Friday, January 1, 2010

The First Steel House In Palm Springs



The Lindop Residence (1937, Architect Unknown)
1320 Tamarisk
Palm Springs

"Steel House Now Being Erected"

The first of the steel houses manufactured by General House, Inc. to come to California is now being erected in the Desert Sands tract [1320 Tamarisk - ed] by Edmund F. Lindop, owner of the tract and California distributor for the manufacturers.

The new steel house will be completed in three weeks and will then be open for public inspection. It is a large house, having three bedrooms and two baths; of the new modernistic type of architecture which originated in Europe about a year ago and now predominates in most new construction in England, France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Italy and Belgium.

General Steel Houses are being erected by the hundreds in the fashionable areas of Eastern cities, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, New York and other places.
Mr. Lindop has 50 dealers under him in various parts of the state and all are looking forward to the first house of the company to be erected in California, now being assembled in Palm Springs.

Every part of the house is made by mass production in the factory. The steel frame, bolted together and compressed asbestos panels on the outside as well as heat and cold resisting fireproof materials for the roof, form a building that is both earthquake proof and fireproof. Inside walls are of plyboard and both inside and outside walls are finished in any color desired."

-The Desert Sun, November 20, 1936


The Citywide Survey repeats an apocryaphal story that this Residence was designed for the Pullman family to resemble a Pullman railcar....I could go on and on.....