Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the Pittsburgh department store magnate who had already commissioned Fallingwater from Frank Lloyd Wright, hired Richard Neutra to design a winter house in Palm Springs. Completed in 1946, the house was built in the first full year after World War II, when steel and glass were being redirected from war production into domestic construction. Kaufmann became the only client in American history to commission two of the country's most famous houses from two of its most famous and mutually hostile architects. Wright reportedly regarded the choice as a betrayal.
The canonical desert modern house, the design employs a pinwheel plan with four wings radiating from a central living core, spreading horizontally rather than enclosing a courtyard. Steel, glass, Utah buff sandstone, and aluminum louvers define the material palette, with vertical aluminum fins on movable louvered screens controlling sun and wind. The gloriette, an open rooftop sun deck with vertical louvers, sits above the roofline as an outdoor room raised into the breeze. Radiant heating runs through floors and outdoor paving, while sliding glass dissolves the boundary between living space and terrace. Neutra sited the house so the San Jacinto range reads as the fourth wall.
