#HTE

Luxury Interior Design from the 1970s

Here’s a bit of a mystery. Up for sale is this tony, fully-furnished 3,350-square-foot house in Palm Springs, which was built in 1969—and appears to be completely untouched since the original owners moved in. What’s strange is that the house was sold in 1994 to a second owner, who apparently maintained the interior décor and kept it in its stunning, if garish-by-today’s-standards, condition. Take a look at this place:

“The big mystery on this house is that it had two owners,” realtor Lucio Bernal told Retro Renovation, “and no one seems to know who did the decor and the architecture. We are trying to find out.”

The house was undoubtedly decked out in ‘69 or the '70s, and if you can get past what passed for style back then, you’ll actually see a fair bit of design attention and custom built-ins have been integrated. Take a look at this monster room-width headboard:

Or this classy custom TV cabinet with twin mini fainting couches:

Note that a TV that size was considered HUGE in the 1970s.

There are some idiosyncratic design choices. The bar has some beefy cushioning on it, so as not to stress your elbows when you’re downing what appears to be a bottle of (shudder) Cutty Sark.

While I’ve seen upholstered bar counters before, I’d never seen an upholstered coffee table. I guess if people are going to perch on the edge of it during parties, their butts might as well be comfortable.

If you look at this photo leading from the master bedroom down to the massive master bath, you can see a reveal line in the molding under the countertop at lower left.

Looking closer, we see several reveals. The molding has actually been used as the faces for drawers in the countertop.

Here’s aforementioned massive master bath, by the way. Is it me, or does the wastepail at right look like someone dropped a lampshade?

I’m not sure if the photo is overexposed or if these guys like taking REALLY bright showers.

Opposite from the shower is the enclosed toilet. As you can see it’s got a mini chandelier in there!

What I like about the '70s is that it was before people went nuts with pillows and kept it simple. Just one pillow each, you know?

Oh wait a sec, I take that back.

Something those of you accustomed to modern-day luxury may find surprising is what short shrift the kitchen got. Prior to the '90s and the current glut of cooking shows, cooking had no glamour associated with it at all, and here it shows.

Look at that lousy drop ceiling. I know it contains lighting fixtures that presumably provide great task lighting, but in contrast to the rest of the house, this could be the breakroom at a hospital. (Well, minus the shag rug.)

For those of you curious to see more, there are tons of additional photos of the space here.

http://www.core77.com/posts/47846/Luxury-Interior-Design-from-the-1970s