Racquet Club Estates

Park your vintage ride on the streets of this North Palm Springs enclave and you’ve dropped into another era. The novel experience of the late 1950s/early ’60s architectural immersion is a draw. Home after home calls out with clerestory windows, open floor plans, and walls of glass that face a tidy backyard pool on a quarter acre. Quintessential post-and-beam construction is abundant. Nearly 550 homes line these streets in a retro parade of concrete block walls, angular rooflines, and indoor-outdoor living. Neighbors host block parties with oversized pool floats and cocktails poured from period punch bowls. The weekend vacation vibe charms locals and part-timers alike.

 

The houses in this neighborhood northeast of downtown were designed as inexpensive vacation getaways that could be picked up as impulse buys, and retain strong value. Many have been restored; some await vision. Buyers appreciate procuring a piece of the city’s architectural heritage that would be unaffordable in other parts of the country, not to mention other parts of Palm Springs. Homes by original owners such as Steve McQueen and Debbie Reynolds were convenient to the bustling Racquet Club and Resort.

 

Most owe their mid-century bones to a small sampling of esteemed architects and developers. William Krisel dominates. His homes make up the famed Alexander Construction Company’s largest single-family tract home venture, adding to inhabitants’ sense of being genuinely transported. Along the southern border, similar homes by developer Jack Meiselman combine a galley kitchen with the separation of the master suite from the two guest bedrooms. Donald Wexler’s seven Steel Houses are Class 1 historic sites.