Take a Paul R. Williams Tour of Palm Springs

Did you know that in the early 1900s—before it became a renowned modernist enclave—Palm Springs was mainly ranchland where urban dwellers escaped winter to play cowboy?

The region’s building boom started in 1921 when Rudolph Valentino, who had fallen in love with the area, arrived to film The Sheik. Soon the Hollywood elite started building desert homes, including Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who hired African American architect Paul Revere Williams to design their residence.

“Paul R. Williams was a crucial yet significantly underrecognized force in the development of modern architectural practice,” says Gary Riichirō-Fox, assistant curator at the Getty Research Institute. “His impact was undoubtedly global, though it is perhaps nowhere more visible than in Southern California, where he realized thousands of projects. Williams’s work in Palm Springs contained a radical proposition for rethinking domesticity and leisure amid a period of rapid growth and fundamental transformation across the broader region.”

“Though many of Williams’s buildings stand today as testaments to his achievement, others have been lost due to natural or human-made forces,” continues Riichirō-Fox. Only four of Williams’s structures in Palm Springs—that are accessible to the public—stand today. Getty’s Julius Shulman Photography Archive contains 260,000 negatives and vintage and modern prints by the celebrated architectural photographer, including images of Williams’s existing desert structures. The archive also includes the architect’s works that are consigned to memory, giving us a window into the past.

If you plan to visit Palm Springs soon—and the high season is upon us—here is a guide on how to experience Williams’s indelible mark on the city.

Palmair Apartments (now Casa Palmeras)

Palm Springs–based architectural historian Steven Keylon describes Casa Palmeras—a modest white brick structure built in 1930—as a “humble little apartment project with a rambling Andalusian Spanish style.” In its early photos, vacant land surrounds it; today, it sits on a four-lane stretch of Indian Canyon Drive. Beyond its lush landscaping, an oval pool twinkles through its arched, gated entrance. A small, charming bell tower rises from the building as well.

Williams designed Casa Palmeras around the same time he worked on the architectural plans for Deep Well Ranch, a resort beloved by those looking for a Western-themed experience. Keylon says: “Deep Well Ranch was wonderful, with all these little hacienda cottages scattered around a garden. It had tennis courts, a swimming pool, and a community hall where guests played cards and had dinner every night.”

In 1952, Deep Well Ranch was turned into a residential subdivision. But Casa Palmeras still embodies the same architectural style and Western spirit, reminding visitors of a laid-back, simpler time when horses outnumbered cars.

Palm Springs Tennis Club

According to Keylon, when the Palm Springs Tennis Club reopened in 1947, it was a momentous occasion for the city. Los Angeles–based architects Williams and A. Quincy Jones had reimagined the institution—initially opened in 1937 and set in the San Jacinto Mountains—to include an outdoor patio with a pool and the second-story dining venue called the Bougainvillea Room.

Keylon categorizes the tennis club as part of the Late Moderne style, a form of modern architecture incorporating both Streamline Moderne and International styles. The use of pylons, distinctive horizontality and verticality, and natural materials characterized the Late Moderne style, which Keylon says was mostly expressed in commercial buildings like Miami hotels or upscale shopping centers like the former Bullock’s Pasadena (now a Macy’s).

Today, a stroll through the club’s Bougainvillea Room, with its Jetsons-like floor-to-ceiling windows and rock waterfall, might conjure up the image of Frank Sinatra nursing a martini near the fireplace feature. Sinatra was part of a glitter trail of celebrities, including Zsa Zsa Gabor and Dinah Shore, who frequented the Bougainvillea Room. Spencer’s Restaurant, occupying the former club entrance, opened in 2000 and is a local mainstay for power lunches and romantic dinners.

Town & Country Center

The Palm Springs Tennis Club reopening caused such a sensation that a businessman and tennis club member named Kenneth L. Colborn hired Williams and Jones to take over his midway-designed shopping mall project. The Town & Country Center opened in 1948 and featured seven buildings with boutiques and a restaurant, all encircling a landscaped courtyard.

Architectural features included a redwood balcony pierced by an egg crate grille, a Williams and Jones signature, and a cantilevered planter. In several photographs, Shulman captured these elements, which Keylon says were inspired by a movement that emerged from the 1937 Paris Expo to mix surrealist art with architecture.

Today, the center is vacant, but revitalization plans are in the works. In the meantime, visitors can walk the grounds of this architectural jewel.

Bank of America (now Faherty)

Williams and Jones’s Bank of America building sits next to the Town & Country Center. While you can no longer walk in and establish an account, the facade looks largely unchanged compared to when the branch opened in 1949.

Slate blue vertical fins add texture to the facade—recently restored to its original colors, including an ocher yellow—and a canopy still upholds the original Late Moderne–style lettering. However, instead of Bank of America, the letters today spell “Faherty.” Faherty, a family-owned store, sells clothing and accessories inspired by a surfer’s lifestyle.