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The Instagram-famous desert home designed by SoCal starchitect Josh Schweitzer recently became available to book as a vacation rental, and my partner and I jumped at the chance to visit.
Half hidden near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park amid the rocky hills and yucca of the Mojave Desert, the Monument House sits like a welcome visitor from outer space—its three Cubist pavilions in mossy green, sapphire blue, and pinkish-red; all vivid but still nature-bound hues evoking sage, sky, and hardy desert flowers. Completed in 1990, the 950-square-foot home by architect Josh Schweitzer (who briefly worked for Frank Gehry before starting his own firm) has elegantly sliced trapezoidal openings that bring the dramatic landscape into the jagged volumes surrounded by enormous boulders.
Originally designed as a private retreat for the owner’s family and friends, the Monument House figures into a long tradition of experimental architecture in the high desert. As someone who lives in Los Angeles and makes regular trips to Joshua Tree, I’d seen photos of the property and thought of it as one of the many wonderfully weird roadside attractions the area is known for, like the nearby Integratron (built in 1959 by a ufologist who claimed it could provide mystical anti-aging properties to its visitors) or the Noah Purifoy Desert Art Museum, a sprawling outdoor gallery built entirely of found materials. Until this year, however, outsiders could only look from the property’s edges. So when the house recently became available for private bookings via luxury vacation rental company Homestead Modern, I jumped at the chance to finally see inside, traveling there for a quick winter trip with my partner (and this story’s photographer), Tod.
