Quiet Quarters: Restorative Palm Springs Retreat Defined by Modern Architecture

There’s something refreshing about a house that doesn’t try too hard. Nestled in the hills above Palm Springs, this contemporary residence proves the point. At the edge of the city’s Tennis Club neighborhood, backed up against the San Jacinto Mountains, it’s the kind of place with a metaphorical demeanor that whispers rather than shouts.

The homeowners found their designer, Christopher Kennedy, through an internet search for someone with an intimate understanding of desert living. They live in Seattle, and this is their first vacation home together. She’s spent years in fashion; he’s in the packaging business. 

Drawing on its surroundings, the home’s architectural vernacular is forthright and modern: airy volumes, white walls, and clean lines. It’s a graciously scaled, newly built home that feels entirely at home in its environs. You can imagine Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, or Elvis Presley might have decamped here, away from the klieg lights of 20th-century Hollywood backlots.

Few first-time desert homeowners appreciate how intense the Palm Springs sun can be, so incorporating shade into the architectural plan was a paramount consideration from the start. To meet the task, deep overhangs provide a respite throughout—yet the interiors are anything but dark, with lighting streaming through frosted skylights in the kitchen and illuminating meal prep on an expansive Cambria natural quartz island.

In the home’s public spaces, Kennedy opted for restraint, with clean-lined silhouettes that meld effortlessly, creating a backdrop for lively entertaining. To reinforce this reserve, Kennedy employed a neutral palette of off-whites, creams, taupe, honeyed brown, and black. And in a nod to his clients’ sartorial sensibilities, fashion details appear throughout: Chanel-inspired tweed pillows, striped stools at the kitchen island that echo men’s suiting, and the chunky chenille on the bedroom settee.

Yet restraint has its limits. For juxtaposition, one guest room is sheathed in shades of denim blue; the bedding, drapes, and wallpaper are in variations of dusty, restful tones. Another bedroom sprouts full-leaf in verdant shades, evoking the television green rooms of Los Angeles, a mere 100 miles to the west.

The primary bedroom uses deeper shades—taupes and browns—set against the softer chromes used in the rest of the house. To provide homeowners with a supremely restful night’s sleep, Kennedy designed a custom wraparound headboard nestled below two horizontal windows.

The adjoining primary bathroom showcases bookmatched Cambria. The Cambria adds a sinuous, naturalistic note; the other decorative details recede, allowing the rich veining to be the focus.

Collectively, the architecture, décor, and luxurious swimming pool create a perfect getaway from Seattle winters. It’s where a white modernist space, inflected with texture and art from local galleries, embodies the temperance and sophistication of “quiet luxury”—less an architectural statement, more a place you want to come home to.

Read this article as it appears in the magazine.