When Creative Director Q Caylor and his husband started looking for a place in Palm Springs where they could escape the fog and compression of San Francisco apartment life, their want list was generic and they quickly found a few places that hit all their requirements. However, their realtor, Alex Dethier of Paul Kaplan Group asked them an important question they hadn’t considered. “If you’re coming to Palm Springs, don’t you want a place that feels like Palm Springs?” Once that seed was planted, their search became a quest for something a little more iconic and lot more personal.
More than a year later, they walked into The Royal Hawaiian Estates and fell in love with the iconic architecture, perfect location and an ideal renovation opportunity.
The previous owners had unfortunately obliterated the original architect-designed kitchen and bathrooms as well as the patio spaces. But the bones were still there and the opportunity to infuse a fresh, yet reverent aesthetic was irresistible. Having left their adoringly renovated 1965 ranch home in Minnesota to relocate to San Francisco four years previous, Q was aching to put his design chops to work on a new project.
Partnering with David Marks to help temper his Regency tendencies and infuse the right amount of tiki charm, the project became a labor of love.
The first, and most transformative project was to remove the wall-to-wall carpeting from the bedrooms and living spaces and tired tile from the bathrooms and kitchen. They were pleasantly surprised to find the original terazzo floors of the entry and kitchen still intact. Once the original floors were all cleared and polished, a clean slate was left to work with from the ground up.
Photography by R. Brad Knipstein
Interiors by Q Caylor and David Marks Design
Photo Styling by David Marks Design
Q Caylor is a Creative Director who has spent his career shaping retail brand experiences for home and fashion brands such as Target, Pottery Barn, Gap, and Levi’s. He’s cutting his own hair and riding out the pandemic in Palm Springs with his husband, Tom and their two pugs, Doug and Bruce.
A version of this story appears in the November 2020 edition of Palm Springs Life magazine