counter tile and knotty pine cabinets. I would never have touched it for the world.
2nd purchase was a SF Valley house [1947 early postwar housing boom] in Van Nuys with, again, perfect tile counters in aqua with a maroon accent strip.
It had also had a 70s update with some wallpaper in aqua and avocado green, but it worked and I didn’t change a thing. It was a happy place to be.
There’s one flipping show I watch and all of the wife’s decorating choices are white and gray. As dull and boring as car interiors have become.
The “whiny, spoiled, entitled brats” think history began on the day they were born.
They’ve got the cliches down: “open floor plan” “granite” “stainless steel” “put our stamp on it”, “so outdated” , “blow a wall out” “I can see myself entertaining here” and “charm”. Ugh.
“Oh look. A window. I love the vintage charm. I can see myself looking out the window”.
What I wanted to be sure of was the roof didn’t leak, the electrical worked and the plumbing wouldn’t explode.
But these snowflakes could care less so long as it’s all shiny and sterile looking. Even if it’s a cheesy first time over priced flip.
To be fair, it wouldn’t be a very exciting TV show if it consisted of a roof inspection.
I dunno, Mike Holmes is the most trusted man in Canada and has made a pretty lucrative career out of TV shows about house inspections et cetera.
True, Mad Anthony. But the mindlessness is just grating.
If all the appliances, plumbing and electrical work, the roof doesn’t leak and the place is livable it doesn’t “need” to be “updated” to be able to live in it.
30 year mortgage. Plenty of time to get into further debt.
I would think it would make more sense to live in it, discover what works and what doesn’t and make changes rather than having the latest trendy flash just because everyone else has it.
But then, that’s just me. The featured couples always seem to have such delicate sensibilities rather than long term plans.
Right! I mean, can you imagine this 1940 powder room escaping one of those shows?
I wouldn’t touch that powder room, xequar. I love period stuff. Thanks for the shot.
About the size of the entire bathroom in my 1947 shack in Van Nuys.
Must have been pretty upscale to have a second toilet back then, much less a powder room !
Wow. That wall tile is really interesting, and I didn’t know they were doing pink porcelain that far back–thought it was more of a 50’s thing. Very nice.
My main floor bath is original tile from ’47–just black and white but it’s appropriate to the house. Sadly someone replaced the sink and counter in the 90’s or ’00s but I’m glad it wasn’t completely redone.
The one thing I cannot abide, though, is a tile kitchen counter. Yes, they are often part of period décor (I think more common on the west coast than here back east.) But how the *hell* do you keep it clean? Grout and food prep are not friends.
I have that exact sink in my basement powder room. American Standard from 1951. The toilet was long gone replaced by an ’80s white one that didn’t work well and needed to be replaced. There were still two manufacturers making pink toilets as of 6 years ago when I moved in but one of those I know discontinued it (I’m sure there is demand for colored bathroom fixtures still, but these companies don’t market them to mid-century home owners; if you didn’t peruse their online catalogs you’d never know they still made them). Anyway at the time I was planning to renovate the bathroom and even bought an elegant European white sink, but that project has and many others has been put on infinite hold.
Don’t forget, all this new stuff that “you just HAVE to put in!” is made by the sponsors of the show.
After looking at the other site where this was recently featured and the comment there that the current owner is the second owner I’d say that the furnishings are not original to the house. I’m thinking 1975ish is when the majority of the current decorating was done.
Looks like late 60s, to me Scoutdude. Have you ever seen any episodes of The Mothers In Law [67-68 IIRC] ? The sets are filled with this sort of decorating.
Eye numbing collectively. Don’t try this at home. Less is more.
You keep making assumptions without any factual basis. The house was built and furnished by a builder for himself, in 1969. In 1994, after he passed, it was sold the the parents of the current sellers, who have also recently passed. Two sets of older folks.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Palm-Springs-house-untouched-since-1969-hits-the-10804286.php
The realtor indicates that the furniture was custom made for the house. The wicker stuff might not have been, but most of what is shown looks like it would have been the original.
