A Revived 1962 Palmer and Krisel in Las Vegas

A 1962 Palmer and Krisel in Las Vegas gets a complete mid-century renovation seven years in the making.

In 1961, architects Dan Palmer and William Krisel were finishing up a housing development in Palm Springs, California. At the same time, in Las Vegas, developer Irwin Molasky was starting construction on the first master-planned neighborhood in the city, called Paradise Palms. The development was originally supposed to contain 300 homes situated alongside the Las Vegas National Golf Course. Molasky was inspired by Palmer and Krisel’s work in Palm Springs and wanted to hire them to design his new development, so he waited until they finished up their project, even though he’d already broken ground. And when he finally approached Palmer and Krisel, they were eager to design homes in a different desert.

olive green Nordic style couch and yellow bar stools in open concept 1962 Palmer and Krisel home living room — One of the major changes homeowners Kyle and Holly made was to take out a kitchen wall and open up the kitchen and living room areas. The bar stools are vintage pieces that came from Kyle’s first MCM home. “They’ve been in Las Vegas since the 1960s,” Kyle says. “We had to cut them down to counter height from bar height to fit the island.” The sofa in the living room area is a knockoff the couple ordered online. “No one believes me when I tell them,” Holly says.

By the time Paradise Palms was completed in the late 1970s, it had over 1,000 homes instead of the original 300 as well as the first enclosed mall in southern Nevada. Today, it’s a designated historical neighborhood and still a desirable place to live. The houses have classic MCM features such as asymmetrical rooflines, bright colors, sunken living rooms and floor-to-ceiling windows.

barrel cactus and concrete pavers lead to yellow front door of renovated 1962 Palmer and Krisel home — The curb appeal improved as Kyle and Holly added desert landscaping, re-stuccoed the house and redid the front courtyard. “You walked into the courtyard and there were three doors,” Holly says. “We took that down to one front door.” The couple also took out a lattice covering over the courtyard, added a shadow-block wall and uncovered the butterfly roofline. “The second homeowners added a 100-foot-long pergola deck that was attached to the roof of the house so you could go sit on the roof. They liked to watch the golf tournaments,” Holly says. “But it was rickety and dangerous up there. Taking it out allowed us to see butterfly roof in back.”

History of the 1962 Palmer and Krisel Las Vegas Home

This is the neighborhood landscape into which Kyle Wright and Holly Erker came to view the 1962 ranch house on Seneca Drive. “We both fell in love with the back windows,” Holly says. “It’s 100 feet of floor-to-ceiling original commercial-grade windows.” There had only been two previous sets of homeowners: Joseph and Dorothy Terefenko bought the house for $35,550 in 1962 and sold it to Don and Sandie Hamilton in 1977. When Don and Sandie passed away, their son sold the house to Kyle and Holly in 2017. “The second owners had purchased the house in 1977 and that’s when they did their renovations,” Holly says.

“Nothing had been done since.” The previous homeowners added onto the home’s footprint, bringing it from 1,720 square feet to 2,892 square feet. But the updates hid original mid-century features, like the butterfly roofline, and replaced most of the original finishings inside. Kyle and Holly wanted to change that.

island with cooktop and view to backyard pool and olive trees — Kyle and Holly chose to add their cooktop to the kitchen island. “We had somewhat limited counterspace on the sides,” Kyle explains. “The island is a large part of the storage as well as the cooktop.” The kitchen is Kyle’s favorite room in the house. “I do quite a bit of the cooking and our cooktop is on the island facing the backyard,” he says. “It’s great to be able to cook and look outside at the golf course at the same time.”

backyard pool with diving board in Las Vegas renovated MCM home — The 100-foot wall of glass in the back of the house is what sold Kyle and Holly. “There are three large sliders that open to the backyard to let the outside in and the inside out,” Kyle says. “We do have good indoor/outdoor living areas. We host some huge outside parties with 150 people. It doesn’t feel pressured in the house with those huge sliders.” Kyle and Holly refinished the pool, which is original to the house. They took out the adjoining hot tub and replaced it with a wet deck.

“It took some time to figure out what we wanted,” Kyle says. “We lived in the house throughout the renovations and a lot of the changes came from actually living in it.” It’s always a good idea to live in a house before deciding what changes to make. “I think that was such a huge value, being able to live in it and not jump into renovations right away,” Holly says. “We lived here three years before we really started anything inside.” Instead, the couple started outside, partly by necessity.

