In the early 1960s, Samuel and Luella Maslon, noted art collectors, bought a home on Fairway Drive at Tamarisk Country Club on the 12th fairway. They chose architect Richard Neutra to design a house on the 1.5-acre lot. Though he certainly was one of the top residential architects in the country, if not the world, the selection of Neutra by the Maslons might also be due to his connection to Frank Lloyd Wright, whose ideas the Maslons deeply admired. Wright designed Fallingwater, his Pennsylvania masterpiece, for Edgar Kaufmann in 1935. Neutra designed Kaufmann’s Palm Springs home, one of only three homes he would ultimately build in the desert, in 1946.
The six-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot Maslon House was a marvel with glass walls, discreet wood built-ins, and an extended flat roof that made the home seem to float above its site. It perfectly fit the Maslons’ desire to own a desert home to display their extensive art collection. Forty years after the house was completed, the Maslon heirs put the property on the market with the proviso that the home should not be altered in any way. A Midwesterner named Richard Rotenberg bought it and almost immediately sent a contractor to retrieve a demolition permit from the city of Rancho Mirage. A week later, the house was a pile of debris. Peter Moruzzi, founding president of the Palm Springs Modern Committee, told The New York Times that the house was “without a doubt the most significant piece of architecture in Rancho Mirage, and now it is gone.”
Sometimes, good can come from tragedies (and travesties), and the subsequent preservation activism is a testimony to that. Preservation Mirage is a good example. Among its many good works, the non-profit organization produced an hour-long documentary called “Preservation Mirage Presents Richard Neutra’s Maslon House” by filmmaker Scott Goldstein. The film will premiere during Modernism Week on Feb. 19 at the Palm Springs Art Museum’s Annenberg Theater.
