Glass-covered dwelling goals to seize ‘the brand new Palm Springs’

With its tropical plants, resort-style pool, walls of windows and outdoor tiki torches, the recently renovated home for sale at the corner of South Manzanita Avenue and Cactus Road in Palm Springs’ Deepwell Estates neighborhood has many of the trappings of high-end desert living. However, it’s perhaps just as notable for what it doesn’t have anymore: a traditional front door.

Architect and developer Teddy Lee, who bought the house at 1195 South Manzanita Ave. in 2021, said he decided to nix the traditional door in favor of a design with several glass entries because he was adding a large wraparound patio and wanted to further blur the lines between indoor and outdoor space.

“I just felt like there should be no beginning or end with your experience in the house,” Lee said. “I mean, it’d be kind of crazy to call it antiquated, but I do feel like a front door, and a foyer — it’s just a little too formal for Palm Springs.”

But while the choice to have no front door might feel thoroughly contemporary, Lee says it actually is rooted in the values of the mid-century modern era that the home is a product of.

“Back when all of the mid-century modern was being built, it was sort of about community and blurring the lines between neighbors and welcoming people in and out,” he said. “So to me, once you obliterate the front door you kind of create a more welcoming space.”

That change also provides an early indication of the extent to which the four-bedroom, six-bathroom house has been reimagined by Lee. He said he wanted to modernize the home while maintaining its distinctive mid-century architecture.

Perhaps the most substantial change he made was to “flip the floor plan” to address some awkwardness in the old layout. Switching the location of the kitchen and two of the bedrooms allowed him to take better advantage of the sun in the design while making the house both more cohesive and functional, he said.