Maybe someone can lease it out for studio work. A select few houses in LA have been in multiple movies.
To bad the kitchen was disturbed. Maybe blueprints are on file and a restoration initiated.
Reminds me a bit of “Love American Style” or “Name of the Game” TV shows.
Looking at the pictures the kitchen is the weakest link of that house. I wish it had some of the same “style” that the rest of the house has. Somehow granite and stainless won’t look right in that kitchen. I would prefer some avocado green or harvest gold appliances!
That’s the house the Brady family would buy if they’d have won the lottery…
Somebody better get some purple and yellow paint in that kitchen so it can clash with everything else too. A horror movie around every corner. Just awesome.
I have pictures of my great aunt’s house when we cleared it out. Stuck fimly in 1954 when she moved in. A legendary family story of how it came to be.
I think we can conclude that brougham was a mistake in both cars and houses because it seemingly universally ended up looking tacky instead of fancy.
And mid century houses fit better into their own capital anyway.
Paul, what an interesting discovery! You’ve written before (using a picture of President Reagan at his kitchen table) about how comparatively small houses used to be, and I have to say based on my slight knowledge of greater Palm Springs area, that this house, though incredibly gaudy, was quite grand at the time! 3,350 square feet was big!
My grandparents, who were quite wealthy and lived in Brentwood, had house about 15 miles southeast of this house at the same time in Indian Wells at the entrance of Eldorado County Club, and by today’s standards its low profile would make it seem tiny. It was actually quite nice a fairly modern, built around 1964 I think. I took a picture from Google earth to show.
Anyway, their cars were Lincoln Continentals and Ford’s through the 1960s and 70s. But the car that was parked in the special third garage door was President Eisenhower’s golf cart (apparently Poppa bought it used, but I don’t know the whole story).
So my guess for the Broughamtastic house is definitely Cadillac Eldorado or Stutz, but with a custom golf cart as well!
How is the city of Palm Springs for ready cash? Surely a time-capsule such as this with all its original furnishings intact must be a pretty unique proposition and having survived nearly half a century, be worth preserving.
I have been to a few historic houses in Melbourne that are owned by local councils, and to have the furnishings still with the house is very rare.
This looks fantastic to me, I will take baroque festive over clinical any day of the week.
As far a vehicles for the garage, A green first gen Cordoba with t-tops and a Scout.
I just want to know how you keep 50 year old carpets looking this clean and fresh. Mine are six years old and already getting threadbare in high-traffic areas, not to mentioned stained and difficult to clean. Also, that bathroom is bigger than my entire last apartment.
Did the furnishings actually convey with the house sale? Usually they don’t, no matter how much they’re on display in the real estate listing photos. Unfortunately the link to the listing is gone so all I can tell now is that is was listed by Berkshire Hathaway; ironic for the sort of house Warren Buffett would never live in given his famously modest tastes.
Car in garage: 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman
The initial photos make me think that this is the interior of Barbie’s Dream House. Some of the later ones I believe are the re-model once the Lucky Charms guy bought it from Barbie (and Ken).
Mar
A
Lago ?
Looked it up on Zillow. It took seven more months to sell this house (August 2017) at a deep discount—$800,000 (original asking price was $850k.
Those owners kept it for a year and a half before putting it on the market for $1.7 million. It took six months to sell for $1.1 million.
13 months later it was back on the market for $1.9 million but the listing was taken down after six months with no sale.
The most recent listing suggests it was not re-decorated by any of the owners in the last six years.
If I remember correctly, the 2016 listing showed a kitchen decorated in an early 1990’s style like my own.
The kitchen in the 2022 listing can not be more that a few years old. However, it does match the theme of the rest of the house.
As a comment above noted, a movie studio should snap this up; it could be sets for multiple late 60s or early seventies movies, of which there seem to have been quite a few lately.
