Following President Eisenhower’s landmark signature of legislation in 1959, which permitted 99-year terms, Canyon Country Club became the largest Indian lease land development in Palm Springs’ history. It was also the city’s answer to the wave of golf-driven, luxury real estate development that had already started the “down valley” migration of investment and population growth. The rise of Canyon Country Club charted in the master plan by architects Wexler & Harrison, landscape architect David Hamilton, and golf course architects William Bell & Son, adapted Garden City principles of community design to the unique desert environs and the evolving leisure sports culture of the 1960s. While many of Palm Springs’ treasures were researched and documented when the great rediscovery of the city’s celebrated collection of midcentury architecture began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, not all corners of the city have received their proper attention. Now, nearly a quarter-century into the Palm Springs’ architecture-driven cultural renaissance, Canyon Country Club is ready for its long-awaited close-up. Join Palm Springs Preservation Foundation board member Steve Treinen, whose research chronicles the neighborhood’s social and architectural history through vintage and contemporary imagery.

PSPF will host a Canyon Country Club: History and Design of Palm Springs’ Garden of Eden book signing and tour of the custom midcentury Dr. Maurice Rice Residence on Saturday, February 15, 2025.

The Palm Springs Preservation Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is “to educate and promote public awareness of the importance of preserving the historical resources and architecture of the city of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley area.” PSPF offers free membership as a public benefit. To learn more about the work of the foundation see www.pspreservationfoundation.org.