Arthur Elrod Building and Garden Elements

Although Arthur Elrod’s interiors were well documented in his day by newspapers and design periodicals, after publication, the articles and pictures mostly sat hidden away in archives. Not until the Palm Springs mid-century modernism renaissance began, at the end of the 1990s, did interest in the decorator reignite.

How did this incredibly influential talent fall into obscurity? Elrod’s client roster could hardly have been more impressive. It included just about every Hollywood A-lister of the era: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Mary and Jack Benny, Frank and Lucille Capra, Hoagy Carmichael, Claudette Colbert, and more. He was the interior designer of choice for all of Palm Springs’ founding families — the Bennetts, Hickses, McManuses and Nichols — and the darling of every captain of industry who kept a vacation home in the fabled desert resort, including the cofounders of Capitol Records and Hyatt Hotels and an heir to the Carnation Evaporated Milk Company fortune.

Born in 1924, South Carolina native Elrod studied textiles at Clemson Agricultural College (now Clemson University), then interior design at Chouinard Art Institute, in Los Angeles. He arrived in Palm Springs in 1947 and worked as junior staff decorator in the home furnishings department of the newly opened Bullock’s department store. 

Elrod’s early career was fueled by the postwar building boom and by a growing awareness in the desert community of modernism, sparked by the work of Rudolph Schindler, Albert Frey, Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright. Elrod’s interiors of this period display a mostly French Provincial aesthetic with some sleeker modern furnishings mixed in.

Despite abundant commissions and favorable publicity, Elrod decamped to San Francisco in 1952 for a two-year stint at prominent home design and carpet store W. & J. Sloane. During that time, General Electric engaged him to design an exhibition for the San Francisco Museum of Art to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the invention of Edison’s incandescent bulb. Elrod installed a “penthouse apartment” with terrace in the museum’s galleries that garnered him considerable attention and also marked a turn in his style. Almost all the furnishings were contemporary pieces, by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings. 

At W. & J. Sloane, Elrod met Hal Broderick — who would be his life partner until the 1960s and his business partner until the designer’s death, in 1974 — and Barbara Wills, an assistant manager in the store’s modern furniture department. The three established Arthur Elrod Ltd. and relocated back to Palm Springs in 1954. The firm was instantly successful, and over the years took on more and more designers to meet demand.

Elrod’s was the first firm to bring national lines like Baker and Widdicomb to the desert, and he also pioneered the use of indoor-outdoor fabrics, covered a fireplace wall with green vinyl and made Naugahyde chic. He floated credenzas on wall panels and under-lit sofas and beds with recessed kickbacks so that they appeared to levitate. Elrod literally created the mid-century Palm Springs interiors aesthetic we take for granted today. 

Find vintage Arthur Elrod furniture on 1stDibs.