There were rumors that the buyers planned to make some dramatic changes to the home — raised ceilings, enlarged rooms. What happened was far worse. On March 19, 2002, the new owner obtained a permit to demolish the Richard Neutra–designed Maslon House, a midcentury jewel on the 12th fairway of Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage. Within a month, it was gone. The loss stunned the community, received worldwide attention, and reignited a movement.
Samuel and Luella Maslon’s 1962 residence was one of only three Neutra homes in the Coachella Valley. It displayed the clean lines and rational functionality that defined his work and served as a glass-and-steel showcase for the couple’s extensive art collection. The still well-maintained property went on the market in January 2002 and sold the following month.
The outrage was swift and severe. Newspapers detailed the destruction, readers expressed shock, and the architectural community grieved. Jim Maslon, Samuel and Luella’s son, wrote in The Desert Sun: “We felt totally deceived … [the buyer] never in any way indicated that he would tear the house down; he would just do minor renovations to bring the house up to standard. If we had known the truth, we never ever would have sold him the house … We cannot overstate how truly devastated we are by this loss.”
“I would say the Maslon House was transformative,” says Sidney Williams, Palm Springs Architectural Alliance co-founder and former curator of architecture and design at the Palm Springs Art Museum. Key to national awareness of the demolition was a New York Times article by designer and historian Brad Dunning, accompanied by a photo by David Glomb. “It showed the swimming pool and the house behind it in ruins,” Williams says. “That really jarred people.”
The city of Rancho Mirage responded quickly, passing an emergency ordinance that required all demolition and remodeling permits to be reviewed by then-community development director Robert Brockman. In March 2003, the City Council unanimously approved the city’s first historic preservation ordinance. Rancho Mirage was the third Coachella Valley city, after Palm Springs and Palm Desert, to adopt one.
The ordinance led to funding for a comprehensive survey of Rancho Mirage’s historic properties. “Every square inch of the city had to be surveyed, not just midcentury modern,” says Craig Traupane, chairman of Rancho Mirage’s Historic Preservation Commission. Completed in 2007, the survey also documented important prewar, Spanish-influenced, and adobe buildings.
By the time author and preservationist Melissa Riche moved to the desert in 2012 and began writing historic nominations, the survey was “gathering dust,” she says. Riche formed a group of midcentury homeowners in 2015; two years later, it became the nonprofit Preservation Mirage. Updating the city’s survey became an early priority. The city responded in 2025. “The survey was not only updated and expanded,” Riche says, “but the City Council has embraced preservation in a way I could only have dreamed of.”
The updated survey means a demolition permit for a documented property raises a red flag and must go before the Historic Preservation Commission. That pause gives commissioners time to inform owners about a home’s significance and provide research that could support a nomination.
For historic designation, Rancho Mirage recognizes different criteria for different properties. “You want to go to the highest level of designation, which is an architectural designation,” Traupane says. “That means the house represents what it was on the blueprints.” If the house has been altered too much or the plans no longer exist, it might still qualify as a strong example of an architectural style, through a celebrity association, or because a resident changed the course of the city.
Preservation efforts in Palm Springs got serious when the ornate ticket booth in front of The Plaza Theatre was ripped out in the late 1970s, prompting then-City Council member Bill Foster to push for a dedicated review committee. By 1981, Palm Springs had established the Historic Site Preservation Board and adopted its first preservation ordinance. Architectural historian Steven Keylon says the city’s long-running campaign and sheer number of Class 1 Historic Sites and Historic Districts have set the standard in the valley.
“Each of the nine cities goes about it a little differently in terms of process and ceremony,” Keylon says. “But it all traces back to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, which set the bar for evaluation and for integrity. The vocabulary is shared, even where the procedures aren’t.”
In Palm Springs, the first question is whether a property is historically significant because of its design, construction, owners, or an important event that occurred there. Next is whether it retains its original defining features. If it passes both tests, a documented nomination goes to the Historic Site Preservation Board. These substantial nominations average about 70 pages. The board holds a hearing and, if it finds that the property warrants designation, makes a recommendation to the City Council for a final vote.
