Property Description
This 1,200-square-foot single-family home was developed by Jack Meiselman in 1959 and sits on a generous 10,895-square-foot lot in the Racquet Club area of north Palm Springs. It’s a three-bedroom home with two original bathrooms plus a third in a bonus room added post-construction. Built in 1959, it’s right in the thick of Meiselman’s most prolific period — part of a wave of compact, intelligent Desert Modernism homes built for the Palm Springs lifestyle that was crystallizing in that era.
The standout original feature inside is the wood tongue-and-groove ceiling. That’s the kind of material decision that defines a room — warm, textural, and decidedly of its moment. It’s also the kind of detail that’s easy to lose in a renovation, which makes its continued presence worth noting. The home’s site planning reflects a classic Meiselman priority: privacy. A private entry sequence, a setback lot, and a walled private outdoor zone create genuine separation from the street — not just landscaping, but spatial strategy.
The tongue-and-groove ceiling is the primary documented original material still in place. It gives the interior its thermal and tonal warmth, and it’s a direct line back to the design sensibility that made these homes feel so different from what was being built elsewhere in 1959.
Between 2014 and 2017 the home underwent a comprehensive renovation. Documented work includes: La Cantina bifold door installation (replacing original door/wall configuration at the indoor-outdoor transition), upgraded roof insulation, and replacement of plumbing, sewer, and electrical systems. The owners also added a bonus room with an unpermitted bath at some point in the home’s history — the scope and date of that addition is not known.
What Makes This Home Special
The lot is the first thing to notice. At 10,895 square feet, this is one of the larger residential parcels documented in the Registry — comfortably above the typical Racquet Club Estates range of 9,000–10,000 SF, and significantly larger than the smaller south Palm Springs lots from the early 1950s. That lot size, combined with the home’s privacy-forward site planning, gives this property a spatial generosity that punches well above its 1,200-square-foot interior.
What also distinguishes this home in the Registry context is its 1959 date, making it part of a cluster of documented Meiselman homes from that year. The 1959 homes represent Meiselman hitting his stride: confident site planning, consistent material choices, and the kind of compact efficiency that holds up remarkably well today.
Development and Neighborhood Context
This home sits in the Racquet Club area of north Palm Springs — one of the most densely documented Meiselman neighborhoods in the Registry, right up there with Sunrise Park, Oasis del Sol, and Sunmor. The area takes its name from the legendary Racquet Club of Palm Springs, the celebrity haunt that helped put the desert on the cultural map in the mid-20th century. Meiselman developed homes throughout this corridor in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, and the concentration of his work here makes it something of a ground zero for understanding his residential design language at scale.
The Racquet Club neighborhood in this period was developing rapidly, drawing buyers who wanted proximity to the social life of the resort district while living in something genuinely modern — not a Spanish Colonial revival, not a ranch house, but a clean-lined, light-filled Desert Modernism home designed for the desert climate. Meiselman understood that market precisely.
Is This Your Home? Claim It!
If 1865 Jacques Drive is yours, you’re living in a piece of Meiselman history. Join the Registry for free and claim your listing to get verified registry status, connect with the broader Meiselman community, and add your own chapter to this home’s story.
