Pool view of the Gucci house

On the Homefront

Gucci home in Palm Desert is for sale.

Lisa Marie Hart Real Estate

Pool view of the Gucci house
House of Gucci (Twice Removed)

Gucci, Gucci, Guccio. The Agency presents a quaint 10-bedroom getaway known as the Gucci House. Follow a canyon road to the private gates of the 23-acre mountain compound. This grande dame of Palm Desert was built and owned by the family for 20 years. Patricia Gucci, granddaughter of the House of Gucci’s Guccio Gucci, is selling the retreat. Own your biggest Gucci splurge yet, complete with two guesthouses, a pool, spa, tennis court, and enough bedrooms to earmark one for handbags and shoes.

Gold-Medal Model

Toll Brothers at Escena took the nation’s top award for architecture earlier this year. The company’s Brizo model home won a prestigious Gold Award at The Nationals 2017, an annual competition honoring the best in new home sales, marketing, and design. During three days of judging, a panel of seven industry professionals plucked the winners from more than 1,100 entries.

escenapalmsprings

PHOTO BY KELLY PEAK/PEAK PHOTOGRAPHY

Watch Them Grow

Cultivating succulents is only slightly harder than dropping those “magic” capsules in hot water and watching them swell into animal-shaped sponges. For 
newbies, a new book tells all: 
Succulents: The Ultimate Guide 
to Choosing, Designing, and Growing 200 Easy Care Plants by Robin Stockwell (Oxmoor House, 2017).

succulentsbook

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBIN STOCKWELL

Here’s An Idea

Time Inc.’s Sunset magazine is well underway with construction on its Sunset Idea House 2017 in Palm Springs’ Chino Canyon neighborhood. Built by Better Built Inc. and designed by o2 Architecture, the home will feature interiors by L.A.–based 30 Collins in conjunction with Sunset’s editors. The public can tour the four-bedroom show pad for eight weeks this fall, including programming during Modernism Week’s Fall Preview. Naturally it will also splash across the pages of Sunset’s November issue.

sunsetideahouse

PHOTO COURTESY OF SUNSET

MixModern

PHOTO BY DAVID BLANK
Paula Raya (right) and Judy Christensen (left) have opened MIX Modern in Cathedral City’s Art & Design District.

Redesigning the District

If you leave your air-conditioned house just once this summer, head straight to Cathedral City’s Art & Design District. 
No longer is it a one-lane strip of home stores and art galleries. Several charismatic showrooms have opened one road over, expanding the design hub. MIX Modern co-owner Paula Raya (above right) formerly owned Spaces. She sold the business but wanted to help grow the area. “We thought it was time for something a little different,” Raya says. Choice dealers, including her co-owner Judy Christensen (left), relocated to the new pet-friendly shop. Their eclectic offerings span midcentury, rustic, Regency, modern, and boho styles. “I like to see us as a mix of what you’d find in the pages of Elle Décor,” Raya says. (Nate Berkus and Martyn Lawrence Bullard have already popped in.) Christensen adds, “We like cool, funky, unusual stuff. And we’re in a great price range.” Down the lane, Mark Davis of Modern Home Design Showroom in Palm Springs opened The Art Room. Photography and paintings join midcentury furniture, collectible objects, and delectable vintage clothing.

Touch the Skye

Before signing off on a new countertop surface, give a glance to Cambria’s eight new slabs of quartz eye candy — as well as the new matte finish. The standout among them is Skye, a vibrant blue that twists and turns like an aerial view of the sea’s restless surf. Its white veins were designed to mimic whitecaps surrounding the Isle of Skye in Scotland. For those who shun a high-gloss finish, eight Cambria designs now come in a low-sheen option that remains nonporous, resists staining and scratching, and never needs sealing.

cambria

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAMBRIA