Flamboyant portraits of Palm Springs and its residents

Set amid the Sono­ran Desert, against the lyri­cal back­drop of the San Jac­in­to Moun­tain, the city of Palm Springs occu­pies ancient lands of the Cahuil­la peo­ple, who enjoyed the region’s fer­tile mix of hot springs and dry heat.

At the turn of the 20^th cen­tu­ry, the wealthy elite began descend­ing on the region for extend­ed peri­ods of time, tak­ing advan­tage of its idyl­lic micro­cli­mate to address a vast array of health con­di­tions at fash­ion­able san­i­tar­i­ums and resorts.

By the 1930s, Hol­ly­wood power­bro­kers and celebri­ties added a splash of glam­our and intrigue with a decid­ed­ly bohemi­an lifestyle and aes­thet­ic. They com­mis­sioned inno­v­a­tive archi­tects like Richard Neu­tra, Don­ald Wexler and Albert Frey to cre­ate lux­u­ri­ous vaca­tion homes in a whol­ly new style: ​“Desert Modern.”

With its sig­na­ture blend of cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy, open-plan design, large win­dows, wall-to-wall car­pet­ing and swim­ming pools, Palm Springs became the stan­dard-bear­er of the mid-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can Dream, inspir­ing count­less real estate devel­op­ers to incor­po­rate these ele­ments into more afford­able sub­ur­ban designs.

Over the past cen­tu­ry, Palm Springs has become syn­ony­mous with a dis­tinct­ly Amer­i­can sen­si­bil­i­ty that com­bines pomp, spec­ta­cle, and kitsch into camp sophis­ti­ca­tion. But, as pho­tog­ra­ph­er Nan­cy Baron reveals, there’s more to the town than meets the eye at first glance.

In the new exhi­bi­tion, The Good Life, on view at PDNB Gallery in Dal­las, Baron takes us behind the sparkling façades of her adopt­ed home­town. As an out­sider turned insid­er, Baron con­nect­ed with neigh­bours and local res­i­dents, who are as fab­u­lous and flam­boy­ant as their homes to cre­ate a mag­i­cal por­trait of Palm Springs.

“My first trip to Palm Springs was in the dead of a hor­ren­dous Chica­go win­ter some­time in the mid-70’s,” Baron remem­bers. ​“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I don’t know which resort I was stay­ing at, but I’ll nev­er for­get lying pool­side, bathing in the warm sun while hav­ing a view of the snow on the moun­tains. It wasn’t a long stay, but it made a last­ing impres­sion. This was paradise.”

After mov­ing to Los Ange­les in 1981, Baron and her fam­i­ly began week­end­ing in Palm Springs. In 2005, they bought a small, mid-cen­tu­ry house designed by Don­ald Wexler for the Alexan­der Com­pa­ny and nev­er looked back.

“Liv­ing in this desert par­adise changed every­thing about how I saw Palm Springs,” says Baron, who quick­ly con­nect­ed with com­mu­ni­ty of mod­ernists work­ing to pre­serve the city’s lega­cy of mid-cen­tu­ry mod­ern archi­tec­ture, auto­mo­bile and indus­tri­al design.

Res­i­dents joy­ous­ly opened their doors to Baron and her cam­era, allow­ing her inside their enchant­i­ng homes to doc­u­ment their equal­ly charm­ing lives. Feel­ing sense of kin­ship among peo­ple who shared her pas­sion, Baron most enjoys hear­ing people’s sto­ries and learn­ing home they came to live in a com­mu­ni­ty con­sist­ing large­ly of transplants.

“I began to see that Palm Springs was a small Amer­i­can town devel­oped large­ly after World War II in a time of hope yet root­ed in Euro­pean design sen­si­bil­i­ty, which gives it a time­less appeal,” Baron says. ​“Through good times and bad, Palm Springs con­tin­ues to rein­vent itself and stay rel­e­vant while remain­ing root­ed in its sto­ried past.”

Nan­cy Baron: The Good Life is on view though August 19 2023, at PDNB Gallery in Dal­las, Texas.

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