Alexander Construction Company
Encyclopedia
The Alexander Construction Company was a Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...

 based residential development company that built over 2,200 houses in the Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, the largest lake in California...

 of Riverside County, California
Riverside County, California
Riverside County is a county in the U.S. state of California. One of 58 California counties, it covers in the southern part of the state, and stretches from Orange County to the Colorado River, which forms the state border with Arizona. The county derives its name from the city of Riverside,...

 between 1947 and 1965.

The construction of these homes doubled the size of Palm Springs and caused the city to take on a new shape, direction, and character as an enclave of modern architecture
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...

 in the Mid-century modern
Mid-century modern
Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes mid-20th century developments in modern design, architecture, and urban development from roughly 1933 to 1965...

 style. These houses, collectively known as "Alexanders," have come to be appreciated for their rational designs, modernist style, and innovative construction and are now highly sought after, selling for a premium over their more conventional contemporaries.

History

The company was founded by George Alexander and his son Robert, building starter houses of 1200 square feet (111.5 m²) priced moderately at $19,500 in south Palm Springs, a location at that time not considered fashionable. Each new development was increasingly ambitious, adding amenities and square footage. By the end of the 1950s, the Alexanders were building in northwest Palm Springs, traditionally the haven of the wealthy and "Old Hollywood" crowd.

Projects

Many of these later houses exceeded 2000 square feet (185.8 m²), with the largest adding another 600 square feet (56 m²). A swimming pool was included in all of these designs, priced then from the high $40,000s to the low $50,000s. The neighborhood, known today as Las Palmas, became the neighborhood of choice for the "New Hollywood" crowd seeking weekend Colorado Desert
Colorado Desert
California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert, which extends across southwest North America. The Colorado Desert region encompasses approximately , reaching from the Mexican border in the south to the higher-elevation Mojave Desert in the north and from the Colorado River in...

 escapes. Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

, Joan Collins
Joan Collins
Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress...

, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

, and Harold Robbins
Harold Robbins
Harold Robbins was one of the best-selling American authors of all time. During his career, he wrote over 25 best-sellers, selling over 750 million copies in 32 languages....

 each owned an "Alexander." Frank Sinatra's
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

 home by E. Stewart Williams
E. Stewart Williams
Emerson Stewart Williams, FAIA was a prolific Palm Springs, California-based architect whose distinctive modernist buildings, in the Mid-century modern style, significantly shaped the Coachella Valley's architectural landscape and legacy.-History:E...

 is nearby. Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains best known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"....

 still lives in the neighborhood.

The majority of Alexander homes were designed by architects Dan Palmer and William Krisel, of Palmer & Krisel. Exceptions include those with an A-frame
A-Frame
An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a load in a lightweight economical manner. The simplest form of an A-frame is two similarly sized beams, arranged in a 45-degree or greater angle, attached at the top...

 facade, known as "Swiss Misses," and homes in the Green Fairway Estates tract in south Palm Springs. The Green Fairway Estates were designed by Donald Wexler, architect of the Palm Springs International Airport
Palm Springs International Airport
Palm Springs International Airport is a public airport located two miles east of the central business district of Palm Springs, California, serving the Inland Empire Metropolitan Area of Southern California. The airport covers and utilizes two runways...

.

Publicized projects

The most well-known Alexander house in Las Palmas is the Lawford/Kennedy house, originally built for Peter Lawford
Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting...

, connected by marriage to the Kennedy family and a charter member of the Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...

. During a visit to Palm Springs, President Kennedy was to have stayed at Sinatra's house, but ended up at Lawford's instead. The proximity of Lawford's house to Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

's supposedly gave rise to a rendezvous between JFK and Monroe.

Another well-known Alexander is the "Honeymoon Hideaway" at 1350 Ladera Circle, built by Robert Alexander for his wife in the early 1960s. The house and the Alexanders achieved some level of national celebrity when an eight-page article featuring the house and the family appeared in Look Magazine
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...

 in September 1962. The article portrayed the Alexanders and their estate as the center of social activities in Palm Springs in the early 1960s.

Closure

George and Robert Alexander and their wives were killed on November 14, 1965, when the chartered Learjet they were aboard crashed in the Little Chocolate Mountains
Chocolate Mountains
The Chocolate Mountains of California are located in Imperial County and Riverside County in the Colorado Desert in Southern California. The mountains stretch more than 60 miles in a northwest to southeast direction, and are located east of the Salton Sea and south and west of the Chuckwalla...

 near Indio, California
Indio, California
Indio is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, located in the Coachella Valley of Southern California's Colorado Desert region. It lies east of Palm Springs, east of Riverside, and east of Los Angeles. It is about north of Mexicali, Baja California on the U.S.-Mexican border...

, while on a flight from Palm Springs
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...

 to Burbank
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....

. They were survived by daughter Jill, who was 11 at the time and not on the plane. The company ceased operations with the deaths of its principals.

Alexander developments


External links

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