Obviously interior designer Arthur Elrod had exquisite taste, but his own mid-century modern work is usually mentioned only as a footnote to his greatest contribution: the Elrod House in Palm Springs, one of architect John Lautner's masterpieces, a flying saucer crash-landed on a rocky mountainside (striking enough to host a lengthy Bond fight scene in Diamonds Are Forever). But in 1962, before Elrod commissioned that house, he built one for himself across Palm Springs on Via Lola. When he moved out a few years later, he sold it to a friend who kept it completely intact (and completely, pantingly fantastic), with the original furnishings and all. And now, decades later, it's being offered up in exactly the same way. (Here's a video of the owner, William Hamling: "Everything you see here was here. Arthur created it all." Hamling, if we're not mistaken, is the ballsy mid-century publisher of pulp, smut, and science fiction who successfully challenged obscenity laws in the 1960s and went to prison for his illustrated version of the Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.) The house comes with four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, a pool, and .37 acres, plus all that swank furniture. It's asking $2.195 million.
· 350 West VIA LOLA [Redfin]
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