If you want to know the real story of any neighborhood, ask the gardener. He’s seen more than anyone and remembers it all. Beyond the horror stories that neighbors swap — like the new owners who hastily gutted their midcentury gem — are the murkier, out-of-reach backstories. The gardener’s your inside man.
At least he was for Roger Stoker. Of the 17 homes architecturally designed by Stan Sackley along Caliente Drive in the Indian Canyons neighborhood, just one drove Stoker to a curiosity he couldn’t quell.
Architect Stan Sackley
His fascination began with a single sconce beside heavy front doors and a windowless façade of jagged, split-face travertine that seemed to guard its secrets. Stoker effused about the home and its mystery to his partner, Michael Ostrow — the other half of the design duo behind Grace Home Furnishings. But he knew nothing about its lineage. Enter gardeners José and Raul Woo, whose family has tended this and other Sackley homes on Caliente Drive for nearly 45 years.
“I would see José working there and pretend that I needed to talk to him or drop off a check just so I could peek in the windows,” Stoker says. “I knew from Google Earth images that the pool was in a courtyard instead of on the golf course. One day when I came by, he let me into the courtyard with him.”
Through parted drapes, Stoker glimpsed furniture covered in 1970s sheets — “like a modern-day haunted house,” he says — and learned the owners visited only a few days a year. It wasn’t just preserved; it was pristine.
The renovated courtyard pool incorporates a raised spa with geometry that echoes the home’s lines. The mirror at the far end draws the eye, courtesy of Steve Chase. Umbrella by Santa Barbara Designs.
Living a block away in another Sackley, he and Ostrow had redone the interiors of their home in the signature Grace Home style — crisp and contemporary with a colorful splash of vintage. But after about a decade there, Stoker felt drawn toward the metaphorically sunnier side of the street, where the fairway grass seemed greener. His fixation with the time-capsule home soon escalated from mere curiosity.
“Michael thought I was crazy for the little spy photos I would take,” Stoker says. Still, Ostrow had one condition: They had to stay on Caliente. The wide, traffic-free avenue marked the final stretch of the original Canyon Club neighborhood, where Sackley’s architectural vision shaped practically every home. With empirical evidence, Stoker made his case for moving to a home he’d never stepped inside. Through the windows, he’d spotted his-and-hers bathrooms. No more vying for space on the vanity. And José had said there were dual closets. “Those are the keys to a good marriage,” he told Ostrow. This, he asserted, was the house for them.
One problem: It wasn’t for sale.
Fate dealt a winning card when Stoker happened to be driving home just as the owners, Alan Wallock and his wife, Isabelle, were pulling into the driveway. “I literally slammed on the brakes, backed up, and introduced myself,” he recalls. “They must’ve thought I was stalking them.” Stoker invited the couple to visit their home, which was open for tours during Modernism Week 2021. After their visit, the Wallocks returned the invitation.
But Alan wasn’t just the enigmatic home’s longtime owner — he was its original builder. He had constructed the house for his parents, working closely with Sackley, then purchased it after they moved out and held onto the sentimental structure for decades.
“We had lived in the home full time, but once we moved to San Diego, we were only coming out at Thanksgiving. Still, we hadn’t even thought about selling it,” Wallock says, until Stoker and Ostrow planted the seed. “We could tell they cared about preserving it and really appreciated what it was.”
Grace Home Furnishings co-owners Michael Ostrow and Roger Stoker often relax in the den.
Stoker always knew the home was a Sackley. Its elegantly clandestine look gave that away. But once the Wallocks opened their doors, he and Ostrow discovered something the gardener hadn’t mentioned: original interiors by none other than Steve Chase, the internationally acclaimed talent behind some of the desert’s most iconic spaces. Under those ’70s bedsheets lay Chase’s original furnishings, custom-designed for the home.
Two weeks after that first meeting, Stoker and Ostrow got the call: If they were serious, the house could be theirs. And so, the journey began — blending Chase with Grace.
SACKLEY’S STREET
A USC-trained architect without a formal license, Sackley began his career in the 1960s under Los Angeles–based architect Herman Charles Light, designing posh custom homes from a desert outpost. Things started heating up once the bachelor pad he designed in Deepwell Estates for attorney James Hollowell appeared in the April 1966 issue of Playboy — complete with nighttime party scenes and a model deep in a bubble bath.
When Sackley parted ways with the firm in 1968, he pitched designs for the Palm Springs Convention Center and drew up plans for a “high-class hot dog and hamburger-type eating place” on Palm Canyon Drive, according to The Desert Sun. His primary focus, however — between collecting cars, wrangling Desert Circus events, and charming the ladies — became a single street.
