Historic 'Wave' house in Palm Desert hits the auction block this week

This year, Modernism Week will see its first auction and the city of Palm Desert hopes the highest bidder for a mid-century modern home — with its iconic “roller coaster” roof — is someone who recognizes the house as an architectural jewel that needs to be protected and restored.

The Miles C. Bates house, designed and built by Walter S. White and often referred to as the “Wave" house, was recently approved to be added to the National Register of Historic places.

The roof was made using wooden dowels with bi-concave intermediate elements and flows with the mountains in the background. Except for a couple of small areas of dry rot, the roof remains in good shape and savable 60 years later, city officials said.

White’s daughter, Poppy Woody, remembers her father and artist Bates discussing the house and its design.

“Miles Bates would come and visit us often. He ate many meals with us. I was young when this house was being built,” said Woody, who grew up in the Coachella Valley, was a nurse at Eisenhower Medical Center and now lives in Colorado.

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“It was special, as both Miles and my father were very creative, and wanted something unique and beautiful,” she said.

“My father was very appreciative of someone wanting to create a home that would allow his creativity to be expressed. This allowed my father to utilize his knowledge, to make the roof, that was so unconventional at the time – and has stood the test of time – and to create such a beautiful structure that would encourage future creative thoughts,” Woody added.

Woody plans to be in the valley for part of Modernism Week, attending a free exhibit of her father’s work in the desert at The Joslyn Center in Palm Desert.

White, an architect, engineer and inventor, died in 2002 in Colorado. He had lived and worked in the desert for many years, designing numerous houses throughout the valley. Many of his designed structures featured his much-imitated butterfly and parabolic roofs, as well as the cantilevered corner windows he pioneered.

White could envision how things could be done and improved, and knew how to make them more efficient and functional with a better result, Woody said.

“He seemed to understand that there was beauty in simplicity, and if it was not beautiful it would not be used. Function and beauty seemed to go hand in hand,” she said.

The “Walter S. White Exhibition: A Sojourn in the Desert,” features drawings and photographs of his work in the desert including the Franz Alexander house in Palm Springs – also listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and for sale, though not at auction.

The exhibit at The Joslyn Center, 73750 Catalina Way in Palm Desert, can be viewed for free from noon to 3 p.m. daily throughout Modernism Week.

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The house will be open for public viewing from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday. In its current state, the house not ADA accessible and children under 12 will not be allowed inside.

Tickets are free and can be obtained at the Modernism Week website.

The house, at 73697 Santa Rosa Way, will be auctioned on Feb. 24. The live auction – conducted by Beverly Hills-based GWS Auctions Inc. – will be held in the auditorium at the University of California at Riverside's Palm Desert campus from 2 to 3 p.m. Doors will open at 1:30 p.m.

Guests with tickets, which can be obtained for free at the www.modernismweek.com website, will be seated first with any open seats available on a first-come basis.

There is no minimum bid, however the house was appraised at $320,000 to $340,000 in January 2017.

“There has been considerable discussion whether to establish a minimum bid, since there are competing interests at play,” City Manager Lauri Aylaian said.

The house sits vacant and in disrepair on less than an acre, all of which was purchased by the city’s Redevelopment Agency in 2007 for future expansion of nearby Joslyn senior center and to provide more affordable housing. Since then, the state has dismantled RDAs and the city’s successor agency must now sell the property by June 30 to meet dissolution mandates.

The city is obligated to get as much revenue from the sale as possible to pass on to state and county taxing entities, Aylaian said.

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“Ultimately, we recognize that an auction will establish the fair market value of the property – whether it is high or low – which is what the state mandates we receive for the land,” Aylaian said. “The appraised value becomes immaterial by virtue of the auction.”

While the local and national historical designations make it more difficult – and costly – for a future owner to demolish the structure, neither is a guarantee, said Barbara Lamprecht, who prepared the national designation application for the Palm Desert historical society.

Both the city and Historical Society of Palm Desert have expressed a commitment to seeing the structure protected and restored by the buyer. As added incentive, the city has committed $50,000 available to the buyer to help with restoration costs.

The house was open for tours during a Modernism Week Preview in October and has been shown to several interested parties since, city spokesman David Hermann said.

“We have been getting press coverage from across the U.S., including Architectural Digest, as well as some international press coverage (England),” Hermann said.

Years before the city acquired the mid-century modern house, it had been remodeled with add-ons, some of which shield much of the roof from street view.

Woody said her father would be honored to know the house has been given historic value – locally and nationally.

“However, I feel he would also say this is just the way I like to do things – the right way, the way to honor the environment, the right use of materials, the way to provide shelter and comfort for the owner,” Woody said.

“My hope for the outcome is that someone will restore it to the original state,” she said. “It was a beautiful home. I remember how nice it was, comfortable and inviting, like the early photos show. I trust this will happen.”

Desert Sun reporter Sherry Barkas covers Tourism and Families. She can be reached at sherry.barkas@thedesertsun.com or (760) 778-4694. Follow her on Twitter @TDSsherry

If you go

Modernism Week celebrates all things mid-century modern and includes a series of home tours, lectures, films, parties and educational programming. It runs Feb. 15-25. For more information or tickets, go to modernismweek.com.