“There was a broken irrigation line, and when we got the first water bill, that was the indication of where to start first,” Holly says. They replaced the lawns with desert landscaping, resurfaced the pool and decking, replaced the back fence with a breeze-block wall and re-stuccoed the house.

renovated kitchen in 1962 Palmer and Krisel home with multi-colored dishware and double oven — In the kitchen, the island has a built-in drop-down table. “It’s attached,” Kyle says. “Everything is that quartz countertop, so the four-person table is built in.” It’s a perfect place to eat casual meals while looking out at the golf course.

Restoration Sequence

The couple decided to hire a local mid-century specialist, designer Mark Adams. “He’s done a lot of residential projects in Las Vegas,” Holly says. “We gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. We couldn’t have done this without him.” They renovated the house in three phases: First came the exteriors, then 2,000 square feet of the main living spaces and primary suite. Phase 3 was the last 1,000 square feet, which included two bedrooms and bathrooms. While they were finishing Phase 3 in late 2023, Mark passed away, leaving the house on Seneca Drive as the last legacy of his restorative mid-century work.

renovated bedroom in 1962 Palmer and Krisel with platform bed, egg chair sputnik chandelier and blue accent wall — The primary bedroom has a wall of windows and is a mix of new and authentic vintage. The bedding is new, the egg chair is a reproduction and the artwork is vintage. “That was a gift from a neighbor,” Holly says. “When neighbors leave, they give other neighbors first dibs to buy things. A lot of artwork rotates house to house.”

bed frame with built in storage drawers and nightstand with rust colored bedding and accent wall with fragmented circles — The guest bedroom is on the front of the house, facing the street. “The huge commercial-grade aluminum frame windows aren’t original, but they are from the first homeowners,” Holly says. The wallpaper is a feature wall that adds color and geometry. “That was a hard choice,” Holly says. “We originally wanted wood paneling in there, but we also wanted to keep that specific for the living room.”

Design Basics in the 1962 Palmer and Krisel Renovation

Central to the design was the color palette. Mark picked aqua, gold and white, which had an unexpectedly emotional connection for Holly. “Mark was inspired by the Howard Johnson hotels of the 1960s,” Holly says. “Around the same time, I was on a drill team in Seattle and those were the team colors. I still volunteer with that team, so it was very emotional, what the colors represent to me. It felt like it was meant to be.”

Some of the interior changes in the 1962 Palmer and Krisel home included opening up the kitchen to the rest of the living areas and converting a large closet into a new primary bathroom. “There was a weird bedroom/bathroom built into the side of the garage,” Holly says. “We took that out too.” The flooring was previously a Tuscany-inspired tile, so they replaced it with stained concrete and terrazzo. “We tried to be as period-specific as possible,” Holly explains, adding, “We love the look of walnut, so there’s walnut in every room.”

While there were very few original features left when Kyle and Holly moved in, they did the work of revitalizing the home’s original Palm Springs-inspired style. “We put it back to the original mid-century feel rather than the ’80s Tuscan feel,” Kyle says. Now the home not only matches the neighborhood but stands as a testament to the original vision, suited for 21st-century living.

home office with Barcelona chairs, L-shaped executive desk and semi-circle pattern wallpaper — Kyle and Holly converted one of the bedrooms into an office for Holly. It has become her favorite room in the house. “The colors [of the wallpaper] are very sentimental to me,” she says. The desk is a vintage piece that came from a neighbor’s house. “It has rotated around to several houses in the neighborhood,” Holly says. On the wall is a Shag commemorative art piece from the 2019 Palm Springs Modernism Week, which Kyle and Holly attended.

white Acapulco chairs and dog on astroturf in Las Vegas backyard — Daisy the dog enjoys the backyard. Kyle and Holly replaced the lawn with artificial grass to save on water bills and replaced the back fence with a breeze-block wall so they could still enjoy a view of the nearby golf course.

If you love the story of this 1962 Palmer and Krisel home, read more about A Fun, Functional Colorful Krisel in Palm Springs and Dani Nagel’s Krisel Home. For more on Las Vegas Modernism, check out this article showing homes from a previous Las Vegas Modernism event. If you’re in Nevada and would like to get involved in Nevada Preservation efforts, head to their website at nevadapreservation.org. And of course, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for more Mid Century Modern inspiration.