Photo Essay: This Mid-Century Palm Springs Estate Shines With or Without Its Howard Hughes History

Every year, it's overwhelming to go through the Modernism Week schedule and try to figure out which tours to take. 

I'll admit, I get lazy and sometimes just choose based on a certain amount of star power. I haven't yet gone wrong with the Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, William Holden, or Gummo Marx estates. 

 

But the Howard Hughes Residence in Palm Springs has a lot more to offer than just a celebrity pedigree of an eccentric aerospace engineer and movie mogul.

Photo Essay: Hughes Aircraft Company Campus

As much as I try to leave behind the Type A personality characteristics that once made me fit in with other East Coasters, as much as I try to assimilate into a more relaxed California lifestyle, I constantly feel anything but laid back when it comes to one thing: missing out.

So when I hear of a tour of a place with restricted access, not usually open to the public, it doesn't really matter what the place is. I must go.

So most of my urban exploration has actually been sanctioned rather than surreptitious, save for excursions out to California City and Salton Sea. And I've gotten to see plenty without breaking and entering.

This weekend, I joined a rain-or-shine tour of the Hughes Aircraft Company campus in Playa Vista, near Culver City where Howard Hughes both built airplanes and made movies in the 1930s. I went despite the torrential downpour, both because I'd managed to nab a $25 ticket to the sold out tour, but also because I couldn't not go.

Eleven of the original 15 buildings are still there, despite the new Playa Vista-related developments that surround it (including some 2009 structures on the campus, built to be complementary to the original structures' international style architecture). The original airstrip that ran parallel with Jefferson Boulevard - first grassy, then paved - has been demolished, but there are plenty of other interesting things to see, mostly abandoned and neglected, slated for a facelift in a hopefully good case for adaptive reuse.


Building #15, the main building complex / cargo hangar erected to house the construction of the H-4 "Hercules" plane, the all-wood "Spruce Goose" (actually it was made of birch) whose only flight didn't go high enough or far enough to warrant a return to the skies. This is only one of two bays - there currently is a super-secret movie using the other bay as a soundstage.


original interior of the H-4 "Hercules" plane


Building #3, the five-sided wood structure that was used to mock up the H-4's nose cone and systems. It now stands abandoned, with a leaky roof.



old signs in Building 3



Outside Building 3


Between Buildings 2 (left) and 1 (right)



Building 1 (ground floor), Administration Building. All of the downstairs offices were demolished by a prior developer who never ended up using the space. Now the new developer plans to build offices for creative workspaces. You can still trace the lines of phantom tile flooring...



Upstairs of Building 1, "Mahogany Row." It is believed that this was Mr. Hughes' office. Red X's mark where his desk might have been.



Upstairs in Mahogany Row



Upstairs in Mahogany Row



Upstairs in Mahogany Row



Upstairs in Mahogany Row


This map was found in one of the demolished walls and was rescued, though it had already fallen victim to some wear and tear and graffiti.



The red lines trace flight patterns, but it is unknown whose or for what...



Downstairs Administration Building front entrance / reception desk. All visitors would have entered here. The black lines on the wood paneling are remnants of the glue used to affix darker wood paneling which was added in later decades.



Outside Administration Building front entrance. The cantilever awning once displayed the letters H U G H E S


Building 10, Cafeteria



Building 10 interior, the old kitchen


The Hughes Campus - soon to be called the Hercules Campus, after the infamous H-4 - went through many stages of its own adaptive reuse, transforming some of its buildings into medical facilities, and developing as an emerging avionics (aviation electronics) powerhouse. Aircraft was still being built there as late as the mid-1980s, but the production shifted from wartime airplanes and cargo planes to helicopters. Because of the large empty spaces, many television and film production companies have set up shop in the buildings on the Hughes Campus over recent decades, though now their presence will become more formalized as the Hercules Campus becomes a dedicated facility for creative spaces.

Many thanks to the Los Angeles Conservancy for the opportunity to take a simultaneous peek into the past and the future. Now I really want to fly another plane.

Related post:
Here It Comes Again (Floyd Bennett Field, NYC)
Photo Essay: Taking Flight

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Photo Essay: Digging Into the Silver Royalty of Nevada's "Other" Side

I'll admit that it was my love of trains—not mines—that brought me to the "Queen of the Silver Camps," Tonopah, Nevada. And it wasn't just the fact that I was stopping over there on my way to take a "traincation" in Ely.



Because I'd learned about the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad back in 2012 while doing some exploring around Death Valley—and even though that Borax-owned rail line never actually made it to Tonopah, walking along its abandoned right-of-way at China Ranch put Tonopah on the map for me, so to speak.

Photo Essay: Haunted Accommodations In A Silver Mining Ghost Town

What was once known as "The Best Hotel in Nevada" at the turn of the last century has just been voted "Best Haunted Hotel" in the country by USA Today readers.



Oh my.



I didn't know that when I booked my overnight stay in Tonopah there, as I was on my way east to Ely.



But it was confirmed pretty much as soon as I walked in the door...



...when the young front desk attendant was talking about how she refuses to go down to the basement by herself anymore...



...because of something that had happened down there.



I then waited for the elevator to come so I could adjourn to my room, but when the doors opened, two staffers from housekeeping were headed down, not up.



"No, you go ahead," I said.



"I heard what happens down in the basement. I'm not going down there with you."



I only slept there one night, senses dulled by whiskey from the saloon across the street, but no other spirits made their way into my room with me that night (for once).



And although there may be some restless energy at the Mizpah Hotel, it's known better for its prosperity—and as a symbol of the good times in the short-lived boomtown of Tonopah.



When it was built in 1907-8, Tonopah was, indeed, prosperous—thanks in no small part to the Mizpah Mine directly behind the hotel, which was the most successful of all the silver mines in the area.

