When Ralph W. Haverkate, a real estate broker specializing in Mid Century Modern homes, came across an abandoned but classic Mid-Century Modern home in south Palm Desert that was facing a short sale, he immediately called his wife Bettina Waldraff to come take a look.

“He wanted me to see the inside of the house with the true mid-century modern beam ceiling and big back yard with pool which our two Entlebucher Swiss Mountain dogs would love,” she said. “We both saw right away the potential this property could have.”

The couple called young up-and-coming architect Lance O’Donnell of O2 Architecture in Palm Springs, a protégé architect working with Donald Wexler.  They previewed several homes with O’Donnell to get his perspective and input. O’Donnell agreed that south Palm Desert house was a great location, within walking distance to El Paseo, and had “great bones and potential.” O’Donnell suggested leaving the existing ceiling and adding on a master suite to increase the house from approximately 1,900 square feet to 2,500.

Their offer finally accepted, the Haverkates sealed the deal in November, 2009.  O’Donnell began his design that  maintained the house’s original architecture but meticulously reinvented its interior. Rarely is a house able to combine modern and vintage accents into a living work of art.

“Mid-April of last year, our project was underway,” said Bettina. “Moving along, the whole house was gutted down to the studs and just the old concrete floors and wood beam ceilings were left.”

The remodel, executed by Barton Construction Palm Springs and Team Haverkate, kept the original wood post and beam construction and ceiling.  New air conditioning ducts and copper plumbing were installed under the original slab. The new roof and walls were fully insulated and the concrete floors throughout were restored and polished.

The new master suite bedroom/bathroom addition was designed with its roof tilted in the opposite direction of the existing roof line of the house to give it the mid-century modern “Butterfly Roof” look.

The kitchen was designed to be a focal point in the living space.  It features CAESARSTONE kitchen counter tops, white high gloss Wenge wood veneer cabinets and top-of-the-line MIELE dishwasher, oven, steamer, warming drawer, and built in espresso machine, with an energy efficient induction glass cook top and stainless steel hood. A SUBZERO refrigerator and 150 bottle SUBZERO wine fridge complete the kitchen appliances.

“A long 10 feet dining table was a must since I like to cook and entertain friends and clients of Ralph’s,” said Bettina. “And a handmade crystal chandelier rounds up the dining area giving it a glamorous feel.”

A huge 24-foot glass wall completely disappears, joining the living areas to the patio and pool.

“Strong support was needed to hold the big glass slider,” said Bettina. “To have that open space, living inside/outside feeling was one of the main items on our wish list.”

The swimming pool was completely re-done in its original style, shape and size with all new pool equipment, plumbing and concrete decking, adding an outdoor fire pit and sitting area. Albert Frey-style block walls provide privacy and accent the desert landscaping. A state-of-the-art see-through glass Napoleon fireplace replaces an outdated fireplace.

Bathrooms feature PORCELANOSA glass tiles and Wenge veneered cabinets under modern WET sinks and the master bath has a white custom CAESARSTONE dual vanity.  All faucets, shower heads and toilets are the latest design of KOHLER.

“Mark Davis from the Modern Home store in Palm Springs supplied us with tile for all the bath rooms and kitchen back splash as well as the countertops in the kitchen and the double sink free-floating unit in the master bath,” said Bettina.

The Haverkates chose double pane energy-efficient aluminum framed windows and sliders throughout the house. Three separate air and heating systems were placed underground (rather than on the roof) and can be operated separately to keep the energy costs down. Most lighting is the latest energy efficient LED light fixtures.

“Finding the right furniture was fairly easy since both Ralph and I have very similar taste,” said Bettina. “We were able to picture what pieces we needed where and what colors.  We found some of the furniture in Los Angeles, and also some great pieces locally in Palm Springs.”

The property is conveniently located in a very quiet South Palm Desert area but still within walking distance to the high-end shopping/restaurant EL PASEO area.

“We moved in November 2010 and just love the area and the house,” said Bettina. “Our two dogs, Heidi and Willi, could not be happier; they enjoy the big lawn area created for them to play and run after their balls.”

We can’t really know, but there may be a reason that if they go lower, they won’t stay there. The long-term inflation rate of U.S. housing is around 2.5%. Let’s look at the Case-Shiller Home Price Index for some high-tier markets. The graph below has the Index for three western U.S. cities, with an added line that shows the normal long term rate of housing price inflation of about 2.5%.

This long term “normal” growth rate shows that home prices should be about 30% higher now than in 2000. Prices in Vegas and Phoenix have dropped below this long term value, and there should be upward pressure based on this historical trend. Higher than average inflation is expected and will further increase this upward pressure.

