More than 100,000 people descend upon Palm Springs every February for Modernism Week, a 10-day stretch of events focusing on architecture, design and history—and local homes and neighborhoods are the stars of the show.
Many local neighborhoods include homes and other buildings designed by renowned architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Albert Frey and Charles DuBois. This year’s Modernism Week features more than 35 neighborhood tours—some of which have already sold out. During a recent phone interview with Evelyn Yardley, Modernism Week’s neighborhood tour coordinator, she explained why the tours are so popular—and how they end up benefiting these neighborhoods.
“The neighborhood tours are always a huge fan favorite,” Yardley said. “What’s wonderful about it is participating neighborhoods are able to raise funds that they would not otherwise be able to do, and they utilize those funds for community improvements and donations throughout the community itself. Our homeowners benefit as well. … A lot of our homeowners here in Palm Springs are not full-time residents, and (the tours help them) get to know the community better, and the community gets to know them better as well, which is really wonderful.”
Modernism Week pours a lot of effort into celebrating mid-century modern homes.
“Homeowners, when I meet with them originally to view their homes, believe it’s going to be more like an open-house situation when their home is for sale, and that’s not at all what it is,” Yardley said. “I always tell them they will walk away with such a sense of pride in their homes, because people who come to Modernism have been coming for years, and even those who are first-timers are very respectful, and they love asking questions and talking about the homes. … We’re actually saving these homes from destruction. That’s what a lot of these people who attend Modernism Week are all about—preserving these mid-century modern homes.”
Neighborhood tours vary in size and run anywhere from an hour to 2 1/2 hours, and typically feature six to 12 homes each. Tours can be led by entertainers, residents or Modernism Week historians.
“We have larger communities, which are the bigger neighborhoods of single homes, and we have smaller communities, which are your condo communities and apartment complexes,” Yardley said. “We require at least six homes to be on a tour to qualify. What’s always fun is to see the difference in how people put those homes with units together.”
While Palm Springs is home base for Modernism Week, Yardley brought up the Lloyd Wright Historical Walking Tour happening up at the Joshua Tree Resort Center. In 1946, Modernism architect giant Frank Lloyd Wright tasked his son, Lloyd Wright, with building the Institute of Mentalphysics, known now as the Joshua Tree Resort Center. It is the largest collection of Lloyd Wright buildings in the world
“I know it’s not technically a neighborhood home tour, but it is a beautiful retreat center,” Yardley said. “They have 11 buildings, and they’re on historical registration as well.”
When Don’t Worry Darling star Harry Styles performed two shows at Acrisure Arena last year, some of his fans journeyed out to Canyon View Estates to see the neighborhood where Styles’ character lived.
A unique neighborhood tour—with a modern twist—is the Canyon View Estates Home Tour, also being called “Cinematic Modernism.” Guests can tour seven homes and outdoor landscapes in designed by William Krisel and built by Roy Fey in the 1960s. The community is regarded as “the most photographed, documented and celebrated mid-century community in the country”—especially after the 2022 film Don’t Worry Darling used the neighborhood to depict the movie’s idyllic company town. Another tour, “Canyon View States: The Finale,” shows the final 14 homes built in the neighborhood, in 1967.
“That’s a little bit different, and that one is one of our fan favorites as well, which is why it sells out every year,” Yardley said about “The Finale” tour. “Canyon View Estates is an overall beautiful area. … When you’re driving through all the white homes, it’s just overall gorgeous. It’s just a wonderful community.”
When Don’t Worry Darling star Harry Styles performed two shows at Acrisure Arena last year, some of his fans journeyed out to Canyon View Estates to see the neighborhood where Styles’ character lived. The decision to highlight a modernism gem in a new movie has done wonders to spread an appreciation for architecture and design to younger generations.
“We’ve found that out through our survey,” Yardley said. “Every year, we send out a survey to our guests and ask them to fill out a form. One of the questions we ask is, ‘What is your age group?’ It used to be between 60 to 70, and we’re realizing now that the 40- and 50-year-olds are the bigger grouping of people.”
Modernism Week is also trying to attract younger attendees by growing the digital presence.
“Every year, every neighborhood event puts together a brochure … but during COVID, we went to the QR-code method and put them together as a flipbook,” said Yardley. “When you walk up to the check-in desk, there’s the QR code, so you can go directly to the flipbook. … We were wasting a lot of paper, and people don’t always hang on to those. We got a lot of feedback that people were very pleased with us for moving to this new system, and it proves that things are definitely changing with the new generations coming in.”
Modernism Week has now been around for nearly 20 years—the first “Modernism Weekend,” as it was then called, took place over three days in February 2006—and Yardley said the annual celebration has made people look at the Coachella Valley in a new light.
“My husband was born and raised in Newport Beach, so we have a home there and we spend the summers there,” Yardley said. “I talk about (Modernism Week) all the time to everyone there, and we get everyone from Newport to come out this direction. I think our largest group of individuals and guests come from Australia and Canada.”
Modernism Week takes place from Thursday, Feb. 15, through Sunday, Feb. 25. For a complete schedule, tickets and more information, visit modernismweek.com.
