VISTA LAS PALMAS - PALM SPRINGS
Once the 'Beverly Hills of Palm Springs,' Vista Las
Palmas makes its return decked in mid-century splendor

From the pages of CA-Modern magazine
By Jack Levitan

Back in their heyday, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra cavorted about the pool at Peter Lawford's open-beamed home in Palm Springs' Vista Las Palmas. Marilyn Monroe stopped by -- and so, people say, did an on-the-make Jack Kennedy. Jackie Cooper and Cyd Charisse lived in the neighborhood, as did George Hamilton and world-class hoofer Donald O'Connor.

How about bodice-busting literary lions? Sidney Sheldon ('The Other Side of Midnight') and Harold Robbins ('The Carpetbaggers') both had pads among the palms.

Tales suggest that the 'National Enquirer' could have served as the hometown paper. A casino owner from Vegas turned his added-on living room into a gambling 'museum' that was much more than a museum. And, as busloads of tourists learn every year, Elvis and his bride Priscilla spent their honeymoon in Vista Las Palmas in a custom home that architect William Krisel provided with spreading, birdlike wings.

Whatever else it may be, Vista Las Palmas is certainly the world's most celebrity-packed neighborhood of modern tract homes.

Vista Las Palmas, which began construction circa 1958, achieved immediate cachet by being built just to the west of one of Palm Springs' most classic neighborhoods, which today is called 'Old Las Palmas.'

Even stars, however, dim. Vista Las Palmas -- called 'the Beverly Hills of Palm Springs' -- never really hit the skids. But as golf course communities sprouted down valley, Palm Springs lost some of its appeal. "Then all the Rat Pack moved out to Rancho Mirage," says Jackie Storm, a real estate agent who has heard all the stories.

"When I moved here," says Robert Baeten, who arrived six years ago, "practically every house had bars on the windows."

Many residents had lost their faith in the neighborhood's characteristic modern architecture, adding fake adobe fronts and Spanish tile roofs. "You will see houses where the owner has literally declared war on the architecture," says Bob Dickinson, a lighting designer who has illuminated the Olympics ceremonies and the Oscars, and moved into the former gambling museum, which he meticulously restored.

The neighborhood of roughly 375 houses, most of them modern and most developed by George and Robert Alexander, has been on the mend since the late 1990s. Home prices have skyrocketed, dozens have been restored to their mid-century splendor, or modernized in keeping with the style. The renewal has also been marked by an influx of younger families, and by a neighborhood that has organized to fight crime, and handle traffic and other such problems.

And Vista Las Palmas still has its stars -- long-timer Trini Lopez, Ruta Lee, Carney Wilson. Most newcomers tend to be well-heeled professionals from Los Angeles, San Diego, Northern California or the East -- real estate developers and brokers, people in the entertainment industry, designers and writers. Many are young couples both gay and straight, and many have children. Russ Filice, a broker with Sotheby International Realty, says buyers are getting younger, with many in their 30s.

There are fewer and fewer snow birders, he says, and more year-round residents. Many have pied-a-terres elsewhere, but spend more time in Palm Springs.

Realtor and serial remodeler Mark Anton has restored 11 houses in the neighborhood since 1997. "Whatever I've done," he says, "has been in character with the house." Back then, houses were selling for $300,000. Anton ensured that people knew Vista Las Palmas had returned at the start of 2003 by selling the first $1 million home in the neighborhood -- to Bob Dickinson and Bob's partner, Mike Marler.

"People said, 'You're crazy for asking that much money,' " Anton says. When Anton got it, the 'Desert Sun' was impressed, headlining its story: "The sky's the limit." Within a year another home in the neighborhood sold for $2 million. Dickinson and Marler put their house on the market for $1,850,000. Homes with their modern looks are the most desirable, Anton says. "A Spanish house in the neighborhood, nobody wants them," he says. "They're ugly. They're terrible. They sell for significantly less."

People are attracted to the neighborhood for the same attributes that made it popular originally. Vista Las Palmas is close to downtown -- 15 minutes by foot -- yet feels remote because it lacks streetlights and through traffic, has all utility lines buried, and is in the shadow of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Residents love gazing at the hills, which provide the neighborhood with an awesome backdrop. Justine Hamilton, a young mother, can enjoy the sight even before stepping out of bed. "You want to wake up," she says, "you want to see the mountains and your pool."

Baeten and his partner Russ Filice, chose their home in part because it looks dead on at Dry Falls, a slick wall of granite that turns anything but dry after a heavy rain. "That's the view everybody wants," Filice says.

They recently sold the home to Thom and Sarah McElroy, who had a home only one block away. But like many people in Palm Springs, they enjoy 'moving up.'

"It's just a nicer house overall, Thom says. "Russ did a complete remodel from the ground up. Every detail has been taken care of."

The neighborhood's proximity to the mountain also helps. "Cooler in summer, warmer in winter," an early sales brochure promised, "the Las Palmas area is relatively free of prevailing winds."