“In the 1970s, Sackley acquired the leaseholds of nearly 20 homesites on Caliente Drive,” Steve Treinen writes in Canyon Country Club: History and Design of Palm Springs’ Garden of Eden (Palm Springs Preservation Foundation, 2024). “Caliente Estates, as it was known, offered a fully integrated package that included a leased lot to build on, architectural design services by Sackley, and a general contractor to construct the dwelling,” culminating in a cohesive and concentrated body of work few licensed architects achieve.
Sackley even moved from his Deepwell home to one on Caliente Drive. In some ways, he’s still there. Most homes on the street bear his autograph: confident modernism defined by heavy stucco massing, magnificent entryways, mitered glass windows, ceilings as high as he could push them, hot-and-sexy fireplaces, and whims indulged by client request. Each reflects a distinct expression of his evolving design language from the midcentury ’60s and Brutalist-modern ’70s to 1980s international flair.
Neighbors have long enjoyed visiting each other’s homes to compare design notes.
Despite his enduring cult following, Sackley remains underknown — his name often eclipsed by more prolific contemporaries. With no heirs, it was the gardener who discovered Sackley had died at home in 2001 at age 63.
The room features cork wallpaper by The Romo Group, two prints by Slim Aarons, and a Steve Chase sofa they reupholstered that is original to the home.
A GLOBAL CHASE
Across from Stan Sackley’s home on Caliente Drive, under the roof of developer Alan Wallock’s custom build for his parents, the architect’s structural clarity met its match in the interior finesse of Steve Chase.
Chase, then with Arthur Elrod’s firm, brought his own quiet sophistication to the project. His clever use of mirrors and innovative spatial tweaks polished Sackley’s diamond without dulling its edges.
While rising to fame as a designer with international commissions and regular features in Architectural Digest, Chase kept a low profile. He traveled often, yet preferred morning jogs to sunset cocktail parties. In Greater Palm Springs, Chase was beloved not only for his imaginative contemporary residences but equally for his contributions to the community — designing the McCallum Theatre and Wally’s Desert Turtle and supporting organizations like Desert AIDS Project (now DAP Health) and the Palm Springs Art Museum, which today includes a wing devoted to his personal art collection.
Sackley’s glass corner in the living room frames the mountains and fairway. Steve Chase designed the rug for Edward Fields and the newly recovered sofa.
“I like to do things not totally expected, to use the most original concept,” he told Palm Springs Life in 1980. “My favorite working conditions exist when I’m designing a very good house with an outstanding architect, landscaper, and client.”
The team planted minimal landscaping some 50 years ago, Alan Wallock recalls. But the “outstanding architect” was Sackley. And the client — a builder on a personal mission.
BUILDING WITH GREATS
If sensational midcentury architects can be underknown, their builders — save for the Alexanders — risk vanishing entirely. But Alan Wallock wasn’t building for recognition. He was building for family.
“This was a house built by a builder for a builder,” he says, referencing his father, Mark, a Bay Area builder before retirement. Alan had completed another home on Caliente Drive before this one, earning praise from The Desert Sun in 1975 for prioritizing luxurious finishes at a time when others were cutting corners. He credits his local launch to Sackley.
“I met Sackley when I first moved to town. Since he was building as well as designing, he gladly gave me the names of his subcontractors and a breakdown of costs,” Alan remembers. “I was able to begin building as if I’d been in business here a long time. I wouldn’t have been able to do that without him. He was extremely generous and happy to help.”
Together, they raised the bar — quite literally. Ceilings soared past 9 feet; sliding doors stretched to commercial proportions. “No one was building ceilings that high in the desert,” Alan says. “We had to persuade door manufacturers to go along with it. They weren’t used to glass that size.” Even lowering the doorknob placement heightened the drama.
Into Sackley’s volumes stepped Chase, chosen by the Wallocks from a roster of designers. His creativity and warmth sealed the deal. Chase tailored the plan with impactful nips and tucks — removing a hallway to expand the den, swapping a solid wall for glass in the primary bedroom, and installing a mirror at the far end of the pool to create the illusion of swimming into infinity.
An ivory grand piano, purchased at a Yosemite Drive estate sale, was the sole piece the owners retained from their previous Sackley residence.
Original futuristic fixtures by Artistic Brass befit the “disco powder room.”
“It was all very exciting,” Alan says of the collaborative chemistry. “Chase supplied all of the fabrics and furniture. My parents didn’t bring a thing. They stayed away until reveal day — then we celebrated with a grand-opening party that same night.”
From custom furnishings to the lone entry sconce — “That was Steve’s call, and he really nailed it,” Alan says — the home reflected professional design prowess and his mother’s penchant for peachy palettes, French antiques, and Asian accents. A local personality herself, Lillian Wallock was an avid golfer and former big band singer who later performed a golf-themed show on the women’s club circuit. She clicked with Chase so well that when the Wallocks relocated to Morningside, they hired him again.
