When Paul Kaplan moved to Palm Springs, Calif., for good 14 years ago, after having spent many a childhood and college-age vacation there, and after having earned an architecture degree and living a good life in Los Angeles, it was, in the end, the charms of the mid-century modern house — referred to as desert modern — that proved irresistible.

It was, and is, his favourite kind of residential architecture, its spare, clean lines and inside-outside focus with soaring ceilings, glass walls and light-filled rooms appealing to his own personal sense of style and space.

And nowhere is the housing stock of a city so mid-century-centric, so much a showcase of renowned 20th-century architects like John Lautner, Donald Wexler, Albert Frey, Richard Neutra, H. William Cody and E. Stewart Williams than is the little oasis in the Coachella Valley.

Palm Springs is a small town, one of a string of desert hot spots that fill the mountain-ringed valley from end to end, but it’s here where the mid-century house made its mark in the 1950s and 1960s with the arrival of movie stars and industry titans seeking sunny weekend getaways from the busy West Coast and the cold eastern winters, all of them eager to employ architects looking to strut their mid-century stuff in a picture-perfect desert climate.

And so, Kaplan gave up his career in commercial real estate and set up shop as a real estate agent in Palm Springs. He began flipping mid-centuries, which had somewhat fallen out of favour over the years and many of which had suffered the indignities of neglect in enclaves such as the Racquet Club, Twin Palms and Alexander Estates.

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