Although the silver boom went bust quicker than you could say "Mizpah," the town and the hotel caught a second wind of sorts when gambling was legalized in 1931.



There must've been enough cash flowing through there to warrant a bank-like vault for safety deposit boxes...



...which now serves as a mini-museum for the hotel.



By 1957, things had settled down quite a bit in Tonopah—and entrepreneur, aviator, and moviemaker Howard Hughes slipped away to the Mizpah Hotel to marry his third wife, Jean Peters, in a private and low-key ceremony. That, of course, put the Mizpah on the celebrity gossip map (even after-the-fact).

That more or less ushered in Hughes's most reclusive period, when he famously holed himself up the Desert Inn in Vegas and had to buy the hotel in 1966 in order to be allowed to stay on the top floor of suites, where he'd been squatting for months.

His marriage to Jean Peters (his third) didn't last long, ending in divorce in 1971. The Mizpah was more or less forgotten, a footnote in the eccentric's biography.



Hughes's ghost has been known to haunt the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, where he once had an office. Maybe his spirit vacations in Nevada.



Or, maybe one of the ghostly (or ghastly?) visitors is W.W. Booth, founder of the Tonopah Bonanza, after whom a guest room is named. (One of the other prominent local figures who have passed, who also have rooms dedicated to them, could also be a culprit as well.)



The genesis of the name "Mizpah" for the hotel is somewhat of a mystery, though some note its biblical origins (as a place in Palestine) and one of the word's meanings as a watchtower.

For 40 years, the Mizpah Hotel was one of the two tallest buildings in the state of Nevada.

And maybe now, it's still tall enough for the specters who never left to watch over their old ghost town from it.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Digging Into the Silver Royalty of Nevada's "Other" Side
Photo Essay: Clown Motel, Gateway to the Haunted Miners' Cemetery
Photo Essay: The Scenic Route, Nevada Edition

Photo Essay: LA's First Commercial Airport, Then & Now

[Ed: New photos added 7/12/17 4:49 PM]

Believe it or not, LA's first commercial airport was actually in Glendale.



If you drive along what is now Grand Central Avenue, you'll follow the approximate path of the airport runway for Grand Central Air Terminal, which was graced by Howard Hughes, Charles Lindberg, Amelia Earhart, and other famous and not-so-famous aviators.



The runway is no longer there—having been demolished after the airport closed in 1959—but the terminal itself is still there, and had been standing vacant and gutted from 1990 to 2012, the year I first visited.



I got the chance to return today to see the terminal fully restored and reopened for business, now owned by Disney and used for offices and an event space.



Four years ago, the Spanish Colonial-style building with its terra-cotta tile roof had been white-washed...



...but historical photos and paint samples revealed that the original color scheme was much more earthen—a palette that it's been returned to, both outside and in.



No longer is it fenced-off, overgrown, and boarded up.



Although not a public space anymore...



...and decades since any passengers or pilots walked through these arches...

...the restoration work is a testament to the historical significance of the place, which Disney has fully embraced.



Unfortunately the control tower wasn't fully restored—since that would've made it a five-story project instead of a two-story one—but crews stabilized it and uncovered the original windows—the only originals in the entire building.



The tower isn't up to code, so it's considered "inaccessible"—but only to members of the public who might sue after falling off the ladder to the top.



The red clay floor tiles in the breezeway were able to be kept...



...and some colorful wall tiles bring some of the original grandeur back to the east entryway.



The tiles that were salvaged stood the test of time because the color wasn't painted on top of them...

circa 2017

...but rather pressed into them.



Still, some are faded from sun exposure, and some are not.



But the restoration team didn't want the building to look "new" or "perfect," so they intentionally retained some of the imperfections that could've otherwise been fixed (or replaced with a replica).



The air terminal was utilitarian, but—like many train stations of the time—it was also ornamental.



In fact, air travel was so new back in 1928, there were no norms for terminal architecture...



...—so designers simply followed the established principles of train travel.

Ford Tri-Motor at LGB, 2017

Of course, at the time, planes were small and passengers were few (like the Ford Tri-Motor)...

Ford Tri-Motor at LGB, 2017

...until Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) managed to get bigger planes (DC-3s) that could carry many passengers all the way across the country in just two days (which was at least two days faster than a cross-country train).



Back then, planes could only fly during daylight, so the transcontinental passengers starting in New York took an overnight train to Columbus, OH, and then got on a plane, switched back and forth between trains and planes over the course of night and day, and finally landed at their destination: Glendale's Grand Central Air Terminal.

circa 2017

It became so popular that other airlines followed suit. TAT merged with Western Air Express, forming what we now know as TWA.



But when Pearl Harbor was bombed and the Second World War hit, the military commandeered GCAT, and camouflaging it to look like a suburban housing development from up above.



Eventually, the war ended, and commercial flights were to start back up again—but their newly arrived neighbors complained about the noise, forcing them to shorten the runway. And then it was too short to accommodate the commercial planes of the time.



GCAT operations never recovered from that, but somehow the building itself survived. Disney not only saved it, but it has embraced the place's aviation history in making the campus their own. Case in point: they added an outdoor pergola for performances—with a canopy that resembles an airplane wing.

Disney even demolished an adjacent building to open up the space surrounding the terminal to give it more of its original feel, since it had become more or less buried inside an industrial park.

Back in 2012, I didn't manage to break my way into GCAT to see the inside—but from what I understand, by that point, there wasn't much to see. But I did make it into the restored interior today. Stay tuned for photos of the Art Deco details and some artifacts that were found during construction.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Inside The Last Remnant of the Glendale Airport
Photo Essay: Transforming the Hughes Campus Into Hercules, Before & After
Photo Essay: Best of Saarinen's TWA Flight Center, JFK