To visit Palm Springs is to experience Donald Wexler’s work.
“He’s kind of known as the father of Palm Springs modernism,” real estate agent Brian Linder explained in an interview with Homes.com. “He was a really early arrival to Palm Springs in the midcentury, so many really attributed him to the style of the architecture, the Palm Springs School of Architecture.”
Fly into the airport? He designed it. Stop for gas at the Union 76 Gas Station? That was Wexler. Visit the Bank of Palm Springs? Another creation. Play a round of pickleball at Canyon Country Club? The clubhouse is a Wexler.
More than that, Wexler — who began his career working for architect Richard Neutra — also influenced the residential footprint in Palm Springs as a pioneer of steel-frame construction.
Before any of those projects, though, there was Wexler’s own family home, aptly known as the Wexler Residence. The midcentury modern home built in 1955 served as Wexler’s home for decades.
“All of his houses are pretty special,” Linder said, “but this is his own home, so that makes it much more particular.”
The roughly 2,400-square-foot house has since undergone a full restoration. Now, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom property is on the market, asking $3.8 million, according to a listing on Homes.com.
Linder, an architecture broker with The Value of Architecture team at Compass, holds the listing alongside Rick Grahn, also with Compass.
A home so nice the owner bought it twice
In 2008, Daniel Patrick Giles purchased the home. The now-CEO and founder of luxury fragrance brand Perfumehead undertook a full restoration of the home — with the help of Wexler and one of his trainees.
"It was practically stripped down to nothing," Linder said of the project. "The original wood posts and beams and the decking on the roof, all of that remains, but literally everything else has been removed and replaced.”
"Literally every surface of the house is new,” he added. “So it’s a pretty low-maintenance house. It has a brand new roof and it has solar panels.”
Since then, the home has traded hands twice more. First, when Giles sold it in 2015. Then again in 2021, when he bought it for the second time.
In fact, Giles' affection for the home is so strong that he launched a new Perfumehead scent earlier this year inspired by the residence. Now, Giles is selling the home to have more cash to invest in his brand, according to Linder.
Identifying a discerning buyer at a high price
As for the next steward of the historic property, Linder says "it's going to be self-selecting."
“The price is fairly high on a dollar-per-square-foot basis, and so it’s not going to appeal to somebody that’s just like, any old house in the neighborhood will do," he said. "It’s somebody who understands the Wexler name, the pedigree of the architecture itself and the condition of the home.”
The home's restoration, too, adds to its appeal.
"It’s great to be in a space that feels so good that it doesn’t feel kitschy. Some mid-century modern architecture can feel dated,” Linder said. “I hesitate to use the word luxury because I think that’s sometimes a dirty word that can just be expensive and ugly, but, it has very luxurious finishes."