DCIDS Freebie: Palms Springs Carchitecture
If anything challenges vintage automobiles for my favorite objets d’art, it’s probably vintage architecture, and there’s no better place to see both of them than the sleepy little desert resort community of Palm Springs, California. Long a getaway destination for Hollywood hotshots, Palm Springs really hit its stride in the post WWII era as the ultimate Mecca of high style Mid Century Modern homes designed by Richard Neutra, William Cody, Paul Williams, John Lautner, and William Krisel, for clients like Bogey & Bacall, Lucy & Ricky, Sinatra & pretty much the entire Rat Pack.
These long, low, lush, luxurious homes still thrive in Palm Springs, and often you can see them ornamented with a period perfect car in the driveway. I’m an annual attendee at Palm Springs Modernism Week and have had the occasion to photograph a few; grab a cocktail and put some Les Baxter on the hi-fi while I ID some of these Mid Century Mad Men wonders.
The slab side, suicide door Lincoln Continental convertible is perhaps the ultimate Jet Age car, and this 1965 is a very special one indeed (as you’ll learn later in this post). Sadly I can’t give you any specifics on the house, but I suspect it may be a Krisel design.
A couple of orphans under this swanky carport: 1959 DeSoto on the left, and a 1958 Edsel station wagon on the right.
I guess Oldsmobile is now also an orphan brand. Shame they never quite got over the grandpa car stigma of their brand name, because back then they had some cutting edge designs and fire breathing motors, like this 1962 Jetfire packing a 394 Rocket.
One of my particular favorites, a 1963 Buick Riviera. Arguably the first ‘personal luxury car,’ and along with the 1963 Corvette split window coupe arguably Bill Mitchell’s design masterpiece.
Ford’s Thunderbird debuted in 1955 at Thunderbird Country Club in nearby Rancho Mirage, and was actually named for it. Ford Chairman Ernest Breech was a member of Thunderbird CC and thought it was a dandy name for the new stylish two seater. This one is a 1956 model, distinguished from the ‘55 by the Continental kit rear spare and the vent door on front fender.
No car company had a more beautiful last gasp than Studebaker, thanks to Raymond Loewy Associates’ stunning designs for the Avanti and this 1963 GT Hawk.
A couple more carport stablemates, a 1960 Dodge Polara and 1959 Oldsmobile 98.
Well whaddaya know, it’s that 1965 Lincoln Continental again, a few year later than the first pic. This time in front of a house I do know a bit about - Richard Neutra’s 1947 masterpiece Kaufmann House, built as a winter home for the same the Pittsburgh department store magnate who commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design Fallingwater. Probably my single favorite house design of all time.
After snapping the pic, the car’s owner walked up to me and struck up a conversation, and turns out he is also the current owner of Kaufmann House (was in 2019 anyway). Also turns out the Lincoln has a very interesting provenance: it was specially built by Ford Motor Company for Palms Springs swinger Peter Lawford, painted for him in that amazing off-code Dusty Rose color. How’s that for Mid Century swank?