Historic status in Palm Springs protects the exterior only. Homeowners may alter interiors as long as the changes do not damage the exterior. “What designation does not mean is that a building is preserved in amber,” Keylon says. “Changes can be made. They simply have to be in keeping with the harmony and the intent of what was originally designed.” Owners must also maintain a designated property, and keeping a historic building looking right is often more expensive than the alternative.
That is where the Mills Act can help. The state law allows participating cities and counties to enter into 10-year contracts with owners of qualified historic buildings. Owners receive property-tax savings in exchange for rehabilitating and maintaining the building according to specific preservation standards.
Ken Lyon, principal city planner for the city of Palm Springs, sees a potential weakness in the program. “Unfortunately, the Mills Act has become a means for anyone with an old building to chase lower taxes,” he says, warning that approving contracts for properties that are not particularly distinctive can dilute the city’s inventory of historic places.
Palm Desert recently commissioned its first historic resources study, which identified more than 150 properties and 18 historic districts. Architectural historian and Palm Desert native Luke Leuschner calls the survey “a big step” because the city now has a comprehensive record that can flag properties when permits are filed. Yet Palm Desert requires an owner to initiate a landmark nomination. Neither the City Council nor the city’s preservation committee can do so.
“That puts the city in a position where, if something really important and historic was going to be torn down, there isn’t really a route for anyone to preserve it,” Leuschner says.
Elsewhere, the systems vary. Indio’s General Plan provides a framework for identifying and evaluating historic resources, but the city does not have a comprehensive local designation program. La Quinta no longer has a Historic Preservation Commission; the city seeks the Historical Society’s opinion when permits would demolish a historic property or change its footprint, but the group has no decision-making authority. Cathedral City recognizes three levels of historic integrity, an approach intended to make designation possible even when a site’s significance rests on its history rather than a perfectly preserved structure.
Coachella has no locally designated historic sites, though the city complies with state and national historic-resource requirements and its Municipal Code includes regulations concerning historic districts and sites. Indian Wells evaluates properties through five criteria that include links to significant events or people, architectural integrity, artistic value, and distinctive examples of community planning. Desert Hot Springs has a Historical Society but no historic commission. The society secured Riverside County Historic Landmark status for the Rock House, a 1946 example of vernacular architecture, and purchased it for its headquarters in 2019.
One of the happiest outcomes happened in Palm Desert, though it had its nail-biting moments. Designed in 1955 by Walter S. White and nicknamed the Wave House for its curved roofline, the Miles C. Bates House measures less than 1,000 square feet. Some 50 years after it was built, the city’s redevelopment agency acquired the property. Preservationists persuaded officials to separate the neglected house from the larger parcel and auction it off for restoration. The city offered the buyer a $50,000 stipend.
“The house was a disaster,” Leuschner says, “entombed in additions and alterations. It had a ’70s kitchen in it and some of the original features had been taken out. But the general form of the house was still under there.”
The outcome was not assured. “In the auction room you couldn’t really tell who was trying to buy the house to restore it and who was going to buy it to demolish it,” Leuschner says. The Stayner family bought the house and undertook a restoration, spending what Leuschner estimates was $1 million to buy and restore it. The house is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the owners have a Mills Act contract.
Other buildings were not so fortunate. Artist Carl Bray’s home and studio in Indian Wells was demolished after preservationists and the city disputed whether it was safe. A roadside marker now stands where the house once did. In Palm Desert, all but one of the bungalows in a Walter S. White complex were demolished. To add insult to injury, the parcel has remained undeveloped for years.
“The benefit belongs to the community,” Keylon says. “We get to keep the places that tell the story of how this city came to be.” For owners, preservation can bring restrictions and higher maintenance costs. The tradeoff, he says, comes down to protecting an important site from demolition or a remodeling that erases its character.
“I’ve always said that preservation is a team sport,” Sidney Williams says. “I think the more you talk to people, you realize how large the community is and how we do collaborate and support one another.”
During Modernism Week in 2025, directors Scott Goldstein and Dave Yakir debuted Richard Neutra’s Maslon House, a documentary short about the loss. “As we traveled with the film,” Goldstein says, “people kept telling us about their own architectural tragedies, and it hit me that everyone has a place or a space that would feel like getting kicked in the heart to lose. Losing a masterpiece like that, as if it was an afterthought, makes you realize that everything is vulnerable.”