Alan contributed his own ideas to the Caliente home’s mid-1970s mastery, then held onto it for nearly five decades, soaking up the memories and the quiet night swims in the courtyard pool. When Stoker and Ostrow entered the picture half a century later, it was the continued spirit of preservation — and a shared reverence for Sackley and Chase — that moved Alan to pass the torch.
THE GRACE ERA
The home originally built for one couple found its way into the hands of another who not only appreciate it, but also deeply understand it. Their decision to make only two small structural changes let the architecture uphold its history and meet their needs.
In 2000, Roger Stoker and Michael Ostrow founded Grace Home Furnishings in Los Angeles, blending their backgrounds in architecture, interior design, art history, and furniture manufacturing. (The firm’s namesake has always been their chocolate Labrador, now Grace III.) Today, they’re based in Palm Springs, where the firm boasts an exclusive furniture line and a portfolio of eclectic desert hideaways, East Coast homes, and discreet projects for repeat A-listers.
“I think for me as an architect — I went to architecture school — an interior designer, and even as a Palm Springs resident, it’s important to take a house that has a significant architectural or design heritage and preserve it for a new generation,” Stoker says. “The only way to keep a house viable is to update it. But if you do so sensitively, you can have a vintage house that is still very much Stan Sackley’s vision and Steve Chase’s vision. You have the best of both worlds.”
“It’s important to take a house and preserve it for a new generation.”
A painting that Ostrow and Stoker call “The Captain” hung in their Los Angeles showroom for almost 25 years.
That sensitivity became their guiding principle for the home. From the outset, Stoker insisted on preserving the original unfilled travertine floors, installed by Italian craftsmen. Only a few areas received new carpet or tile from Flooring Innovations, all closely matched to the existing. The Chase-designed brown-marble-and-mirrored “disco powder room” was another non-negotiable, maintained in look and functionality.
The cracking pool and the spa were among the first renovations. Once cutting-edge with jetted aluminum chairs, the spa — relocated to improve flow — now waterfalls into the pool. The pool’s courtyard placement was a request from Alan’s parents, who asked Sackley for a bit of separation from the golf cart traffic. He obliged with a layout that folded the pool into the home’s footprint, creating what Alan calls “an indoor pool that’s open to the sky.”
Next, to modernize their experience, Stoker and Ostrow scraped and smoothed the textured 1970s ceilings, then brightened the rooms with integrated ceiling lights — an uncommon feature in Sackley’s era but one that illuminates the visual intersections of old and new. Fleetwood Windows & Doors replaced the originals with lookalike double-pane models, enhancing energy efficiency without disturbing the home’s appearance.
“We’ve been in quite a few of his houses,” Stoker says. “The architecture is very Sackley.” In addition to the clerestory and transom windows framing the mountains, they point to the open-air atrium just past the front doors, the low entry ceiling that rises into a voluminous living room, and the dynamic contrast between the windowless front and the glassy fairway side, revealing classic Indian Canyons views.
A stipulation in purchasing the home included the purchase of all existing Steve Chase–designed pieces — from the faux bird’s-eye maple dining table to the Edward Fields rug. Stoker and Ostrow rehomed pieces that didn’t align with the new design, or saved them for the ADU that will begin construction in 2026, nicknamed the “cast-off casita.” Some got a second life, like the biscuit-tufted sofa, now reupholstered and placed in the den.
There, a built-in wall — another custom beauty by Chase — anchors the space in a woven raffia laminate. Few would guess that a team carefully dismantled and reassembled it to accommodate a modern flat-screen instead of a petite TV cabinet. The workers saved every piece, turning the structure like a puzzle until it settled into its new silhouette.
The reimagined interiors reflect a thoughtful compromise between Ostrow’s tone-on-tone minimalism and Stoker’s love of color and sentiment. Every space succeeds in a double duty that pleases each designer.
Six Lugano dining chairs by Leon Rosen for Pace flank Chase’s faux bird’s-eye maple dining table.
In the living room, a Steve Chase Monterey sectional offers generous lounging with its L shape. Though not original to the home, it’s classic Chase. “I worked in the showroom that represented Steve Chase in the Pacific Design Center when I first moved to L.A. about 40 years ago,” Stoker shares. “This sectional was one of his signature pieces we showcased — in peach chenille with underlighting and channel tufting. Steve would come in and ask me how my career is going and what projects we’re working on. I couldn’t believe when we found it at an auction — in peach chenille.”
To bring Chase’s soft forms into a 2025 context, they reupholstered the sectional in tonal Romo chenille, similar in texture to the original. Opposite it, on the far side of Sackley’s creamy travertine fireplace, sits a new Grace Home sofa — Brutalist in mood, with a patchwork of gray, black, and rust. “Ironically, it was inspired by a 1970s piece made by the same manufacturer as the Steve Chase pieces, Martin Brattrud,” Stoker notes. “So, it comes full circle.”