L.A. may be a bit different, as it may have been still feeling the effects of the 1990’s California bubble and recession when the Index base of year 2000 was established. If so, this might have raised the base home values in 2000, made the peak lower and therefore today’s index lower, closer to Phoenix and L.A. If this is not the case, L.A. may still be above the normal inflation value, and vulnerable to further declines.

In the Palm Springs area, homes that have devalued from about 35 to 50% may have hit bottom, at least in the long view of things. They may stay there until economic and employment conditions improve.

To see how they might recover from that point see ”Waiting for Price Recovery”
Wayne Longman

Welcome to Team Haverkate Real Estate, your Premier Source for Mid-Century Modern Homes in the Palm Springs Area

What is Mid-Century Modern?

Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes mid-20th century development in modern design, architecture and urban development from roughly 1933 to the late 1960s (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-century-modern).

The term, coined by Cara Greenberg for her book, Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s, published in 1983 by Random House, is now recognized by scholars and museums worldwide as a significant design movement.

What is Modernism?

Before World War II, architecture and furniture styles emphasized hand craftsmanship — ornate detail and traditional materials like dark, heavy woods.  However, decades earlier, the visual arts, painting and sculpture had already been influenced  by a movement called “modernism” with a visual emphasis on clean lines, contrast, elevation and innovative style and form.

French Impressionists, such as Matisse, Picasso, and symbolists in literature, Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliott, were among the early modernist artists and writers.

Modernism “questions the axioms of the previous age,” and is a cultural movement of changes in Western society beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  It reflects  a trend of thought that human beings can create, improve and reshape the environment through practical experimentation, scientific knowledge and technology.   Along with new artistic and philosophical trends, social, political and economic were forces at work – industrialization (en.Wikipedia.org//wiki/Modernism).

Post War Life Style

After WWII, modernism began to influence lifestyle-related arts forms such as architecture, product and furniture design.  Mid-century modern furniture styles began to be lightweight, affordable, clean-lined,  visually simple, and made new materials such as steel and acrylic. (http://blog.antiques.com/2010/08/24/what-is-mid-century-modern)

Suburban living and economic prosperity began to expand during this time, and with that, the demand for mass produced, affordable housing and furniture that offered both beauty and function.   Americans seemed to move beyond painful memories of the war and focus on innovation and the future, according to  What is Mid-Century Modern? in Antiques.com, The Magazine.

In her book, Greenberg writes, ” The early 1950s was not the first time modern furniture had been offered to the American public, but it was the first time they lined up around the block to buy it.  But it they did with cold card cash of postwar prosperity, driven by a sudden voracious hunger for curves that were swoopy, parabolic, amoeboid; lines that were long and low; ornament that was absent; materials that, until recently, had been found only in aircraft factories.”

War-inspired advances in the aircraft industry made new manufacturing techniques and materials possible for this new lifestyle.

Modernist Architecture

Modernist architecture emphasizes function. (architecture.about.com/od/20thcenturytrends).  Consequently, any ornamentation is derived from the structure and theme of the building.

Although few “modern” buildings were built before WWII, postwar Modernist architecture became the pre-eminent style for schools, institutional and commercial buildings.  The most commonly used materials are glass for the facade, steel for exterior support, and concrete for the floors and interior support.  Floor plans are functional and logical.  The skyscraper became an icon of modern urban development, and symbol of success and wealth.

Modernism Visionaries and Evolution

Some see the evolution of Modern architecture as a social matter, developed as a result of social and political revolutions:  The Bauhaus movement in Germany that called for a “rational” social housing for the workers, is a primary example.

Bauhaus architects rejected “bourgeois” details such as cornices, eaves and decorative details.  They wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form, without ornamentation of any kind.  Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs, smooth facades and cubic shapes.  The Bauhaus school disbanded when the Nazis rose to power; Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and other Bauhaus leaders migrated to the United States. (arcitecture.about.com/od/20thcenturytrends)

In her Mid-Century Modern book, Greenberg writes, “The Bauhaus visionaries Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuen and Swiss-born Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) had outline in the 1920s and ’30s with astonishing prescience, the forms Fifties furniture was to follow.”

Some see Modern architecture as primarily driven by technological and engineering developments: The availability of new building materials such as concrete, iron, steel and glass drove the invention of new building techniques as part of the Industrial Revolution.

Others regard Modernism as a matter of taste, a reaction against the ornate and excessive Victorian Era and Edwardian Art Nouveau.

