Palm Springs' modernist gem Edris House breaks record with $3 million sale

The Little Tuscany neighborhood of Palm Springs joined an elite club at the end of last month: Coachella Valley addresses where a home has sold for more than $1,000 per-square-foot.

The property to snag the honor is Edris House, a modernist gem designed by E. Stewart Williams in the early 1950s. The home’s most recent owner, Palm Springs Mayor pro tem J.R. Roberts, sold the house for $3 million on April 30. That’s $1,111 for each of its 2,700 square feet, according to county property records.

Home sale records going back to June 2014 show the sale is a city record, launching Palm Springs above the $1,000 per-square-foot mark for the first time since then.

The next highest per-square-foot price tag in the city belongs to 362 W. Via Sol, another mid-century home on the west side of Palm Springs, which sold in January of 2016 for $2.4 million, or $945 per square foot.

HOUSING: Coachella Valley residents could save $74 per month from California's new solar mandate

CONTEXT: Valley home buyers are competing for a dwindling supply of houses under $300,000. Here’s why.

KEEP READING: How a Coachella party paradise got caught in a fierce tug-of-war

The sale of Edris House – a striking, low-slung three-bedroom home whose warm-toned wood and stone facade nestles into the desert hillside around it – puts Little Tuscany in the company of ritzy resort neighborhoods like Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert and Vintage Club in Indian Wells, where homes have also exceeded the $1,000 per-square-foot threshold in recent years.

While median home prices in Palm Springs remain lower than those of Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells, the city is the only one in the Coachella Valley where median home sale prices today exceed the city’s pre-recession peak, according to a March 2018 data analysis performed on behalf of the valley’s two Realtors associations.

Keith Markovitz, the listing agent for the recently-sold Little Tuscany property, said Edris House was able to attract a top dollar offer because it’s one-of-a-kind, not unlike a piece of fine art.

“There is genuinely no replacement for the Edris House,” he said.

Among the attractions of the design, Markovitz points to “warm and organic” details, like wood and natural rock.

“It’s almost as if it came from the earth as opposed to being set on top of it,” he said.

Markovitz is an agent with TTK Represents at HK Lane/Christie's International Real Estate.

The Edris House came on the market in February 2017 for the first time in 17 years. The 1954 house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was originally priced at $4.2 million.

PREVIOUSLY: Palm Springs' Edris House for sale, asking $4.2 million

Besides Edris House, E. Stewart Williams is behind many other prominent local designs, including the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway's alpine station. Williams died in 2005.

Only a handful of houses priced at $1 million or more in the past four years have garnered a per-square-foot price greater than $1,000, according to multiple listing service data maintained by the Palm Springs Regional Association of Realtors (PSRAR).

The median home price in Palm Springs was $646,750, research by Market Watch, LLC prepared on behalf of PSRAR and the California Desert Association of Realtors shows. The figure puts the city 7.8 percent above its pre-recession high of $600,000 in 2006.

Amy DiPierro covers real estate and business news at The Desert Sun. Reach her at amy.dipierro@desertsun.com. Follow her on Twitter @amydipierro.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR: Officials called it child abuse. Joshua Tree parents say 'we did very well with what we had.’