The Citizen House has actually never belonged to the elite fraternity of architectural marvels associated with the efflorescence of midcentury modernism in Palm Springs– locations like Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House, E. Stewart Williams’s Twin Palms estate for Frank Sinatra, and Albert Frey’s own landmark home, Frey Home II. Obscured by a complicated history of remodellings and growths spanning many decades– in addition to an owner who was loathe to share credit with his architects, Hugh Kaptur and Albert Frey– the Citizen House has existed in a fog of inappropriate attribution and appreciation, a condition worsened by the tumbling banks of bougainvillea that for many years shrouded the structure’s archetypal modernist kinds. Ronnie Sassoon and James Crump, the home’s current stewards, imply to change all that.The home
could not have actually fallen into more supportive hands. Sassoon, an inveterate collector and art historian along with an accomplished designer in her own right, notoriously shepherded the remodelling of Neutra’s Singleton Home in Los Angeles, where she dealt with her late husband, legendary tastemaker Vidal Sassoon. Crump, a documentary filmmaker and curator equally soaked in the history of modern-day design, has actually trained his lens on a host of artists and architects, among them Marcel Breuer, Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam Wagstaff, and Jordan Wolfson. In 2013, the couple moved into Neutra’s Levit House in LA, followed by the acquisition of Breuer’s 1966 Stillman Home II in Connecticut a few years later on.
An Alexander Calder sculpture crowns the fireplace, with an Étienne Hajdú cast-aluminum wall relief set up just beyond. Home furnishings consist of a Marc Newson mixed drink table and a vintage Jean Prouvé daybed and chair.
Art: Alexander Calder © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Etienne Hajdu © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ ADAGP, Paris.
< img alt="Image might include Door Sliding Door Indoors Interior Design Wood Architecture Building and Real estate" src="https://media.architecturaldigest.com/photos/69b2dde5a57d5b94ce3a2381/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/AD0426_SASSOON_3%2520copy.jpg"/ > A Jean Prouvé bed signs up with a wood screen and metal sconces by Charlotte Perriand in the sunroom. Simply outside, water cascades down the cliff into a koi pond.