MY EYES!!
MY EYES!!!
Just the first shots sent me immediately to YouTube, to play ‘Black Hole Sun’ as loud as I thought the neighbours would tolerate.
Much as I hate the E-type suggestion, it does seem appropriate somehow. As long as it’s a 2+2 with the 12cyl.
Taking a look at the 178 photos of this house that are currently on Zillow, I’m impressed by how well the owners have cared for this house. Despite the elaborate decor, it appears as clean as a whistle, and in good repair.
To me it looks like it was built by someone with new money – either an entertainer or the ex-wife of a successful businessman or industrialist – but that money has now been around long enough to be approaching the vaunted status of old money. Or maybe it was built as a second home by someone whose main residence is a very traditional home that has been in their family for years, if not generations. Either way, I’d love to know who built it and/or owned it all these years.
Jeez, who first built and lived in that house, Zsa Zsa Gabor? I’d go blind with all that bling. But it is appropriate for the Hollywood community who have homes in Palm Springs.
TACKY, to say the least. It could be used for a few sets in a John Waters movie!
You beat me to the punch….
I’m with those who love going through time capsule houses and likewise would not want to see it ripped out. The last This Old House I ever watched was the obligatory ‘first walk through’ episode with the most magnificent and immaculate (salmon) pink and grey tiled bathroom. They ripped it all out, and I never watched it again.
Agree with you there!
Thinking it’s the “1969” version of a luxurious, pseudo tacky, “1965” home.
My house was built in 1968…when I bought it in 1993, it had an avocado stove; sparkle in the spray ceiling; the original bordello red shag carpet in the master bedroom; Sears Kenmore gold tone washer & dryer in the laundry room; and peel & stick tiles in the kitchen and den. In keeping with the 60’s trend, all the walls were a dingy yellow/orange color because the entire family smoked.
Took we 3 plus years to bring up to the 1990’s.
Think goodness I missed most of that period in the 60s as I graduated from high-school 1969, left home to study architecture in oh so subtle Miami. While in school valet parked autos at a club on Miami Beach (had to have the look and drive a manual). Met a young lady there, who ‘escorted’ men with New York accents. She would tip me $20 each time I opened the car door for her (coming & going). We later became friends and would go to the dico clubs together and dance. Besides our innocent fun times together, her Miami Beach ocean front 2-bedroom high-rise apt. remains in my mind. Early 70’s, carpet / upholstery, all textiles custom colored in a sky blue to match her eyes. At the time enjoyed sky-blue.
Moving foreword a decade, after I became an Interior Designer, landed in design firm, NYC. OMG, the glitz 80s. I was hired because I could both do glitz and not be intermitted by self-indulgent rich people. My first client account I was assigned to was, Trump, Atlantic City.. In my now senior years I tend to remember both the worst and best of my Interior Design career experiences. One project I wish I could forget is when I renovated some high-roller suites at the Trump casino hotel In casino hotels, high-roller suites were free in the 80s. Client (a Trump not to clarify) insisted large/long custom made sofas be covered in white silk. Each sofa cost as much of a mid-size auto. Each suite required three back up sofas in case one was stained. A high roller suite required a one-hour turn-around between guests even if it required changing furniture. Not surprised when that casino hotel went bankrupt.
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Great story Al! I have to say that both Atlantic City and your former client came to mind when I read this post.
Good grief. I can feel the allergies (those carpets!) from 5000 miles and an ocean away. And yes, there are a number of cars to go with this place, none of which I would ever desire or own.
I’m just glad this place has escaped the flood-tide of “flipper gray” (which is not named after the dolphin!), repeatedly, since 2016.
I like it, but if it were mine I’d want something that would a break from it while out on the road. BMW 2002.
In reality I agree with the second-home theory, the owners would occasionally come down from LA in their Cadillac or suitably high-end station wagon but the car most frequently seen outside it would be the caretaker’s Valiant.