Mayan-themed architecture in Southern California is typically associated with Frank Lloyd Wright's astonishing 1920s textile-block structures, among them his Hollyhock and Ennis houses, both distinguished Los Angeles land- marks. But in the early '70s, archi- tect Howard Lapham, an admirer of Wright's, created his own impressive take on Mayan Revival style, high on a desert hilltop near Palm Springs. Called Ichpa Mayapan ("exclusive estate"), Lapham's 11,000-square-foot glass-and-stucco fantasia features a hand-carved Mayan calendar in its entrance court, a facade richly embellished with stylized Mesoamerican motifs, and a keystone-shaped pool presided over by a colossal Mayan-inspired stone figure. The property, located within the Thunderbird Heights community in Rancho Mirage, offers commanding views of the improbably emerald valley floor and its many golf courses, as well as of Sunnylands, the former Leonore and Walter Annenberg estate designed in the '60s by A. Quincy Jones at the junction of Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope drives.
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