Artist Colas Moore flew into Palm Springs around 2000 to meet with a client in Indian Wells about doing some finishes on his estate. Moore was no stranger to the Valley. Based out of his studio in Laguna Canyon, he and his partner worked with the late designer Steve Chase in the 1990s and fell in love with the desert. Moore bought a few run-down homes and transformed them. He was known around town for transforming a shack in Cathedral Cove into a unique Southwestern adobe.
“I was driving through Rancho Mirage and I thought, ‘I’m going to start looking around,’” Moore says. “I turned [off Highway 111] near the gas station and I see the house [on Sahara Road] and I thought, ‘Wow, what is that piece of shit doing here?’ It looked like a bloody crack house. A week later, I drove by and saw a guy putting a ‘for sale’ sign in front. I got out and said, ‘Put that sign back in your car; how much do they want for this?’ He said, ‘$200,000.’” Moore told the agent he’d buy it on the spot. The agent assumed he was going to scrape the lot.
“I didn’t want to explain my whole concept to him,” Moore recalls. “I kind of knew I wanted something with Moroccan influence. I don’t know exactly where I got that, but it was like I saw it in my mind.”
It was an unprecedented vision in the Valley. In 1924, Scottish artist Gordon Coutts arrived in the tiny desert village of Palm Springs and started building a little Moroccan castle he called “Dar Marroc.” The name was a reference to Tangiers, where he lived for many years. Today, that home is part of the compound at the Korakia Pensione hotel.
Moroccan tiling is a dominant design element in the late Merv Griffin’s La Quinta estate. And the Casbah Cove mansion in Palm Desert was one of the most expensive homes that came on the market in 2024. (It was listed at $18 million.) And, though it’s not specifically Moroccan-themed, the city of Indio has long paid homage to the importance of date farming. City planners incorporated an “Arabian Nights” theme into the city’s history, streets signs, and various structures.
Moore consulted with local architect Daniel Thornbury; they’d worked together on previous projects. Thornbury told Moore that the city might go along with his vision for the property at 71670 Sahara Road –especially when he saw examples of the scalloping Moore planned for the roof. Eventually, the city signed off, and Moore got busy. He used plywood on top to get the line of the house; then, he put up tar paper and wire to hold the scalloped edges. He told the workers that the next step was to “pile rock on top of that,” Moore says. “They were, like, ‘What?!’ And I told them that it was going to look like this ruin that I discovered.” He brought in “huge equipment” to spray on the wall. The workers tried to bring out their trowels to smooth it out, but Moore wouldn’t let them. “They were all thinking, ‘This guy is a mad man,’” he says. “And I admit that it looked pretty bad until I shot it all white. Then, people started driving by and staring at it and asking, ‘Was that old building always here?’”
Moore labored on the property for 10 years. He laid the stone floors himself and built a classic, old-school rectangular swimming pool. He installed antique, weathered wood ceilings and beams to create a living room fireplace reminiscent of the movie “Casablanca,” and generally created interior and exterior spaces that almost feel sculpted.
Though Moore invested a small fortune on the project, both in cash and sweat equity, he sold the property at the height of the recession in 2011. Nevertheless, he gives full credit to the three owners who’ve had the property since. One owner converted the garage into a fourth bedroom with a sitting room, replete with carved, antique doors and a wall of Moroccan tile. An exterior bathroom that features a copper and enamel freestanding tub – standing on flagstone and gravel – was created. The entrance to the house leads you through an interior courtyard with a long fountain that lines the wall.
The rooms might not be grand in scale; but, every room is unique, cozy, and full of unexpected details and beautiful finishes. The kitchen was completely renovated and features plenty of built-in shelving, counter space, and high-end appliances. The beautifully landscaped garden – which sits on nearly an acre of land – features citrus trees, several lounging areas, a meditation pagoda, a large barbecue station, and a fire pit. Though the 1950 four-bedroom, four-bath house encompass only 2,213 square feet, it has more charm and unique features than any other comp in the city. (The listing says an additional 1,115 square feet is not included in the assessor’s information.)
“People have fallen in love with that building … and they’ve done wonderful jobs,” Moore says. “They have all had exquisite taste … and they’ve had the money to take it well beyond anything I could have ever done with it. It’s a property that will never calculate out with the comps in the neighborhood. It’s the kind of property you buy because you see it and fall in love.”
71670 Sahara Road, Rancho Mirage, 92270
$2,398,000
Anthony Halton
Pardee Properties
#00860890
760-831-4634
