Distinguished Gentlemen
Author:Lindsey ShookA pair of designers make a statement with their one-of-a-kind design
The designers say this attitude may make them an anomaly in Palm Springs, but that it’s fitting for a house with dual nature. “We may not be your typical Palm Springs designers, but this house, which was built in the 1940s and remodeled in the 1960s, isn’t your typical Palm Springs house,” muses Wilson. “It needed a one-of-a-kind look.”
Photographer: Lance Gerber
“If you look at books and magazines from the 1960s, many interiors weren’t 100 percent contemporary. It was common to see things like a wingback chair in a modern home,” Hoskins says. “Rather than be a slave to a butterfly-roof look, we felt free to use the things we liked—whether they are family heirlooms or new pieces.”
Photographer: Lance Gerber
Throughout the house, there is a mix of periods and provenances—a veritable melting pot of style. In a region where mid-century modernism is akin to a religion, it might be considered sacrilege to let style stray. But in the view of these designers, their look is closer to authentic.
Photographer: Lance Gerber
Those Armani colors serve as the backdrop for the statement pieces. For instance, the living room has a console table crafted with wooden industrial molds in the style of Louise Nevelson, an elaborate Chinese dragon chair, a sleek Milo Baughman chaise lounge and a pair of candlesticks scored at a Parisian flea market and converted into lamps.
Photographer: Lance Gerber
“The house became our canvas,” Hoskins says. “Stephen and I both started in the fashion industry, and I think our work reflects that. We tend to design with a menswear palette of gray, navy, brown and camel.”
Photographer: Lance Gerber
“It was tired,” Hoskins remembers. “There was a wall-to-wall shag carpet with paths worn in it and the curtains were rotting right off the rods.” The men decided to keep the special elements (the kitchen, the Crane fixtures in the baths and door hardware) but install a dark hardwood floor and paint the walls white.
Photographer: Lance Gerber
“Back then, a St. Charles kitchen was very high-end,” says Hoskins. “More than 50 years later, it was in perfect condition, I don’t think they used it much!” Perfect condition was not the state of the rest of the house.
Photographer: Lance Gerber
Elrod touches include moving the entrance from the back to the front; installing walls of pierced block concrete; and adding sliding glass doors and a classic St. Charles kitchen, complete with (for the time) ultra-modern metal cabinets.
Photographer: Lance Gerber
Hoskins and Wilson say Elrod’s fingerprints are all over this home, and the designers were eager not to erase them. “We love everything Elrod did, and we tried to incorporate it into our design aesthetic,” says Wilson.
Photographer: Lance Gerber
Elrod was a distinguished Palm Springs-based interior designer and is best remembered for the personal home that he created in 1968 with architect John Lautner (the eponymously named Elrod House is also considered a Lautner masterwork).
Photographer: Lance Gerber
When they purchased a sleepy 1940s-era ranch house, experimentation and eclecticism were in order. “The house was built by one of the co-owners of The Sands in Las Vegas, and I understand it was a Rat Pack kind of hangout back in the day,” Hoskins says. “In 1961, it was remodeled by Arthur Elrod, who gave it a modernist aesthetic.”
Photographer: Lance Gerber
When it came time for them to furnish their Palm Springs home, they didn’t have to look far. “Our style, and the style of our shop, is really all over the place. In both, we have antique, vintage and modern pieces,” says Hoskins. Wilson adds: “The fact that we have a store and a warehouse gives us a lot of opportunity to experiment at home.”
Photographer: Lance Gerber
For Brandon Hoskins and Stephen Wilson, the line between life and work is very, very thin—and perhaps nonexistent. In addition to their interior design business, the couple runs Towne Palm Springs, an eclectic furnishings emporium that’s part of the Thirteen Forty Five design collective.
Photographer: Lance Gerber