Palm Springs Eternal - W Magazine
This brings us to Palm Springs, playground of stars since Hollywood began, and, suddenly, once again, the capital of cool. Take this as a sign: Leonardo DiCaprio recently bought Dinah Shore’s Palm Springs house. So what does DiCaprio, movie star embodiment of ferocious uncertainty, mystery child-man in T-shirt and baseball cap, have in common with shellacked, peppy Shore, singer of 1948’s hit “Buttons and Bows,” TV star of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, and... A midcentury house by the architect Donald Wexler with more than 7,000 square feet of right angles, spider-leg girders, and conversation pits, with a perfect view of the San Jacinto Mountains behind a cheerleader lineup of skinny palm trees. The architects Richard Neutra, John Lautner, Albert Frey, Hugh Kaptur, William Krisel, E. Stewart Williams, and Wexler imposed a stark geometry on the desert to create the Palm Springs style: flat-roof houses (which Norman Mailer described as... So much glass and so much outdoors say that the surroundings are safe, benign, and, even if the Palm Springs summer heat can fry the brain, there’s plenty of air-conditioning. Palm Springs is a playland where, from the Jazz Age onward, stars came to drink and carouse, have sex, and play tennis, golf, and polo. Source: www.wmagazine.com