Architects in the International and Bauhaus style preferred simple, unornamented buildings.  While Bauhaus architecture had been concerned with social aspects of design, America’s International Style became a symbol of Capitalism.  The International Style is the favored architecture for office buildings and found in upscale custom homes.

The name came from the book, The International Style, by historian and critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock and architect Philip Johnson, published in 1932 in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (architecture.about.com/od/20thcenturytrends).

Mid-Century Architecture was further developed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of organic architecture combined with elements of the International and Bauhaus movements, although less formal.

Desert Modernism

By the mid-20th Century, many variations of the International Style had evolved.  In southern California and the American southwest, architects adapted the International Style to the warm climate and arid terrain, creating an elegant yet informal style known as California or Desert Modernism (architecture.about.com/od/20thcenturytrends).

Clean lines, affordable materials, and economical engineering targeted the needs of the average American family.  Desert Modern residences tend to be on a more human scale, accessible, using organic shapes, and playful, democratic designs.

The style emphasizes open floor-plans, ample windows to bring the outdoors in, and the post-and-beam design that eliminates bulky support walls in favor of walls made of glass, which seems to dissolve the inorganic “box” into the background.

Palm Springs arguably has the largest concentration of Mid-Century Modern architecture in the world (www.visitpalmsprings.com./page/desert-modernism/8185).

By chance and opportunity, pioneer builders and architects such as Joseph Eichler (www.eichlernetwork.com), Richard Neutra (www.neutra.org) , Albert Frey (www.psmodcom.com), the Alexanders (www.pspreservationfoundation.org), Don Wexler (www.moderndeserthome.com), John Lautner (www.johnlautner.org),  A. Quincy Jones (www.aquincyjones.com), William Cody (www.psmodcom.com), and many others bought Mid-Century Modern architecture to public buildings, custom homes and subdivisions in the Palm Springs area.

Among the notables are the Palm Springs International Airport, Larson Justice Center, and Merrill Lynch Building in Palm Springs by Donald Wexler (see blog: “A Closer Look at Palm Springs Modern Architect Donald Wexler”);  the Aerial Tramway Station, Tramway Valley Gas Station and Palm Springs City Hall by Albert Frey (www.moderndeserthome);  Ambassador Walter  Annenberg’s “Sunnylands” Estate by A. Quincy Jones (en.wikipedia/wiki/A_Quincy_Jones); the famed Elrod House by John Lautner (see our blog  ”Architect John Lautner’s Elrod House Now On the Market” ), and the iconic Kaufmann House by Richard Neutra (see our blog “The Landmark Kaufmann House Still Makes News”).

For a tour of Palm Springs Desert Modern homes currently for sale in the Palm Springs area, contact Ralph Haverkate at www.HaverkateRealEstate.com.

– Pamela Bieri

In the Palm Springs area, the only homes that are selling are at 30-50% discounts.  Many would-be home buyers seem to be holding back in fear (or hope) that prices will fall some more.  If you believe in Buy Low you should be wary of trying to buy at the bottom – that is very hard to do.  It’s better to get most of the benefit of the low, than to miss it altogether.  Median prices were actually lower last year than now.

It does look as if prices may fall again, but I may be wrong .  In the opinion of some, we saw prices rise last year due to various government stimulus programs, and they could rise again if private investment increases.  We have seen unemployment increase and that will increase the number of foreclosures.  The impact of new foreclosures should be minimal because we have seen the banks meter them onto the market about as fast as they are selling, which has kept prices stable.

Could a meaningful drop of 20% or more still happen?  If a Mid-Century Modern home was $500,000 at the peak, it is possibly worth around $300,000 now (a 40% drop).  I don’t believe it can go down to $200,000 (down 60%).  Could it go down 15% from $300,000 to $255,000?  It is possible, but a slight market improvement could keep the price steady or slightly increase it, as happened over the last year.  Meanwhile the buyer is still looking and we are getting closer to the time when prices will definitely increase.

Some sellers are waiting too.  If they need to sell, there isn’t much point in waiting for the return to high prices.  That won’t happen for many years.  They are likely better off selling now to start a new financial or housing base rather than dealing with an uncertain future.

For both Buyers and Sellers, there is a financial risk of doing nothing, and you may miss the chance of finding that perfect Kreisel Alexander or Walter S. White.

- Wayne Longman

Haverkate Real Estate Recommends Dwell On Design: The West Coast’s Largest Design Show Celebrates the Best Modern Projects, Products and People.

