This 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom residence at 2167 N Milben Circle was built in 1959 as part of Jack Meiselman’s Vista Chino Palms development. The home sits on an oversized lot in the Racquet Club neighborhood and retains its original floor plan, including a galley kitchen, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a combined living and dining room with a vaulted ceiling.
The great room is oriented to the southwest, a placement that Meiselman preferred because it draws afternoon and evening light deep into the interior. Large double-pane aluminum sliding doors span a substantial portion of the living room wall, establishing a direct visual and physical connection between the interior and the rear yard. The vaulted ceiling amplifies the sense of volume within the open-plan living and dining area — a spatial strategy common to Meiselman’s single-family residential work of this period, where modest square footage is expanded perceptually through ceiling height and glazing.
The interior flooring was replaced with rough-hewn slate probably in the 1980s, departing from the terrazzo or concrete materials typical of late-1950s Palm Springs construction, however, the textural quality of slate is consistent with mid-century preferences for natural materials, even though it does not represent an original installation.
Subsequent modifications to the property include the installation of a Sub-Zero refrigerator, Wolf cooktop, and Jenn-Air double ovens in the kitchen; updated bathrooms; an in-ground swimming pool with arcing water jets; an outdoor shower; a demilune driveway configuration; industrial-grade perimeter fencing; and an owned solar energy system. The double-pane glazing in the aluminum sliders is also a replacement of the original single-pane units.
Development and Neighborhood Context
Vista Chino Palms was developed by Jack Meiselman beginning in 1959, representing one of his earlier single-family residential projects in Palm Springs. The development is situated along and near Vista Chino, the east-west corridor that forms the northern boundary of the Racquet Club neighborhood. Properties in Vista Chino Palms were constructed on fee simple land — a distinction worth noting in a city where many contemporary Meiselman developments occupied privately leased parcels.
The Racquet Club neighborhood derives its name from the Racquet Club of Palm Springs, established in 1934, which anchored the area’s identity as a destination for mid-century Hollywood clientele. Residential development expanded steadily through the surrounding streets during the 1950s and into the 1960s, with Meiselman among the developers most active in shaping the neighborhood’s built fabric during this period.
Within the Meiselman archive, Vista Chino Palms occupies an early position chronologically, predating several of the developer’s better-known projects. The 1959 construction date places this home at the cusp of Palm Springs’ most intensive period of mid-century residential growth, and its intact original floor plan makes it a useful reference point for understanding Meiselman’s approach to compact single-family design at that moment.
