By Steve Bergsman

Oh look, that was Ronald Reagan's house, and over there is where Elizabeth Taylor once lived. See that residence? Kirk Douglas lived in that house for more than 40 years. His neighbor was the writer Sidney Sheldon.

Where am I? Beverly Hills? Right state, wrong city.

I'm driving through the Old Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs with Robert Imber, a juggernaut of a tour guide, a self-taught historian and firm believer in the concept of modernism, the architectural movement that dominated wealthy, residential Palm Springs in the 30-year period from 1940 through 1970.

As we roll through the old residential areas of Palm Springs, the names of the heroic architects of modernism roll off Imber's tongue almost as fast as the celebrities — artistic and corporate — who once and forever inhabited this outpost at the edge of the California desert.

My favorite house was one of most nondescript. A low-slung white vision of modernism originally designed for the middle class, it was once owned by the actor and esteemed member of the Rat Pack, Peter Lawford. The shrubbery had grown deep since Lawford's days in the sunshine, and most of the home was obscured except for the driveway up to the entry of the house. What made this particular abode special was that President John F. Kennedy secretly met Marilyn Monroe here for a tryst. And the reason we know this bit of gossip is because of the bronze plaque outside the home detailing the event.

My wife and I couldn't resist. We had our picture taken on the grounds of the home as if we were some latter-day JFK and MM, although we aren't nearly as good-looking or as young as they were at the time. Well, everyone needs a good fantasy.

Even Elvis slept here. A few blocks away tour buses pull up to an unusual-looking home with a modernistic winged roof and protruding second story that looks octagonal. It was here that Elvis and his sweetheart, Priscilla, stayed before their planned wedding at this home, but one of the neighbors was gossip columnist Rona Barrett, who got wind of the proceedings. Elvis and Priscilla, as the story goes, hopped a plane for Las Vegas and got married there before coming back to this house, which is now known as Elvis and Priscilla's "honeymoon hideaway."

However, the most famous residence in these neighborhoods has nothing to do with celebrities in the arts. It's called the Kaufman Desert House because the owners, the Kaufman family, who made their fortune building and managing department stores, also had another famous house constructed in Pennsylvania, a Frank Lloyd Wright structure called Falling Waters. The Kaufmans' Palm Springs home was built in 1947 and designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra. For many years this home was owned by singer Barry Manilow, and after he departed the house went into serious decline — in fact, it was at one time considered a tear-down. Preservations became enervated over such a loss, and since that time the home has been fully renovated and is considered the jewel in the crown of mid-century modern architecture.

Since Imber's Palm Springs journey was a drive-by tour — most famous homes are only open to tourists on certain days, such as Modernist Week or where the homes have been converted to public use — it was hard for me to tell what made one home more spectacularly modern than the next. Was it the middle-class vision of father-son team George and Robert Alexander that created a whole neighborhood based on three modernism designs? (Each of those homes is now worth north of $1 million and rising.) Or was it anything by architect William Krisel, such as a structure called the House of Tomorrow built in the years 1960 to 1962.

There was one home, owned by the family of one of Palm Springs' biggest benefactors, bon vivants and donors to the city's art museum, which was done in the minimalism offshoot style of modernism and which Imber declared to be "so stunning, so beautiful, so iconic." It was hard to get behind those laudatory words just looking at the home from the outside, but Imber was prepared — some might say overprepared as he worked three iPads — and showed digital photos of the interior and private grounds of the homes.

Then there was the Edris House, where in 1953 the pool was built prior to the construction of the house, so as to minimally impact the environment.

Of course it's the celebrity names that attract us: Over there, it's the Bette Davis house, and there it's the Kim Novak house. That's where movie mogul Jack Warner lived. And Claudette Colbert. Eventually you start thinking this is all about old Hollywood, and then Imber points out the stunning home that once belonged to singer Dinah Shore and is now owned by Leonardo DiCaprio. Or in the far neighborhood to the south one of the city's most stunning homes called the "Ship of the Desert," built in 1936, is now owned by clothing designer Trina Turk. (It's cater-cornered to the home once owned by songwriter Johnny Mercer.)

Still, the "Old Hollywood label" is not wrong. The heyday of Palm Springs, both from a notoriety and architectural standpoint, was the 1930s through 1970. After the recession years of the 1970s and into the 1980s, the monied crowd that still came to the desert migrated down the road to Rancho Mirage and, indeed, Palm Springs lost its "coolness" credentials. Then starting in the 1990s, preservationists looked around at the beautiful and unique architectural gems that were built during the mid-20th century and said this was all worth saving. The monied crowd came back and started buying and rehabilitating these classic homes.

The way I see it, modernism helped save Palm Springs, which is about as cool (ambience not temperature) a place to visit as it had been during the time Frank Sinatra lived there as well as his swinging Rat Pack pals, guys like Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, all of whom had homes in Palm Springs.

And Imber knows where those homes are.

WHEN YOU GO

I stayed at the Triada Palm Springs, a Marriott Autograph hotel within walking distance to downtown: www.marriot.com. But I also checked out the quirky Casa Cody, a historic inn in the heart of Palm Springs, which was originally founded by a cousin of Buffalo Bill Cody. The adobe suite on the property is a century old. Famous folks still stay there: www.casacody.com.

Palm Springs Modern Tour with Robert Imber, www.palmspringsmoderntours.com

Steve Bergsman is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.