Desert Serenity
A careful restoration, muted tones and a lovingly curated collection has revived a midcentury marvel.
Famed architect Donald Wexler, along with the Alexander Company, created this quiet Palm Springs neighborhood of sprawling desert homes in 1965.
Current owners Dean Williams and Daryle Morgan, an HR executive and a landscape architect, have lovingly cared for the home since 2008. Their passion for midcentury design runs deep, and
A careful restoration, muted tones and a lovingly curated collection has revived a midcentury marvel.
the couple credits Daryle’s love of the Arts & Crafts movement as its foundation. Dean and Daryle surround themselves with their love for midcentury design—as evidenced by the fact that this is the second midcentury vacation home they’ve owned in Palm Springs and that their primary residence in Berkeley also falls into their favorite design style.
SERENDIPITOUS FIND
While doing what the couple describes as a “casual search of MLS listings,” they spotted a photo of the fireplace and were hooked. “We had to see the house that was attached to that fireplace!” they say.
They were further drawn in by the home’s blurred line of indoor/outdoor living, its walls of glass and clean lines. A family room was added to the layout in the 1980s, bringing the three bedroom, three bathroom home’s square footage up to 2,224.
Upon moving into the golf course adjacent residence, the couple began making careful changes—being mindful not to alter the character of the building, but rather to subltly update it to suit their lifestyle.
Their first projects took place in the interior—opening a wall between the dining room and addition, and repainting and installing carpet throughout. Outside, they removed the lawn and shrubs, opting instead for more desert-friendly landscaping of gravel and succulents. They also painted the entire exterior and added period-appropriate wood louvers in front of the bedroom windows for sun protection and privacy.
ORIGINAL BEAUTY
Dean and Daryle kept all the original features they inherited with the home, including interior and exterior rock walls and the stunning white fireplace that first caught their eye.
standard KARLSTAD couch. Krys dyed the white slipcover pastel pink, tufted the back cushions by hand and then added tapered legs for a more authentic silhouette. The coffee table/ottoman is crafted from a VITTSJÖ nesting table that was spray-painted gold and topped with foam, upholstered in green velvet. She also painted the backboard on a white VALJE shelf to create a colorful home bar.
“Whenever I get something from Ikea, I hack it to have more flair and style,” she says. “Those are my most popular posts, because people love Ikea, and when they find out they can change things for just a little bit more money, it becomes a great resource.”
THE BIG SWITCH
Knowing that furniture alone wouldn’t achieve the look she was after, Krys also asked her landlord’s permission to swap out lighting and hardware. He agreed, so long as she promised to replace the original fixtures before the couple’s next move.
Adding a Sputnik chandelier above the dining table and matching wall sconce in the bedroom vanity gave the rental instant midcentury appeal. Krys also used mod-friendly removable peeland-stick wallpaper throughout the apartment, including a festive lemon print in the kitchen, tropical leaves in the bathroom and a goldand-white geometric pattern in the bedroom. She dressed up the closet doors by creating a diamond pattern with metallic foil tape and