2186 N Starr Road, Palm Springs, California

This 2,389-square-foot residence at 2186 N Starr Road began its life in 1959 as a Jack Meiselman production — a large desert home on a generous 11,331-square-foot lot in Racquet Club Estates. At over 2,300 SF, this home is one of the largest existing Meiselman homes, which typically ranged between 1,200 and 1,800 SF.

What stands out today is something considerably more layered: a property that has been substantially expanded and reconfigured over the decades, arriving at a four-bedroom, five-bathroom compound that occupies the full breadth of its nearly quarter-acre site. The architect of record for the original structure has not been confirmed; the designer or designers responsible for the subsequent expansion are similarly undocumented.

What makes this property architecturally interesting is precisely the tension between its 1959 bones and its accumulated additions. The main house retains two of Meiselman’s characteristic structural gestures — a tongue and groove ceiling and a block fireplace — both of which anchor the interior to its mid-century origins even as the surrounding spaces have been thoroughly reworked. The great room has been opened and upgraded, the kitchen rebuilt with Bulthaup cabinetry and Miele appliances, and the bedroom configuration reorganized around dual primary suites. A third bedroom and a home office den complete the main house program. A detached casita with a private bath sits separately on the lot, providing genuinely independent guest accommodation — a spatial arrangement that reflects both the generosity of the lot and the compound-like scale the property has developed over time.

The original 1959 materials that survive — the tongue and groove ceiling in particular — are worth noting as reference points for the Meiselman typology in Racquet Club Estates. Block construction was a common structural and aesthetic choice in Meiselman’s late-1950s work, and its presence here in the fireplace suggests the original structure shared the material vocabulary found across his contemporary developments on nearby streets.

Subsequent modifications beyond the floor plan expansion include LED lighting throughout the interior and exterior, an outdoor kitchen with Viking appliances, a poolside bathroom, and an oversized swimming pool with an elevated firepit seating area positioned to engage the mountain views to the west. The cumulative effect is a property that has moved well beyond its original footprint and program while retaining legible traces of its Meiselman origins.

Development and Neighborhood Context

Racquet Club Estates was among Jack Meiselman’s most active development zones during the late 1950s, a period when Palm Springs was absorbing significant residential growth from Southern California’s postwar migration. Starr Road sits within the interior of the development, removed from the busier arterials, and its lots tend toward the generous end of the Meiselman range — a characteristic that made them attractive candidates for the kind of phased expansion and addition that this property exemplifies.

The Racquet Club neighborhood takes its name from the Racquet Club of Palm Springs, founded in 1934 and long associated with Hollywood’s mid-century social scene. By 1959, the surrounding residential streets had become a logical extension of that world — close enough to the club’s energy to carry its cachet, far enough from the commercial corridors to feel private. The neighborhood retains one of the higher concentrations of intact Meiselman-era residential stock in the city, making individual properties here directly comparable to one another in ways that support meaningful archival analysis.

Within the Meiselman archive, 2186 N Starr Road represents a distinct category: a property where the original development has been substantially transformed, yet where surviving original details remain identifiable. As the Registry’s documentation of Racquet Club Estates expands, properties like this one — with their mix of original fabric and documented modification — provide a useful counterpoint to more intact examples, illustrating the range of trajectories that Meiselman homes have followed across six decades of ownership.

Do You Own This Home?

This listing was compiled from available public records and third-party sources. If you are the current owner of 2186 N Starr Road, the Meiselman Registry would welcome your contribution. The 2014 expansion and renovation history of this property represents exactly the kind of detailed, firsthand knowledge that transforms a registry entry from a snapshot into a genuine historical record. Documentation of the original floor plan, the scope of work undertaken, the architects or contractors involved, or any materials salvaged or replicated during the renovation would be of significant value — both to this entry and to the broader preservation community.

Claiming your listing is straightforward. Contact the Meiselman Registry to get started.