An Albert Frey Tour of Palm Springs

“The California desert continues to charm me,” Swiss-born architect Albert Frey wrote in a 1936 letter to his mentor, Le Corbusier. “[It] continues to nourish me, to give me an opportunity for modern architecture, from time to time. It is a most interesting experience to live in a wild, savage, natural setting, far from the big city.”

Frey, later dubbed the “Father of Desert Modernism,” was in the process of bringing themes from the International Style—an open, minimalist type of architecture that originated in Europe in the 1920s and ’30s—into harmony with Palm Springs. In a career that spanned more than 65 years, most of them in Palm Springs, Frey prioritized machine-made materials and inclusive, affordable designs. He also believed in using colors from nature, like the vivid yellow of the local brittlebush flower, to which he matched the curtains in Frey House II.

“Frey brought his distinct, modernist vision to the landscape of the Coachella Valley, where he found his commitments to formal experimentation and novel materials inflected by a perceptive consideration for the land,” says Gary Riichirō-Fox, assistant curator at the Getty Research Institute. “His work captured the spirit of a rapidly growing city, where his buildings at once stood out conspicuously and yet somehow invariably blended in harmoniously.”

Getty’s Julius Shulman Photography Archive contains more than 260,000 negatives and vintage and modern prints by the celebrated architectural photographer, including images of Frey’s Palm Springs buildings. The archive also includes pictures of the architect’s works that no longer stand, like Frey House I.

Should you visit Palm Springs soon—an opportune time is Modernism Week, held October 16–19, 2025 and February 12–22, 2026—here is a guide to Frey’s surviving structures in chronological order of their construction.

Aluminaire House (1931)

Aluminaire (a wordplay on “aluminum” and “luminous”) is a prototype house designed by Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher for a New York City exposition in 1931. It was the first all-metal house in the United States; experts also believe it was the country’s first prefabricated one. The idea behind these features was affordable mass production.

“My aim in life was to use permanent materials that don’t require maintenance,” Frey told the New York Times in 1998. “It [aluminum] was an up-and-coming material, much more durable than wood, or plaster, which cracks. And it went up very quickly. The house was built in 10 days.” Contrary to Frey’s vision, Aluminaire was never mass-produced, with many believing the material was too polarizing. But the prototype was purchased by architect Wallace K. Harrison and erected in Huntington, New York, where it stood for 53 years.

After a 37-year-long preservation and relocation effort, Aluminaire permanently opened in the south parking lot of the Palm Springs Art Museum in 2024. You can visit for free, and a docent is on-site to offer information. While Aluminaire’s interior is inaccessible, as its 1931 form couldn’t meet modern building codes without compromising historical integrity, the museum is currently fundraising for a virtual reality experience that could take viewers inside in a simulated fashion.

Kocher-Samson Building (1934)

Sandwiched between fine art and design galleries on Palm Canyon Drive sits a Class 1 Historic Site and a seminal piece of Palm Springs’s architectural legacy. The Kocher-Samson Building, designed by Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher, is regarded as the birthplace of the International Style in Palm Springs.

The structure was built to house prominent physician Jacob John Kocher (Lawrence’s brother) and served as his insurance office (with Herbert Samson) and apartment after he pivoted from medicine. Its cubic forms held several interesting ideas. First, the anticipation of future road development led the architects to focus the home’s design inward, using patios and courtyards. Second, the second story was angled to create an overhang that shaded the offices below. Finally, the open floor plan utilized curtains to create rooms when needed.

Today the building houses a one-bedroom historical apartment, available as a vacation rental. And Frey was right: the road was not only developed, it’s now one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

Bel Vista tract houses (1946)

This neighborhood of 15 Frey-designed tract homes is located in the Movie Colony East area and centers on North Calle Rolph. The homes are all identical, but “Frey rotated and flipped them, and changed the setback,” says Todd Hays, who sits on the board of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation. Hays personally restored three of the houses to such a faithful degree that they received Class 1 Historic Site designations. (Many of the other homes in the tract have been dramatically altered through the years.)

Hays says the Bel Vista tract homes are not only the sole example of mass-produced, low-cost housing ever realized by Frey but also the first modern tract housing built in Palm Springs. “It was imperative the homes I restored got saved,” says Hays. “Frey had been wanting to do single-family houses in multiples like this his entire career. After Bel Vista, he ended up doing more single houses and civic work, like the Palm Springs Visitors Center and City Hall. As a number of architects had a part in these projects, they embody Frey a bit less.”

The Bel Vista home that Hays owns—he sold the other two—will be on tour for February Modernism Week and he will be giving a lecture on Bel Vista as well.

