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The first time Kelly Schoeffel and Matt Murphy’s contractor sent them photos of their newly painted Palm Springs kitchen, they pointed out that he’d missed a spot. Actually, it was four spots: two walls and two doors. “We were like, ‘More blue,’” says Murphy. The idea to go full force with the color, a custom stain, wasn’t something they or their interior designer, Jessica Hansen, founder of Tandem Design, pulled out of thin air. The kitchen had actually looked that way when they bought the home, which was originally built by architect Stan Sackley in 1966. While the previous shade wasn’t exactly right (it was more of a cartoony blue, notes Hansen) and the cabinets weren’t all that functional, they still wanted to pay homage to the property’s past. So much so, they almost asked their GC, Lloyd Archibald, to paint the ceiling, too.
“It wasn’t a restoration project because we didn’t know what things used to look like, but we wanted you to be able to squint and think that this could make sense in the ’60s,” says Schoeffel. A lot of the home’s current charm comes from what they saved: the panels of yellow bubble glass, the built-in linoleum desk, and the bar-slash-closet which Murphy has dubbed “the party box.” “I’ve never seen that in anyone else’s house before,” he says. Even the integrated blender is still intact.
Then, of course, there’s all the original woodwork—“the soul of the house,” Murphy says. Between sunrise and noon, light pours in through the stretch of glass windows in the living room. Later on, a dappled glow bounces off the panels on the back wall.
“A lot of the houses out here have this 1950s, space age, pool party thing going on. This house felt like you could drop it in the middle of a forest in Japan and it would fit in just as well,” shares Schoeffel. Her favorite thing they’ve inherited is a Meyer lemon tree that makes hundreds of fruit each year. “For about two weeks, the blooms come and it’s intoxicating. You walk outside and you’re hit with a wall of citrus,” she shares.
That was yet another draw when the couple bought the property in July 2020. Craving a break from working side by side at their house in Venice, California, the pair holed up at a coworker’s Palm Springs house for two weeks. The day they got home from their trip, they started casually browsing Zillow. A mere 24 hours later, they were driving right back to the desert to tour this mid-century gem, not anticipating they’d be putting in an offer that very same night.
While Schoeffel and Murphy are naturally creative people—he’s an artist and the global chief creative officer at ad agency 72andSunny; she is the cofounder of brand and marketing consultancy Odd Shaped Objects—they called on Hansen, a longtime friend, to help them bring the house up to speed. The kitchen and bathrooms were full guts, but the designer maintained the retro vibe with her color choices. A bathroom drenched in pink or green wouldn’t have been unusual for the ’60s, but instead of going the typical avocado or bubblegum route, she went with slightly cooler tones. When they tore out the carpeting to streamline the flooring with terrazzo tiles, Hansen carefully selected pieces with flecks of blue, green, and pink to tie the palettes together.
Hansen had one suggestion when it came to keeping resale value in mind: a tub. “If they ever decide to rent this house out to, say, a family with small kids, it’s always a good idea to have a bath somewhere in the house,” says the designer. The primary ensuite was the only one large enough to accommodate the fixture, so Hansen discreetly incorporated it into the shower stall, hiding it behind a chunky ledge covered in matching tile.
Decorating the house is an ongoing process. The couple bought it furnished, even though the past owner’s stuff wasn’t really their style, so they could start using the space right away. “It’s been a slow chess game of one thing out, one thing in,” says Schoeffel, and many of the pieces they’ve found seem made for the space, like the large landscape painting in the living room—a work from one of Murphy’s very first art shows—and the Saarinen table they’ve owned for 20 years.
The limestone sculpture that now sits in the refurbished fountain out front was a special commission by Scott VanderVoort. The project quickly snowballed from a simple addition to a feat in engineering; there was a lot of digging and filtration involved. “It’s like we made an Olympic swimming pool for birds,” Murphy says jokingly—and without any ounce of regret. “When you pull up to the house, it’s such a grounding statement,” Schoeffel chimes in.
They’ve yet to bring in a television, which is a nice break for both the couple and the house (when they first toured it, they counted eight screens). “We come here and stare at the sky, watch the palm trees sway, look at art, and unplug,” Schoeffel says. Mix in plenty of cooking, hiking, drinking martinis by the fireplace, and hanging with their dogs, Penny and Flash, and the home—and the days—fills up fast.