Welcome to www.HaverkateRealEstate.com , Palm Springs’ premier site for Mid-Century Modern Real Estate and design resources.

If you can’t get enough Mid-Century Modern, do not miss Dwell On Design (www.dwellondesign.com ), the West Coast’s largest design event, returning June 25-27 to the Los Angeles Convention Center. It’s only a short two-hour drive from Palm Springs.

Curated by the editors of Dwell Magazine, this three-day extravaganza features more than 200 brands on exhibition with design-forward exhibits, competitions, East and West side home tours, and over 80 presentations and panels by design industry  leaders and influencers.

“We’re thrilled to see how the creative community in Los Angeles has taken cultural ownership of Dwell on Design, making this show the premiere event on the design calendar,” said Dwell Media President Michela O’Connor Abrams.

It’s no wonder that Los Angeles has taken an active role in this major design event:  also called California Modern style, Los Angeles and Palm Springs offers a wealth of residential  Mid-Century Modern architecture, furnishings, and designs.

While in LA, take a look at some prime examples on the self-drive home tours into areas that most visitors don’t see.  From Larchmont to Silver Lake and Atwater Village to the east, and a “surf and turf” drive from West Hollywood to the beaches, explore Mid-Century Modern homes like the Walnut and Skywave houses in Venice Beach, the Los Feliz residence or Auburn 7 house in Silver Lake district.  The landmark Stahl House tour (by Architect Pierre Koenig, 1960) in the Hollywood Hills is sold out, however.  Planning and engineering company Latitude 33 ( www.latitude33.com ) is the tour sponsor.

Check out Room & Board (www.roomandboard.com), a respected American purveyor of “all things domestic,” who will be on the Design show floor offering sensible and affordable Mid-Century classics.   A bevy of small Southern California-based brands will also join their international counterparts.

Gleaming rows of low-flow faucets, fixtures, toilets, bathtubs, and kitchen designs by Kohler (www.kohler.com), CB2 (www.cb2.com )  Holdit (www.holdithome.com), Miele (www.mieleusa.com) and Ecofabulous (www.ecofabulous.com) offer eco-friendly, sustainable innovative products.

Exhibits run the gamut of building materials and systems, from the bright lights of design-forward Lutron (www.lutron.com) to the cozy environs of Napoleon fireplace.  A lush landscape of planters, prefabs, shrubs and sheds with solar panels, outdoor carpet, and patio furniture, Dwell Outdoors explores exterior spaces with a focus on greenery and green energy.

Los Angeles’ AIA design conference,  MOBIUS LA ( www.aialosangeles.org ), offers  multi-day professional development seminars, lectures, panel discussions and special events like the Restaurant Design Awards Ceremony. More than 100 of leading design, sustainability and culinary thinkers will be presenting live on the Design Innovation and  Sustainability stages.

During the Ideas Conference, The New Face of Affluence seminar turns brands toward a new generation of high value customers who spend $303 billion annually on discretionary purchases from apparel and autos to home furnishings and travels.  Speakers include Rose Marcario of Patagonia (www.patagonia.com), Michela O’Connor Abrams (www.DwellMedia.com)  , Chris Chamberlin of Paine PR, Richard Whitehall of SMART Design (www.smartdesignworldwide.com), advisor and social media expert Dale Larson, and Betsy Burroughs of FocusCatalyst (www.FocusCatalyst.com).

In Palm Springs, be sure to contact www.HaverkateReal Estate.com/resource.php. for the most comprehensive listings of Mid-Century Modern homes and estates for sale in the California desert area.

We’ll see you at Dwell on Design June 25-27! By Pamela Bieri

We just listed this architecturaly significant “Green” Modern House in Joshua Tree.

Seen in Variety, the LA Times, The Week and Angeleno magazines, this ‘green’ home was conceived by Beverly Hills landscape architect W Garett Carlson. The result is notably significant in uniqueness of concept, materials and execution of a structure at one with its environment. Design elements include rusted steel, concrete, glass, desert sand and indigenous landscaping. A faux boulder facade mimics the famous rock faces in nearby Joshua Tree National Park and hides the home from view. Low energy in-floor thermal warming and cooling is assisted by massively insulated walls, a desert garden on the roof, and the cooler high desert location. Disappearing 10 by 40 foot glass doors completely open the great room to the deck and desert views. Stained concrete floors, CaesarStone counters, upscale stainless appliances, glass tiles, and wood ceiling surround the furnished living spaces. Priced to market, it is well below its 2009 construction cost. Easy driving times to Palm Springs and LA.

