Howard Lapham (May 11, 1914 – April 16, 2008) was a modernist architect whose notable residences exist primarily in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

Career

He relocated to the

Coachella Valley , map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg , map_caption = Coachella Valley , location = California, United States , coordinates = , width = , boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacint ...

in the California desert east of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 1954 from

Stamford, CT Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 2020 ...

at age 40. Soon after settling into this desert community, he began designing homes for California's wealthy and movie elite. Many of Lapham's clients were members of the Thunderbird Country Club. Development near the golf club's fairways and up the slopes of the foothills grew into "Thunderbird Heights." These Lapham buildings appeared in ''

Architectural Digest ''Architectural Digest'' is an American monthly magazine founded in 1920. Its principal subjects are interior design and landscaping, rather than pure external architecture. The magazine is published by Condé Nast, which also publishes internati ...

'': Hyatt von Dehn Residence (1960, Thunderbird Heights), the Kiewit Residence (1960, Thunderbird Country Club), the Clarke Swanson Residence (1961, Thunderbird Country Club), the Morrow Residence (1961, Silver Spur Ranch, Palm Desert), a remodel of the Thunderbird Country Club clubhouse (1961), and Ichpa Mayapan (2015, Thunderbird Heights, Rancho Mirage). Rackstrom

Lapham's early work included custom homes in Palm Spring's Deepwell Estates including Manzanita House, known for its asymmetrical lot position and glass-with-stone facade, located just east of downtown. Perhaps Lapham's most famous renovation was that of the famous Chi Chi nightclub in 1959, the facade of which was redone in "ultra-modern" style. In 1970, Lapham built the Mayan-themed Cook House, known as Ichpa Mayapan, atop Thunderbird Heights. The Cook house is one of several homes chronicled in the independent film ''Desert Utopia, Mid-Century Architecture in Palm Springs''. Lapham's signature placement of houses against carefully chosen flat-niches is characteristic of his desert homes. Between 1959 and 1963 some of Lapham's Palm Springs buildings were designed with help from

Haralamb H. Georgescu Haralamb H. Georgescu (1908–1977), also known as Harlan Georgesco, was a twentieth century Romanian-American modernist architect. He had a 44-year career spanning time in both Romania and the United States before dying in California in 1977. E ...

, a Romanian-born architect.

References

City of Rancho Mirage Historic Preservation architect bios
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lapham, Howard 20th-century American architects 1914 births 2008 deaths