Gabby and I share an enthusiasm for the mid-century modern architecture of John Lautner. I sometimes can take or leave Gabby’s postcard collections, but this modest set that he sent my friend depicting Bob Hope’s Lautner-designed house in Palm Springs interested me. I like it from an aesthetic point of view, but also I have memories of it, of driving between Palm Springs and Indio in the 1970s while working for the United Farm Workers and seeing it floating on a hill above the valley. It was a monument to old, cool, wealthy Palm Springs, and a foil to the poverty of the Mexican and Filipino farm workers we were working with.
Here are the cards:
My friend was excited about these postcards. He has a tendency to re-gift things that Gabby sends him, but I have the feeling that he will hang on to these. About them, he spoke plainly: