When on duty as a host at The House of Tomorrow, and a pink 1959 Cadillac convertible shows up to go with your orange uniform shirt, how can you not take a selfie?
I was volunteering in Modernism Week–October at the newly rehabilitated House of Tomorrow, built in 1960 for Bob and Helene Alexander. They were builders of about 1,200 houses in Palm Springs and had their architect, William Krisel, draw up something special for their own residence.
In 1962, Look magazine came to town for a feature about the house, dubbing it The House of Tomorrow.
Bob and Helene Alexander died in a November 14, 1965 plane crash, and the next year the house became available for lease. Col. Tom Parker signed up for one year on behalf of newlyweds Elvis and Priscilla Presley, and the house became known as their Honeymoon Hideaway. More details are in my story for Palm Springs Life.
It’s a big draw because a lot of people who come to Palm Springs associate the city with Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. Everybody still knows who Frank Sinatra was, but the names of Bob Hope and Dinah Shore cause many of those same people to put hand to chin and say, “I may have heard of him/her.”
Gene Autry, forget it.
For Modernism Week, it was a big deal to get The House of Tomorrow and make it available for guest tours at $65 a head.
How perfect to have a pink ’59 Cad pull up with its afterburners going. The man and woman who got out were glamorous, too, but as a volunteer in a design festival, it’s too tacky to ask the paying guests to pose for photos for my blog.
I know who they are, though, so I’ll see them around town and try to get a picture next time. You can’t miss a pink Cadillac.