Walking through the neighborhood, California fan palms and mountains often dominate the views. And people do walk, jog, and bike, often in groups. Mothers push strollers. Men walk Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Almost every household in Vista Las Palmas has a dog; many have two.

"It's quiet," Anton says of Vista Las Palmas, "the architecture is appealing, and there's a real sense of neighborhood. It's really, really private."

"We meet people on the street, people we've just met that day," Dickinson says. "We'd say, 'We're having dinner. Come join us.' We would never do that in Los Angeles."

The McElroys, who drive up from Newport Beach with their teenage sons once or twice a month, just enjoy lazing by the pool and dining out. "Just spending good, quality family time," Thom says. "There's something about Palm Springs. You just pull into the city limits, you kind of mellow out. You get peaceful and restful. That's the appeal of it."

Most socializing, everyone says, takes place in people's homes or around their pools, not in restaurants or bars. "It's really about the people," says Mark Ware, a fashion designer who is new to the neighborhood. "It's not about figuring where to go at night, to a club."

Socializing is one aspect of life in Vista Las Palmas that hasn't changed, says Sheila Cobrin, whose parents bought a new home in the neighborhood in the late 1950s -- which was still mostly sand -- when she was 19. Cobrin, who still lives there, remembers the community hayrides and picnics. "It was a great little city, a village. Everybody knew everybody else," she says. "You'd walk into the restaurant, the night club, it was 'Hello Sheila.' "

Architecturally, the neighborhood is mixed. Most houses are designed by William Krisel of the firm Palmer & Krisel in his mid-century modern language. Krisel designed almost all of the Alexander homes in Palm Springs.

Plans are rectangular and open, with a breezeway separating carport from living area. In their quest for more interior space, residents have filled in all but two or three of the breezeways. Most carports have been turned into garages.

Krisel disguised the uniformity of plan by varying the facades, walls and roofs. You'll find brick walls, wooden screens, and decorative concrete block screens of wide variety -- each designed by Krisel. There are butterfly roofs, low-gables, and even a few folded plate roofs.

Some entries open directly onto the walkway, others are recessed, and still others deeply recessed. Some entries disappear beneath trellises, becoming hidden atriums. Homes on hillier sites are sometimes configured as 'L' or 'V' plans.

Not every house in the development is modern, and some that are modern in plan are still not to Krisel's taste. A handful of traditional ranch houses dot the streetscape, as do the Swiss Misses -- houses that are based on the Krisel floor plan but stare at the street through steep, double-height A-frame gables that plunge to the ground and recall both Swiss chalets and Fiji tiki-style cabins. They still make Krisel, a purist at heart, shudder.

That's because the neighborhood was not purely an Alexander venture, Krisel says, but a partnership with an investor and longtime builder, J.C. (Joe) Dunas. "Dunas said, 'We should have a variety of homes in that neighborhood, not only modern,' " Krisel says. Bob Alexander objected, but Dunas insisted, so they divvied up the lots, Krisel says.

For architecture Dunas hired Charles Dubois, about whom little is known. Krisel says he was a building designer, not a trained architect. As early photos show, the Dunas-Dubois Swiss Miss houses were among the neighborhood's earliest.

"Thirty distinctive estate homes" at Las Palmas Estates, one of the neighborhood's several phases, sold for $36,950 to $42,500, according to a sales brochure, for homes of three or four bedrooms and two or three full baths. All came with lighted pools.

The constant remodeling that has bedeviled the neighborhood for the past few years also attracted criminals who stole construction equipment and burglarized homes. So neighbors, including Corbin and Dickinson, formed the Vista Las Palmas Neighborhood Organization and hired a security firm to patrol 24 hours a day. It seems to be working, they say.

One problem that affects folks citywide is loud parties and blaring stereos at vacation houses. Josiah Hamilton, whose Swiss Miss is across the road from the Elvis Honeymoon House, works for a firm that manages 100 mid-century vacation rentals. Their policy: "If the police are called one time," he says, "renters lose their full deposit and are immediately vacated from the property."

Not every party in the neighborhood, of course, is hosted by weekenders from Los Angeles. The most famous party house in Vista Las Palmas, Leisureland, is known for lavish soirees attracting hundreds of people, often in conjunction with art openings. There are flashing lights, go-go dancers, a sculpture of Greek god Atlas holding the world on his shoulders by the pool, the 'Blonde Bombshell Room,' and a fabulous Barbie collection.

Complaints about the parties are few, neighbors say. It may help that the owner of the house, Jamie Kabler, is president of the Neighborhood Organization. But more likely, says Jay Jones, a self-taught interior decorator who designs those parties, it's "because all the neighbors are here, too."

• Las Palmas boundaries: Chino on south, Stevens on north, Palm Cyn on east, Rose on West. Monte Vista divides Vista Las Palmas from Old Las Palmas.

Photos: Barry Sturgill, John Eng, Diane Bronstein, Dave Weinstein

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