Frey House II

Palm Springs has long been the epicenter of midcentury modern design. Of the many preserved midcentury houses in Palm Springs, one of the shining examples is Frey House II, the former home of architect Albert Frey.

Born in 1903 in Switzerland, Frey worked for Le Corbusier in Paris before moving to Palm Springs in 1934. He spent the remaining six decades of his life making the city an exemplar of midcentury modern design. He’s responsible for Palm Springs’ Aerial Tramway Valley Station, its City Hall, and a private home once owned by Elvis Presley called "Graceland West."

Frey House II was completed in 1964 after years of careful consideration. It took Frey five years to choose the site, partway up Mount San Jacinto. He then took another year to consider how the sun moved across the land. Then he began building. At the time it was completed, Frey House II was the highest elevation home in Palm Springs, giving it views of the town and further across the Coachella Valley.

The home is modest, only 800 square feet. But every detail is exactly right: the glass walls that allow panoramic views and blur the boundaries between inside and out. The swimming pool also serves as the roof of the parking area. The slope of the roof matches the slope of the mountain. The built-in furniture and the yellow curtains mirror the daisy-like brittlebush flowers that bloom in the spring. Frey designed his home to be in harmony with the desert, to the extent that a large boulder is incorporated into the house, jutting through the glass walls and boldly dividing the living area from the sleeping area, disrupting the otherwise clean lines. And that year studying the sun paid off: Frey oriented his home so that it gets as much shade as possible in the summer, and as much sun as possible in the winter.

Albert Frey bequeathed his home to the Palm Springs Art Museum upon his death in 1998. Tours of the streamlined, handsome home are now available through the museum during its twice-annual Modernism Weeks and through a third-party contractor year-round.