When it was built in 1955, the Wave House in Palm Desert, California was full of life. It was built as a party house and bachelor pad for Miles C. Bates by architect Walter White, but the party eventually ended and the home sat empty from 2008 until 2018. That's when Stayner Architects, a family firm based in Los Angeles, purchased the home at auction from the city of Palm Desert and set out to revive it. "I learned about the house through my architecture practice," says Christian Stayner. "On a lark I forwarded the request for proposals to my father. We had been chatting about trying to find a place in the desert to build a project and I realized this was a more interesting project to take on."
The size of the house had been doubled by previous owners, who added two bedrooms and enclosed outdoor patio areas. The home was also in poor condition by the time the firm bought it. The goal was to pay tribute to the original design, without making it feel like a time capsule. "We approach preservation in a very different way than most historic preservationists," says Stayner. "We're pretty critical of this idea that just because it's old means that it's important. We came to this project because we saw an architectural experiment that had a lot of value, and because there was an underlying idea or set of ideas within the house that were worth moving forward."
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They dove into White's archives, which are located at University of California, Santa Barbara, and found original plans and photographs to help guide the renovation. They used the original color palette and were able to salvage most of the original finishes, which had been hidden under layers of paint and other materials. When it came to furnishing the space, they sourced from the Stayer family's personal collection of Scandinavian modern furniture and added other midcentury touches, such as Russel Wright pottery and archival textiles by Tibor.
Even after putting the finishing touches on Wave House, the firm's work isn't done. In the coming months they will add a pool, which was part of White's original design but never realized, as well as two new structures with four guest suites and a commercial kitchen. The new compound, known as the Desert Wave, will be open to guests in 2021, but until then midcentury fans can experience a stay at the Wave House beginning this spring.