Raymond Loewy House (1947)

Have you ever seen a pool in a living room? Look no further than the Raymond Loewy House, toeing the edge of Palm Springs’s Little Tuscany neighborhood. Loewy, an industrial designer who worked on everything from the Coca-Cola bottle to the Shell and Exxon gasoline logos to several models of Studebaker cars, appeared on the October 31, 1949, cover of Time magazine with images of some of his ideas. He hired Frey to design his Palm Springs bachelor pad, which Frey later expanded when Loewy remarried. It became a winter home for Loewy and his family.

Frey collaborated with John Porter Clark again to design an L-shaped plan with a curved glass pavilion, partially clad in corrugated aluminum that coalesced artfully with the boulder- and cactus-strewn lot.

The home was most recently remodeled in 2000 by the architect-led design-build practice Marmol Radziner, which restored original elements and added a primary bedroom suite and a linear gallery that connects the primary bedroom to the living areas.

Raymond Loewy House has been open to the public during previous Modernism Weeks, but it’s worth noting that this home is gated and you can’t see it from the street.

Cree House (1956)

In 1947, school superintendent-turned-developer Raymond Cree asked Frey to design a nine-unit resort complex on an eight-acre piece of mountainside land he owned on what is now the Palm Springs–Cathedral City border. The hotel was never fully realized; instead, in 1955, Cree pivoted to wanting a family home.

The house, painted the silvery-green of the leaves of the brittlebush shrub, features a massive sundeck atop a carport. The entire home is raised on steel pipes to maximize the desert views. It has also been open to the public during previous Modernism Weeks, and guests have marveled at the 1950s General Electric refrigerator; camouflaged as cabinets, it consists of three horizontal sections that hover over the kitchen counter.

Palm Springs City Hall (1957)

In the early 1950s, Palm Springs needed a bigger city hall and called on Frey, John Porter Clark, Robson Chambers, and E. Stewart Williams. Frey embarked on extensive inspirational travels—including Marseilles, Rome, and New Delhi—and helped finalize a plan that honored his love of the circle and square.

The main entrance features a square portico with a circular cutout; today, three palm trees soar through it. Another circle of the exact diameter of that cutout comprises a canopy announcing the entrance to the council chambers.

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Valley Station (1963)

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway was the result of 30 years of determined work by Francis Crocker, an electrical engineer who came to Palm Springs in 1932. He dreamed of a way to soar into the mountains and escape the heat of the desert floor but grappled with securing government support. Finally, in 1961, bonds were issued to fund construction, and Frey and Robson Chambers earned the commission for the lower Valley Station (another firm designed the upper Mountain Station).

Frey traveled to Switzerland and to Italy’s Dolomites to study the operations and mechanics of their aerial tramways and began construction in 1962. Crocker’s vision paid off: the tramway has brought more than 20 million people on the 10-minute, 2.5-mile journey. The difference in temperature at the top, inside the Mount San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness area, can be as much as 40–50 degrees cooler than the desert floor.

Frey House II (1964)

Perched on a steep San Jacinto mountainside, this is the site where Frey famously wrapped a steel frame home around an existing boulder. The rock even serves as a partition between the living and bedroom areas. Frey House II was where Frey himself lived from 1964 until his death in 1998.

When it was built, it was the most elevated residence in Palm Springs, at 220 feet above the city. The compact home was originally 800 square feet, but Frey added an extension, enlarging it to 1200 square feet.

While the home was known as “Frey’s crazy house” by the building department officials at City Hall, it’s a testament to the unconventional path: today, it’s owned by the Palm Springs Art Museum, is widely toured, and is considered a pilgrimage location for all design lovers who visit Palm Springs. Tours will also take place during October Modernism Week.

Tramway Gas Station/Palm Springs Visitors Center (1965)

With its massive pizza slice–shaped canopy that points to the sky, this building on Highway 111 was designed by Frey and Robson Chambers as an Enco filling station. While a familiar sight for many years, an economic downturn in the 1970s and ’80s in the Coachella Valley closed the station, and it soon was covered in graffiti.

In 1996, a private developer bought the structure and planned to demolish it, causing a community uproar. Protests resulted in the building being designated a Class 1 Historic Site, but then the decision was reversed. Ultimately, the developer’s plans fell through, and two San Francisco businessmen saved it in 1998 (they converted it into an art and sculpture gallery, consulting with Frey).

The city of Palm Springs purchased the site in 2002 and invested $500,000 for another restoration. In November 2003, the station-turned-gallery reopened as the Palm Springs Visitors Center to welcome guests to Palm Springs in a bold way.