Their first structural change involved relocating the living room bar to better access the pool through new French doors. The bar now serves its cocktails from a niche that once housed Lillian Wallock’s electric organ.
“The kitchen and bathrooms were very groovy — but they were a museum,” Stoker says. “We wanted the house to be a living, breathing piece of work that another generation can enjoy.” Chase had outfitted the home with “every bell and whistle and every newfangled kitchen gadget,” he adds. But even top-of-the-line appliances were failing. The laminate countertops had begun to peel.
Refreshing the kitchen meant honoring its compact layout. A new suite of GE Monogram appliances and Modern Twig walnut cabinetry pairs with Lapitec countertops and arcing Brizo faucets. A vintage dinette set sourced from eBay fills a mitered glass corner, and a sculptural 1970s pendant hovers above a small custom stone island — ideal for filling Grace’s dog bowl.
The glass-generous home offers access to the courtyard pool and spa through the primary bedroom.
In the primary bedroom, where “the canopy bed, the drapes, and the lamps all matched,” Stoker says, they selected a Romo fabric for the drapes and matching throw pillows, continuing that spirit in their own way in a calming palette of neutrals and blues. A screen that Chase had converted into an armoire received a robe of white paint.
Chase refashioned a screen into stylish storage for the primary bedroom. Freshly painted white, the armoire sits slightly to the left of its original mid-1970s location.
The his-and-hers baths, dialed into the discriminating tastes of the 1970s, were lovingly revived. A shared Jack-and-Jill shower became a steam shower. New cabinetry in one bath showcases the original plumbing hardware. A floating mirror in front of the glass — originally designed for shaving with natural light — remains in place, both dutiful and attractive. In the other, a marble-surrounded Roman tub gave way to a larger modern soaking tub. For the home’s second structural change, the designers reclaimed an atrium, where tropical plants once grew, as a generous walk-in shower. A new vanity wall ensures privacy from the courtyard.
The Wallock family’s former art studio became a guest bedroom — ’70s track lighting replaced by skylights — and a small third bedroom off the kitchen became an office.
Outdoors as well, original blurs with new. Stucco walls on the front of the home and beside the pool highlight a Sackley trademark: irregular pieces of broken travertine, stacked by hand long before stacked stone hit the market. At the edge of the green, a horse statue stands watch — rescued long ago from a defunct amusement park and hand-painted by Daniel Dugan, a friend of Stoker and Ostrow. A new bar and barbecue empower entertaining, from 125 guests on New Year’s Eve to nearly 400 for the Modernism Week 2025 featured home party.
“I think Sackley and Chase made a really great combination and had a really great aesthetic,” Stoker says. “Everybody thinks the pool mirrors were just done recently, but they are from 1976. The travertine floors are beautiful, and the modern lines of the house could have been from last year rather than 50 years ago. Steve Chase’s upholstery pieces, they look just as timeless now as they did then.”
Even after making minor tweaks and seamless renovations, the pair feel attached to their home’s former incarnation. A remnant of Lillian’s peach shag carpet and scraps of glamorous ’70s wallcoverings — harvested from beneath switch plates — have been stashed away as mementos of its origins.
The Modernism Week unveiling of the “Sackley Chase Sensation” pulled Sackley’s work from past to present, offering modernists a chance to roam its rooms in February 2025. The home will again open to the public during Modernism Week October 2025.
“When we invited Alan and his wife to the opening party, they hadn’t seen it in three years. We were a little nervous about what his reaction would be to the changes we made,” Stoker says. The Wallocks had cared for the home like another member of the family; now they would be reunited one more time.
FROM THIS DAY FORWARD
That February night, Alan and Isabelle Wallock traversed the broad steps of their former home, as they had many times before. This time, they stepped into something familiar yet transformed. Among hundreds gathered for the Modernism Week party, the couple paused in the entry, momentarily stunned.
Then, elation.
“I couldn’t have been more thrilled,” Alan says. “They kept the most important things but also took it to a whole new level. I think both Stan and Steve would’ve been thrilled to see the house. Roger and Michael did some really exciting things, and they did a wonderful job.”
The couple’s collection of oil paintings reflects Ostrow’s affinity for historic portraits.
Equally thrilled, Stoker now peers out of the windows as an owner, instead of inward through parted drapes. Night swims in the courtyard continue. And the same family of gardeners still tends to the home, shaping the topiaries flanking the low-handled front doors.
This Caliente Drive jewel embodies more than a design pedigree. Its rare collaboration across time, a Sackley-Chase, now with Grace, conveys a story about a neighborhood and its neighbors. What began as a driveway conversation between kindred strangers led to the handoff of one special home. Their unlikely alliance formed, bound by a shared love of architecture, design, and the legacy of two men who helped define an era of desert design.
Now the two who live there continue that legacy — with grace.
