Five Things You Should Know About the Kaufmann Desert House

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• Architectural Design
• Read Reviews from Los Angeles Homeowners Like You
• Five Things You Should Know About the Kaufmann Desert House
• Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger could’ve given Craig Ellwood teardown ‘some honor,’ architect’s daughter says
• Join the Lonely Planet community of travelers
• Julius Shulman
• The Kaufmann Desert House by Richard Neutra
• Easily Contact Trusted Architects and Building Designers

Visitors first follow a short, irregular pathway that traverses a small, landscaped area with boulders and desert plants. They then enter a straight walkway leading to the full-height glass entrance door. On its left side, the walkway is delineated by a wall faced with dry-set Utah sandstone; a cantilevered roof offers shade. To the right, the view goes across a lawn with interspersed boulders toward an outdoor swimming pool. Behind the sandstone-faced wall Neutra placed a car garage and a secondary entrance into the western wing of the house, which contained the service spaces and servant quarters furthest west.

Architectural Design

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From this angle, the structure looks more like an open-air desert pavilion than a home. It is one of the most important examples of International Style architecture in the United States and the only one still in private hands. The home was commissioned by Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., a Pittsburgh department store tycoon as a desert retreat from harsh winters.

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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. Richard Neutra, a Vienna-born architect, brought a unique blend of European modernism and Californian innovation to his projects.

Five Things You Should Know About the Kaufmann Desert House

When the windscreens are not required, louvers can be adjusted to open up to the views. The Los Angeles Times and its panel of experts named it one of the best houses of all time in southern California in 2008. Neutra’s sleek glass, steel and Utah stone design was considered radical at the time, paving the way for the west coast concept of “indoor outdoor” living. At the time of construction, the focus of the house was the vast desert terrain outside – in the years since, southern California’s suburban sprawl has caught up to the property. The home consists of glass walls that slide open to a number of terraces or pool, garden and desert views. A covered rooftop living room with a view of the mountains is protected on the sides by adjustable louvres.

Asked how it felt to be close to selling the property, Dr. Harris looked back at the house, blinking away tears. While Beth Harris may have moved to Los Angeles, many feel her heart has stayed behind in Palm Springs. She continues to promote architectural education through her work with the California Preservation Foundation, and as a major donor to the emerging Palm Springs Art Museum's Architecture & Design Center, named the Edwards Harris Pavilion in her honor. Her former husband Brent also continues to actively support preservation activities in Palm Springs and is currently restoring a Welton Becket-designed home in the historic Tennis Club neighborhood.

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The unique sharp vertical feature is the chimney located next to the “public square”, as Neutra called it. Those owners, Brent Harris, an investment manager, and Beth Edwards Harris, an architectural historian, are finalizing their divorce, and plan to auction the Kaufmann House at Christie’s in New York in May. The building, with a presale estimate of $15 million to $25 million, will be part of Christie’s high-profile evening sale of postwar and contemporary art. When the Harrises decided to end their marriage, they faced a dilemma regarding the disposition of the house. Both were clear that the house required a special buyer who would fully appreciate its cultural significance and provide the kind of maintenance such a property requires.

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. So exacting were the standards of the owners and architects that when, in the course of the restoration, a missing stone wall had to be reconstructed a defunct Utah sandstone quarry was re-opened to secure matching stone. The first batch of stone that arrived was not a perfect match, but a second quarry did the trick.

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. The north wing is the guest’s quarters that are publicly accessible, but retain their private needs as they are separated from the rest of the house. The west wing of the house is the service wing, which is fairly secluded from the rest of the open plan design. The east wing is the most privatized aspect of the house as it is the Kaufmann’s master suite.

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It was purchased by Eugene and Francis Klein, owners of the San Diego Chargers, who sold the house in 1973 to entertainer Barry Manilow who owned it until 1993. The origins of the house are familiar to architecture fans because of the pedigree of its owner, Edgar Kaufmann, the Pittsburg department store magnate. Kaufmann meant no disrespect to Wright, but he sought a home more open and airy than anything in Wright's vocabulary. On my first visit, I was disappointed to discover that only a small part of the house is visible from the road.

After designing and building many ADUs, here are the most common reasons we’ve seen clients build an ADU. If you are interested in building an ADU on your property, click the Get Started button below. Many architects used this common strategy, notably Neutra’s mentor Frank Lloyd Wright. The site for the Kaufmann Desert House was positioned southeast of a high mountain range, with views opening eastward towards the desert landscape.

With a copy of Thomas S. Hines’s authoritative 1982 book, “Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture,” seeking out more than a hundred local structures. I spoke to several original owners, ranging in age from eighty-four to a hundred and two. Julius Shulman’s photographs, mainly the dusk shot from the southeast overlooking the pool with the mountains in the background, allowed people worldwide to view the house. The large amount of publicity surrounding the Kaufmann House constituted a turning point in the marketing and consumption of architecture and lifestyle. The plan leaves spaces for the courtyards on the periphery of the plan, creating a system of privacy appropriate to the specific occupant in the space; hosts, children, guests, servants, etc. The living and bedroom spaces are organized around a circulation system with terraces, courtyards, and walkways that tie the arms back into the central living room and serve as paths allowing different social groups to interact within the center of the house.

No other building has been referred to or echoed in architecture more than the Pantheon. Architects worldwide have extracted principles from this building throughout the course of history. Several solutions have been implemented to help address California’s housing crisis and create more affordable housing options for California’s low—to mid-income residents. Allowing Accessory Dwelling Units to be added to single-family residences are steadily becoming one of the most notable and widely utilized methods by homeowners all over the state.

The Desert House stands in the northern part of Palm Springs, where the lower slopes of Mount Jacinto meet the plain of the Coachella Valley. Neutra responded to the flat site with a pinwheel floor plan whose four wings follow the cardinal directions. The house is entered through the southern wing, which is oriented perpendicular to the street. The spaces of the entrance passage hint at recurring design themes of the house.

Richard Neutra, an emblematic figure of 20th-century Architecture, excelled in blending technology, aesthetics, and the nuances of the natural environment into his designs. Among his illustrious works, the Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, California, is the quintessential example of his approach to modernist architecture. The floating effect is emphasized through a series of sliding glass doors that open up to cover walkways or patios.

Some critics would rank him below Rudolph Schindler, the other great Austrian modernist in Los Angeles, who helped bring Neutra to the city and later fell out with him. Neutra left behind no signature landmark on the order of the Guggenheim Museum or the Salk Institute. One project in which he invested particularly high hopes—a public-housing complex called Elysian Park Heights—stirred reactionary ire in the fifties, and was never built. Yet the fact that Neutra did his best work in domestic spaces should not detract from his significance.

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Kaufmann, a notorious womanizer, completed the desert house as his marriage disintegrated. In the early 1950's, Liliane Kaufmann commissioned Wright to design another house in Palm Springs on the north side of the property where the Neutra house sits. Named "Boulder House," as confirmed by Edgar Kaufmann Jr. in his book "Fallingwater Rising" this commission was to be a home for Liliane Kaufmann who could no longer live with her philandering husband.