Rancho Mirage is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. The population was 17,218 at the 2010 census, up from 13,249 at the 2000 census, but the seasonal (part-time) population can exceed 20,000. Located between Cathedral City and Palm Desert, it is one of the nine cities of the Coachella Valley. Rancho Mirage was incorporated in 1973 from a merger of Mirage Cove with five unincorporated areas known as the "Cove communities", and had 3,000 permanent residents at the time.
Richard Joseph Neutra was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered among the most important modernist architects.
Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. commonly known as Lloyd Wright, was an American architect, active primarily in Los Angeles and Southern California. He was a landscape architect for various Los Angeles projects (1922–24), provided the shells for the Hollywood Bowl (1926–28), and produced the Swedenborg Memorial Chapel at Rancho Palos Verdes, California (1946–71). His name is frequently confused with that of his more famous father, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Albert Frey was a Swiss-born architect who established a style of modernist architecture centered on Palm Springs, California, United States, that came to be known as "desert modernism".
Archibald Quincy Jones was a Los Angeles-based architect and educator known for innovative buildings in the modernist style and for urban planning that pioneered the use of greenbelts and green design.
Emerson Stewart Williams, FAIA was a prolific Palm Springs, California-based architect whose distinctive modernist buildings, in the Mid-century modern style, significantly shaped the Coachella Valley's architectural landscape and legacy.
Mid-century modern (MCM) is the design movement in interior, product, graphic design, architecture, and urban development from roughly 1945 to 1975. The term, employed as a style descriptor as early as the mid-1950s, was reaffirmed in 1983 by Cara Greenberg in the title of her book, Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s, celebrating the style that is now recognized by scholars and museums worldwide as a significant design movement.
Joseph Leopold Eichler was a 20th-century post-war American real estate developer known for developing distinctive residential subdivisions of Mid-Century modern style tract housing in California. He was one of the influential advocates of bringing modern architecture from custom residences and large corporate buildings to general public availability. His company and developments remain in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles.
Palm Springs is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 55 mi (89 km) east of San Bernardino, 107 mi (172 km) east of Los Angeles, 123 mi (198 km) northeast of San Diego, and 268 mi (431 km) west of Phoenix, Arizona. The population was 44,552 as of the 2010 census. Palm Springs covers approximately 94 square miles (240 km2), making it the largest city in the county by land area.
The Thunderbird Invitational was a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour, played from 1952 to 1959 in Rancho Mirage, California. Held in late January at Thunderbird Country Club, the tournament's purse was a modest $15,000; it was the direct predecessor of today's CareerBuilder Challenge, which began in 1960. Thunderbird hosted the Ryder Cup in 1955.
John Porter Clark (1905–1991) was an American architect. He worked with Albert Frey on several projects in Palm Springs, California, and was part of the Van Pelt and Lind firm. He has been referred to as a "mid-century modernist", and credited as one of the pioneers of "Desert Modernism", by using local rock, concrete blocks, metal and glass. His own house, the John Porter Clark House (1939) in Palm Springs, has been described as being in the International Style and as one of the earliest examples of residential Modern architecture in Southern California.
Hugh Michael Kaptur is an American architect whose practice is primarily in California's Coachella Valley. During his fifty years as an architect, Kaptur has designed residential homes, apartment complexes, civic buildings, including two of Palm Springs' fire stations, commercial office buildings and hotels. The bulk of his work is in the Mid-Century modern style. He is considered a contemporary of William Cody, Donald Wexler, Richard Harrison and Howard Lapham. He was born in Michigan where his father was a designer in the Packard and GM studios. After his honorable discharge from the Marines, he moved to Palm Springs in 1956 where he apprenticed in the offices of Wexler and Harrison. After being laid off, Kaptur went on his own and designed a several model homes for the Ranch Construction Company. In 1962 he formed a partnership with licensed architect Robert Ricciardi so that he could get the commission for Palm Springs Fire Station #3. After that partnership broke up, in 1965 he formed a company with Larry Lapham, noted architect Howard Lapham's son which was to last ten years. His last partnership was with James Cioffi, after which he semi-retired in 1992. Kaptur designed several notable residences, including those for Steve McQueen and William Holden; municipal buildings – Fire Station #3 and #4 in Palm Springs; apartment buildings – the Caballeros complex; and numerous commercial hotels and office buildings.
William Francis Cody was an influential desert modern architect working in Palm Springs during the peak of the Modern Architecture Movement. Like many of the architects during the mid-20th century, Cody designed almost anything Palm Springs allowed him to; houses, cluster housing, churches, offices, restaurants, schools, hotels, and club houses. His residential projects illustrated simplicity of form, natural light, and large windows displaying a smooth connection between interior and exterior. Cody maintained a diverse practice in the Coachella Valley of California. His work included designing country clubs, residences, hotels, a library, and church projects in Palm Springs, Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, and in southern California, Arizona, Mexico, and Cuba.
William Krisel was an American architect best known for his pioneer designs of mid-century residential and commercial architecture. Most of his designs are for affordable homes, especially tract housing, with a modern aesthetic.
Walter S. White (1917–2002) was an American modernist architect and industrial designer who worked in the Coachella Valley, CA in the 1950s and the Colorado Springs, CO area in the 1960s. White is noted for influencing innovative roofing and window systems in early Palm Desert, CA architecture.
The Thunderbird Country Club is an 18-hole golf course designed by Lawrence Hughes in Rancho Mirage in California's Coachella Valley. It has hosted the Ryder Cup and the Palm Springs Golf Classic. Opened in 1951, the country club has been a favorite of many celebrities including Bing Crosby and Bob Hope as well as US Presidents Gerald Ford and Barack Obama
The Maslon House was a mid century modern house designed by the architect Richard Neutra in 1962 for the art collectors Samuel and Luella Maslon in Rancho Mirage, California. It was demolished in 2002. The house was situated within the Tamarisk Country Club golf course.
