City Councilman Bill Foster was upset. The charming ticket booth at the Plaza Theatre had been demolished without city review or discussion. The booth had been situated in front of the theatre since 1936. Colorful tiles circled its bottom in wainscotting and the glass box above, trimmed in wrought iron, contained the employee who dispensed tickets.
The demolition of the ticket booth was part of a remodeling project done by the new owners, Metropolitan Theaters group, to divide the Plaza Theatre into two separate movie houses. It seemed unnecessary to Foster.
He recognized the demolition as a threat to the fabric of the village. “We have very few sites like this left, and if we don’t do something soon, there won’t be any left to save.”
Appalled, in January 1978 he suggested to the rest of the City Council that a special committee be set up to review building plans and determine any of historical significance before permits for demolition were granted.
It took Foster several years to convince the rest of the city council members to support his idea. In 1981, the Historic Site Preservation Board was established as part of the city’s planning department. The board was to identify, nominate and recommend potential historic sites for designation and protection.
The first board set out to survey the town. The Desert Sun followed their progress. “The city’s Historic Site Preservation Board and local volunteers are currently conducting an inventory of local historic resources. The project is part of a mutual effort in cooperation with the Riverside County Parks Department, County Historical Commission and the state Office of Historical Preservation.”
In 1995, the Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board’s Brad Dunning led the effort to designate seven properties designed by Albert Frey. Of these, the Tramway Gas Station became major preservation battle as the developer of the proposed Shadowrock resort wanted to demolish the distinctive building.
The council chambers were packed with concerned citizens, wearing cardstock hats modeled after the soaring, hyperbolic paraboloid roof of the gas station, demanding the city stop its destruction. The city designated the building and subsequently rescinded the designation two weeks later. A prolonged preservation fight ensued.
Professor Carl Prout and Diana “Mousie” Powell, widow of movie star William Powell, initiated an effort to call attention to the built history of the town and started the extravagantly (and confusingly) named, Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Foundation.
They believed a fuller appreciation of the architecture in Palm Springs could be achieved through education. Founding members were Carl Prout, Henry Weiss, Janice Lyle, Tony Merchell, Karen Pirozzi, Beth Edwards Harris and Brent Harris. Early subsequent members included Stewart Weiner, Brad Dunning, Sidney Williams, Pete Moruzzi, Jane Cowles Smith and William Kopelk.
The foundation’s name was too close to that of the city’s board, causing confusion. The current, renamed, Palm Springs Preservation Foundation, PSPF, is the successor to that original mission. Over the years the foundation has done much to achieve its stated goal of educating a host of audiences about the importance of preservation, producing “tribute journals” to various desert architects and architectural designers including William F. Cody, E. Stewart Williams, Hugh Kaptur, and Herbert Burns, and builders like the Alexander Construction Company.
In 1999, Peter Moruzzi brought his advocacy experience from the LA Conservancy’s Modern Committee to Palm Springs, founding with others, Palm Springs Modern Committee, known as ModCom.
Immediately concentrating on saving the 1955 Albert Frey-designed Fire Station #1 from demolition for a parking garage, Moruzzi led the effort to designate the property as a Class One Historic Site. It was a major victory for preservation in the city.
There were an increasing number of people who cared about architectural history and the cache of first-class buildings still extant in town.
Palm Springs Modern Tours was launched by architectural expert Robert Imber and historian Tony Merchell wrote about important architectural treasures in the village, both sparking further interest. For her book, “Palm Springs Modern,” Adele Cygelman had David Glomb and famous midcentury photographer Julius Shulman shoot the Kaufmann house, designed by master architect Richard Neutra.
In 2001 the Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Foundation, (later renamed PSPF,) organized an event called ‘When Mod Went Mass: A Celebration of Alexander Homes, and that was Nov. 2-4, 2001. Prout and Kopelk led this the first-of-its-kind architecture weekend tour, lectures and events.
The weekend detailed the history of the Alexander family, their impact on the village of Palm Springs, and included book signings, open houses, a featured home tour, and a lavish event at the Mediterranean Room in the Riviera Hotel.
Kopelk invited Shulman to sign books during the weekend. He would later reprise this role at Modernism Week, enjoying a resurgence of popularity and interest in his work from decades before.
Kopelk recalls, “All it took was a car and driver to bring him out here, a hotel stay at his favorite hotel the Del Marcos, a box of dried dates, and a bottle of J&B scotch, along with the promise of an attractive young woman to assist him to unbox the books for him in his booth while signing his book.”
Christy Eugenis and Stan Amy were restoring a 1955 Herbert Burns apartment hotel. Eugenis recalled, “William Kopelk said (of Julius Shulman) I’ll give you his number Christy – he might have photos of your hotel! I called up Mr. Shulman, who delightfully reported that he knew Herbert Burns, and had photographed his Town and Desert hotel in 1947 for Architectural Record. So, we made a date, and a week later we met at his studio. He went right to the small drawer with the 13 proofs of the Town and Desert Hotel….”
The Alexander Weekend was highly successful, creating further appreciation for mid-century modern architecture. PSPF’s then President Kopelk and Vice-President Weiner organized the opening night party at Jacques Caussin’s Modernism Show and Sale. Weiner created PSPF’s signature Retro Martini party with his magazine, “Highway 111” sponsoring.
The Alexander Weekend’s activities would serve as a template and be replicated in subsequent years with the advent of Modernism Week.
As mid-century home sales skyrocketed, interest in restoration soared. Rich treasure hunting at estate sales, thrift stores, and retailers John’s Resale and Palm Spring’s Consignment was available to new homeowners seeking to appoint their homes with vintage furniture. Courtney and Joy Newman opened Modern Way, a nexus for all things midcentury.
Newman would organize impromptu get-togethers with midcentury aficionados called “telephone tree” dinners. Eugenis recalls, “On Saturdays about 4 p.m., Courtney would call whoever was in town and let them know where we’d meet up for dinner. People would share the latest victories and challenges with their projects, and sometimes after dinner, we’d tour someone’s project that was in process or nearing completion.”
This became a nidus for the group that would eventually formalize Modernism Week, filling in the days between the furniture show and the museum’s architecture symposium. It would take a village. PSPF, ModCom, and the museum would all contribute. Kopelk recalls, “With the inclusion of the not-for-profit preservation groups at the Modernism Show, it was easy to ask those preservation groups to contribute or organize an event for that week.”
Kopelk recounts discussing with Weiner how to keep visitors in town during the week, “Nickie McLaughlin was at the Horizon Hotel and opened that up for tours and cocktail parties…Sidney Williams was instrumental in getting Architecture films shown in the middle of the week at the Annenberg Theatre… I was able to get (the Kaufmann House) on tour and I knew other people who had completed restorations or remodeled their homes and were eager to have them on tour as well.”
In the years that followed, bus tours, lectures, house and neighborhood tours were added creating the extravaganza that is now Modernism Week. Formalized with a professional staff, Modernism Week is a juggernaut of mid-century architecture and design known around the world. The resulting reverence for preservation in Palm Springs is remarkable, and likely unimaginable to Bill Foster who objected to the destruction of the charming little ticket booth at the Plaza Theatre.
Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historical Society. The Thanks for the Memories column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun. Write to her at pshstracy@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Preservation in Palm Springs and the prequel to Modernism Week
Reporting by Tracy Conrad, Special to The Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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