Nearby 800,000 acre Joshua Tree National Park has granite monoliths that attract visitors and rock climbers from around the world. The town, an enclave of musicians and artists, continues to grow in popularity, with its own music festival, and an eclectic mix of art galleries, antique and curio stores, cafes and design shops. It is home to the annual Joshua Tree Music Festival. The band U2 stayed and recorded in the town to create their legendary album, ‘The Joshua Tree’. Visit www.boulder-house.com

We see a lot of news about home prices, both good and bad.  Nobody can predict the future, but we might find clues about it in the past.  The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, captured the California home price collapse in 1990, as shown in the first chart - for high-tier Los Angeles homes.  Then the prices had increased by about a factor of two, just like our last bubble, as shown in the second chart.  The scale in the first chart has been expanded to show they were very similar bubbles, even to their relative size, shape, duration and the false recoveries in 1991 and 2007.  Maybe we can use the 1990′s experience to project our current recovery. 

If so, the blue bars show that it took seven years from the peak to just get to the point where prices began a true recovery.  Our price recovery may not start until 2013, and this is a worse economic situation than in the 1990′s. In between now and 2013 we may see still lower prices.  It is difficult to tell if the small peak we see today is a false recovery or the reaction to an overshoot in the drop, but from the last bubble it is not likely the beginning of recovery.  Again historically, that increase around 2013 will be at the rate of inflation, which in the long term is around 2.5% a year.  If so, this is relative price stability and isn’t bad news – volatility in home prices is the bad news because neither sellers or buyers know what to expect.  – Wayne Longman

Case-Shiller LA High Tier 1990 Bubble

LA Case-Shiller High Tier 2006 Bubble

The most recent Case-Shiller index shows the average price of all home sales in Los Angeles from November through December increased by about 0.3%.   When you dig a little deeper,  over the last three reports it shows  a slight decrease for high tier homes (those over about $500,000), and about a 5% increase for homes below that price limit.  On the face, it means healthier low-end market activity, with supply perhaps slightly lagging demand, resulting in higher prices.

On the other hand, other and more recent-activity factoids are the national 20% drop in February consumer confidence, and an 11% drop of new home sales in January.  Freddie Mac now reports that a record 4 percent of its borrowers are at least three months delinquent on their loans and in danger of foreclosure. 

Our own Desert Area MLS shows a 20% drop in closings in January, while the inventory of bank-owned and others has remained fairly constant.  Those listed above $500,000 are significant in numbers – about 1/3 of the total, but they sold only about 1/7 of the total in January.  The number of new listings above $500,000 jumped from about 260 in January to over 400 in February.

All this may indicate a stronger Buyers’ market in the high end with more supply and less demand resulting in lower prices.   The overall lower buying activity and consumer confidence may further serve to weaken prices in all tiers.  – Wayne Longman

We recently did our Business Plan to Sell a 3 bedroom Mid-Century Modern for a client in Rancho Mirage. Naturally, part of that is to look at recent sales activity. Here’s what we found;

Each bar shows how many homes were sold in that month. This supports our conclusion that sales are increasing, even if prices aren’t . So we looked at the next layer of the onion, and found things aren’t quite so good. 12 of the 17 sales this year in this group were distressed sales (bank-owned or REO, and short sales).

Still, non-REO sales are increasing. Furthermore, there is only 1 Active short-sale property in this group on the market, as of the date of this writing, so regular sales have less competition at the moment. Not shown here is a detectable trend that distressed sale prices are slightly increasing.

We might conclude that REO sales have drawn Buyers back in to the market, and this is good for all homeowners. Things are still tough though and you will need good marketing to sell your home.

High end home sales in the Palm Springs area have taken a big hit.  It’s hard to see trends when sales are combined with low end foreclosures, or when looking at a given price bracket.  If for example you look at homes that sold for over $1,000,000, your numbers are skewed by those homes that once sold there, but now sell for less. 

The first graph below attempts to get around this by looking at a constant group of homes in four Valley cities (Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and Indian Wells) that are all 4,000 square feet in size or larger.  To get rid of the “noise” of wide variation of sales prices in this range, each point on the graph represents the moving average sales price of the immediately previous 60 sales. In addition to the big average sales price drop, there are many fewer sales per month now than at the peak.

The second graph showing just the most recent 60 sales, doesn’t show any major change in the overall trend. In this graph the line doesn’t represent a moving average but just the overall trend.  Keep in mind these are what people are buying, and don’t reflect asking prices.  Those wanting to sell though should look at the prices that are selling.

I had expected to see a leveling off or even a small average price increase.