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SANDPIPER CONDOMINIUM COMPLEX CIRCLES 5 THROUGH 12
Sandpiper Condominiums Circles 11 and 12 were originally designated as a Historic
District in 2013, and Circles 5 -10 were added to the Historic District in 2017.
Sandpiper Condominiums Circles 5 through 12 were completed in 1965 by the Los
Angeles- based architectural firm of Palmer & Krisel, exhibit numerous stylistic markers
that place them directly in the historic context of Palm Desert’s Modern Period. Further,
Circles 5 through 12 are an excellent example of multi-family residential development in
Palm Desert in the mid-1960s. The 128 units and 64 buildings that comprise Circles 5
through 12 refl ect a coherent vision of modernist architecture rarely found anywhere else
in the United States. The siting of the buildings in Circles 5 through 12, and the landscape
architecture further reinforce a coherent modernist architectural vision that successfully
created a leisure lifestyle of “carefree desert living.”
Sandpiper Condominiums Circles 5 through 12 are significant under the theme of
Modern Architecture because they possesses distinctive characteristics that make up
the many qualities of the style, such as overall horizontality, flat roofs, expansive
amounts of glass, clerestory windows, use of inexpensive, machine-produced materials,
masonry, etc. Together the structures and site is a superb specimen of its type or period
of construction and an important example (within its context) of building practices in
Palm Desert and the Coachella Valley at midcentury.
From a building materials viewpoint, Circles 5 through 12 employ some of the most
exuberant uses of concrete block found anywhere in the nation. Uses of (1) concrete
feature block, commercially known as “Shadowal,” (2) a pierced concrete screen block
(including patterns known as “Venetian,” “Empress” and “Maltese”) and an extremely rare
solid variation of screen block (effectively an un-pierced, version). W hile concrete
Shadowal and screen block are occasionally combined as building materials, the further
addition of solid screen block may make the combination of building materials in
Sandpiper Condominiums Circles 5 through 12 unique as part of a design theme.
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