Villa Roma GRANT
The 69-unit Villa Roma complex, located at Sierra Madre Drive and Avenida Granada in south Palm Springs, is a fine and intact example of a modernist “lifestyle” condominium. Designed by James Schuler Associates in 1963, the promotional material for Villa Roma promised prospective buyers “luxurious carefree homes for adults.” Advertisements further asserted that the design motifs for the complex were “cultivated from distant corners of the earth,” and included “statuary, marble, [and] other authentic elements brought here to blend with supreme Romanesque architecture and landscaping.”
On March 23, 2013 at 11:30 a.m., before a crowd of about 100 Leisure Life Weekend tourgoers and Villa Roma homeowners, PSPF President Ron Marshall made a special matching grant presentation of $950 to Jesse McManus of the Villa Roma Homeowners Association (VRHOA). The matching grant, presented in the rotunda of the Villa Roma condominium complex, was intended for “the purchase, installation and painting,” of a replacement Romanesque female statue recently obtained by the VRHOA. On hand for the presentation were PSPF board members Susan Secoy Jensen, Erik Rosenow, Jim Harlan, Ron Duby, Vincent Williams, Barbara Marshall and Gary Johns. Marshall also recognized the ongoing efforts of VRHOA board members Dane Koch, Dan Ary, Fran Newman, John Klingemeyer and Villa Roma resident Eric Scott.
The original rotunda statue, which was an important part of the Italian-Romanesque design aesthetic of the Villa Roma complex, went missing sometime during the 1970s and was never recovered.
Three beautiful Villa Roma homes were featured during the Saturday morning portion of PSPF’s Leisure Life Weekend (March 22-24, 2013) home tour.
