Las Vegas is the new Palm Springs. I’m declaring it. I’m gonna buy me a leetle place. I’m heading back to Las Vegas. I bought my airline tickets last night. I’m going to go to all the activities lined up for Nevada Preservation Foundation’s “A Celebration of Vegas Cool” — Home + History 2018, April 27-29.
Disclosure: I am / RetroRenovation.com is a Silver Sponsor of the Event — see the ads in the right-hand sidebar of the blog?
Oh, and the photo above: I flew, I keynoted, I house-toured — and then I shopped.
The “Desert Modern” house I visited on the tour two years ago had a spectacular blue bathroom.
I wasn’t sure I’d actually go, though. But long winter.
Inside The Rexford, my dream complex.
I need to get out in the world. So I asked Heidi if I could still get into stuff, and she said yes, and as I am a sponsor and was the keynote speaker two years ago and wrote about everything I saw, away I fly.
And who could forget: Uncle Jack LeVine’s famous collection of breeze blocks. There will be a lecture and book launch of a book about breeze blocks! Some days. I just love my job.
The lineup of events is pretty darned awesome. I get to go to the Bomb Shelter House Martini Tour. Woooooooot!
Perhaps I’ll see YOU there?
Cliff May ranch houses and their important architectural legacy 
Royal Barry Wills archive is donated to Historic New England 
Hot ticket: The Mai Kai’s 60th anniversary celebration on Dec. 28 including symposia by Sven Kirsten and Tim Glazner 
1992 is now “vintage” 
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I saw a blurb here a couple of weeks ago and wondered if you’d be going. The way your part of the country got hammered again and again by deeeeep snow, you deserve a break to know that SOMEwhere there’s sunshine and warmth!
Las Vegas has been so many things since it was founded that I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be anymore. Used to be glitz&glamour, then family-friendly, now – ???
Have you contacted a realtor or two – or just touring? Either way, can’t wait to see pics!
Saw this on Atomic Ranch and wondered if you were attending this year. Looking forward to some more great posts. Long winter duly noted – 4 nor’easters in one month – March no less! My poor daffodils. Have fun!
I want to know more about the breeze block book! Hope you’ll cover it here on the blog.
I will be following your post. LAs Vegas has had a bad habit of destroying the old to build new. I knew of a few areas when we lived there but it will be fun to see others. If you have the time the Clark County Museum on Boulder Hwy in Henderson has a lovely street of homes that have been preserved for all to see. Well worth the tour for just a few dollars. The homes are decorated with furnishings and sounds for the appropriate era they represent. I think this is my favorite place to get a feel for how Las Vegas came to be and grew.
I agree I just came from Clark County Museum & it was awesome!, What an unexpected amazing museum , Pam you must go!, We stayed downtown at El Cortez which has vintage 1940s rooms once owned by Bugsy Siegel & toured Mob Museum & Neon vintage sign museum
Viva Las Vegas! Good luck Pam.
Las Vegas is the news Palm Springs?!?!?! I am mortally offended! (But in good humor, of course.) PS is small, tasteful, only one casino inside the city limits, no building over 5 stories tall, architectural standards in place, no 24-hour drinking, no strip clubs, and they roll up the sidewalks at 10PM. In contrast, LV has set the benchmark for tacky and over-the-top. Las Vegas is the new Palm Springs? Take it back! Come visit PS and let me show you the difference first hand.
Well, I mean in the sense of great midcentury homes and neighborhoods to discover, preserve, and treasure. But you know that!
Yes, I knew that (LOL). But the offer to host you here in PS was genuine.
🙂
The lecture and book launch on breeze blocks sounds spectacular to me! It’s so great when you can get compiled information (such as the great posts on here) about items that are regularly overlooked or have a virtually unknown history. The house next door to my parents has a breeze block fence and I always thought it was majorly cool. Have a blast in Vegas, sounds like a very fun time!
If you’re interested in the screen block book, it is available now on the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation’s website:
http://www.pspreservationfoundation.org/journals.html
Ron and Barbara Marshall spent five years doing research on the book, it’s beautifully researched and written, and you won’t believe the photographs they’ve found! There is also a several page screen block identification guide inside the book. The book is beautifully designed by Gary Wexler, the son of master Palm Springs architect Donald Wexler. The whole project would make a good article for this superb website.
p.s. I just wrote a book about Herbert W. Burns, available on the website too, and also designed by Gary Wexler. Herbert Burns was an architectural designer in Palm Springs, and is known for his apartment hotels like the Orbit In and the Hideaway. But he also designed several one-of-a-kind custom homes. We are lucky to have one…
And we just restored our kitchen, with vintage pink General Electric steel cabinets, and Formica countertops with stainless steel trim, all of which was done using this website as a tool for sources, so thank you!
Thank you, Steven!!!!! I’ll check out your book too!
Steven, we have not met, but I wrote a book about Desert Skies condominiums in PS, which I concluded was likely a Herbert Burns design but with credit given to one of his draftsmen owing to anti-Semitic attitudes in PS in 1956 (the developer was Jewish). I will have to look for your book about Burns.
Hello PS Stephan, thank you. The Desert Skies is designed by Claude A. Powell, who was Burns’ draftsman for the bulk of the years Burns was designing. Powell was himself a capable designer, and served as an officer of the National Institute of Building Designers. The Desert Skies does have some Late Moderne detailing like much of Burns’ work, which makes sense since Powell and Burns were so closely related. But Burns happily designed for Jewish clients starting in the 1940s, and never shied away from publicity of any kind, so I don’t believe he would have had a problem with designing for a Jewish client. Some of his higher profile projects were for Jewish community leaders in Palm Springs. The Desert Skies is a nicely designed building, and since the LA Times positively attributed it to Powell at the time, I believe that to be true… Powell had a terrible death, he committed suicide by setting himself on fire!
Thanks for the link, the then and now photos were interesting.
I would like to see myself there!
Wow, I’m just finding out about this here, and I actually live in Vegas. In a vintage house, in a vintage neighborhood (around the corner from the gentlemen who own the Retro Vegas shop).
I will be there!!! Saw a blurb about it on the Atomic Ranch email newsletter and booked my ticket. I have been dying to see the Underground House for about 20 years. So excited to see it in person! And I’m even doing the VIP package…swimming in the pool too! Hope to meet you in person there.
My wife, Jutta, and I will probably be there. We live only about five hours away from Las Vegas in east-central California, i.e., close to nothing (except spectacular mountains).
Fabulous! I still need to do that story on your house! I have not forgotten!
Peggy and I will be there. Its a pretty intense schedule for two days but we hope to get to most of the events.
Vegas is an amazing place that almost literally reinvents itself every few years. The Vegas of the 1970’s has morphed into something really different today but we are looking forward to seeing what has survived from the “Rat Pack” era.
Update: Alas, I had to cancel my trip. Astro sick. Spent my airplane money on a vet instead.