House Gets Its Just Desert - Page 2

"It's a red-brick community with kind of a colonial look to it," Davis said, explaining why "the community never wanted it in the first place…. They thought it was a spaceship."

Consequently, after a presentation on the house at Modernism Week in 2014, Davis polled the audience on whether they thought Palm Springs would be a good site for the unusual dwelling.

"Everyone raised their hands and said, 'What a great idea, of course!'" said Davis, a full-time volunteer with Modernism Week and treasurer of its committee. Schwarting and Campani "were really impressed" when the committee's first fundraiser for the project raised $100,000 toward its still-sought goal of $600,000.

A non-profit Aluminaire House Foundation had been formed in New York to assure the historic building's preservation, and the foundation board eventually agreed to pack up the disassembled structure into a container specially decorated with its images and send the "moving billboard" on a cross-country trek to its new home.

It arrived to great fanfare in mid-February and was subject of a welcome celebration at the Palm Springs Visitors Center, formerly the Tramway Gas Station (1965) also designed by Frey.

"We made it a big part of Modernism Week this time," Davis said of parking the container downtown and adorning it with lights as part of the annual celebration's Illuminated Modern program. "He's our most prominent architect in Palm Springs."

The house is now expected to be rebuilt as part of a planned event center downtown, but Davis said progress toward that goal has been held up by unrelated corruption allegations involving developers and a recent Palm Springs mayor.

"In theory, it can go back together again the way it was," said Davis, who helped found a California chapter of the Aluminaire House Foundation. He conceded, though, that some repairs such as sheathing and broken windows will be required.

"We know it will be a challenge reassembling it ... (but) we're confident that when the time comes, we have the resources to make it successful," he added, noting that such preservation specialists as the Marmol Radziner firm have volunteered their services. "We have offers of help from almost everyone you can imagine."

"Our hope is that we can start within two years," he said optimistically. "The bulk of it can be reassembled in a very short time, literally a matter of weeks."

And when all is done and the Aluminaire is back on public display, it will bring new life as well a form of closure for the first American creation of Albert Frey, premier Desert Modernist.

"To me," Davis opined, "that's the most important part of it, that it completes the arc of his career here in the desert."