One Night in Joshua Tree’s Multicolored, Cubist Monument House

Welcome to One Night In, a series about staying in the most unparalleled places available to rest your head.

Half hidden near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park amid the rocky hills and yucca of the Mojave Desert, the Monument House sits like a welcome visitor from outer space—its three Cubist pavilions in mossy green, sapphire blue, and pinkish-red; all vivid but still nature-bound hues evoking sage, sky, and hardy desert flowers. Completed in 1990, the 950-square-foot home by architect Josh Schweitzer (who briefly worked for Frank Gehry before starting his own firm) has elegantly sliced trapezoidal openings that bring the dramatic landscape into the jagged volumes surrounded by enormous boulders.

Originally designed as a private retreat for the owner’s family and friends, the Monument House figures into a long tradition of experimental architecture in the high desert. As someone who lives in Los Angeles and makes regular trips to Joshua Tree, I’d seen photos of the property and thought of it as one of the many wonderfully weird roadside attractions the area is known for, like the nearby Integratron (built in 1959 by a ufologist who claimed it could provide mystical anti-aging properties to its visitors) or the Noah Purifoy Desert Art Museum, a sprawling outdoor gallery built entirely of found materials. Until this year, however, outsiders could only look from the property’s edges. So when the house recently became available for private bookings via luxury vacation rental company Homestead Modern, I jumped at the chance to finally see inside, traveling there for a quick winter trip with my partner (and this story’s photographer), Tod.

Monday 

6 p.m.: We arrive just after dark, a crescent moon slung low in the sky illuminating the alien-like silhouettes of Joshua trees as we travel down the narrow dirt driveway. We park just above the house and stumble out of the car, transported from the chaos of L.A. into the calm, spare elegance of the high desert at night. Coyotes yip faintly in the distance as we unload our bags.

We enter through the kitchen, a tidy, modern-looking nook painted a warm yellow with much lower ceilings than the rest of the house. Beyond it, there’s a cozy dining area, then the heart of the residence: a striking living room with soaring 20-foot ceilings and tons of asymmetrical windows. A polished wood coffee table that looks like a tree trunk sits between an oatmeal-colored couch and two midcentury-modern reading chairs. The night sky greets us through the windows; we flip on the gas fireplace and make a quick dinner with groceries from home.

9 p.m.: I’m sprawled in one of the reading chairs pursuing something I brought from home: Desert Oracle, my personal Mojave bible (the magazine and radio show is commonly known by its tagline: "The Voice of the Desert"). There’s a thoughtfully placed stack of books on a shelf above me about vacation topics—seashells, spices, French paintings—and a ’60s-style radio that looks like an adorably retro robot. A small sign with a QR code invites us to listen to music from "a previous occupant of the house"—the legendary avant-garde composer and poet Harold Budd, who lived in and took inspiration from the house from 2004 until his death in 2020. There is, by design, no TV in the residence. (There is, however, an inviting stack of board games.)

11 p.m.: After a few pleasurable hours of listening to Harold Budd and taking in Desert Oracle tales about ghost stags and desert cults, it’s time for bed. The bedroom is a compact space with a low entryway that opens to a high ceiling. There’s a large trapezoidal glass door and window, both covered with blackout curtains. The king-size bed is obscenely comfortable. We’re instantly asleep.

Tuesday

6 a.m.: It’s almost chilly enough to see our breath as we head out to scramble on the boulders above the house, taking in the dawn and our first proper view of the property. In the daylight, I can see that the green and blue cubes are connected; the former contains the kitchen and living room, while the latter houses the bedroom and bath. The salmon-pink volume is a freestanding gazebo with a long wooden table for outdoor dining.

The home’s many windows and doors mean that even when you’re inside, the desert is ever-present. Each carefully positioned geometric opening frames a different slice of the landscape. As I’m getting ready in the bedroom, I catch sight of how the changing light hits the impressive rocks outside. I notice, for the first time, that the floor of the house is made of a pebbly stone, seemingly designed to mimic the earth.

9 a.m.: After breakfast, I have a little work to do. I bring my laptop outside and sit on a chaise lounge, taking in the spare desert. This is the most beautiful time of year to be here; it won’t get above 60 degrees today and the light has a cool, elegant cast. Tod photographs the house as I consider what kind of person I’d have to become to move to a modernist Mojave home. I’d probably have to dress better and possess a kind of inner serenity that I’m currently unable to access, but it’s an appealing thought.

As we’re puttering around the property, two different sets of tourists show up with cameras in hand. (The house is popular with influencers seeking unsanctioned exterior photoshoots.) They see us—and the long chain hung across the driveway—and are visibly disappointed. The second set, two women, look at me and the chain, then start to walk around it. I gently tell them there will be no photoshoots.

2 p.m.: With work done, Tod and I take another slow walk around the grounds. The silence is absolute, broken only by the occasional call of a bird and the hypnotic hum of distant highway traffic. The entrance to the national park is less than a mile away, but there’s so much to take in here, and so little time to do it, we can’t seem to bring ourselves to get in the car. The property is ringed with enormous boulders; we scale across them like mountain goats, disturbing the occasional indignant lizard.

5 p.m.: As the sun sets, I all but hurl myself into the hot tub, tucked into a recess in the rocks. The sky streaks a fading symphony of orange and gold as I soak, the moon rising above me as if on marionette strings.

8 p.m.: We grill veggie sausages on the barbecue and eat at the fire pit, watching the stars come out while a chorus of coyotes serenades us from afar. There are Joshua Tree and Yucca Valley restaurants we like nearby—Crossroads Cafe and the Tiny Pony Tavern—but it feels almost like breaking a spell to go into town. Instead, I spend another night reading by the radio to the soft sound of tunes by my metaphysical temporary roommate, Harold Budd.

11 p.m.: I desperately want to linger in the enormous, white-tiled walk-in shower, but water conservation in the desert is a thing, and I manage to control myself. It would be more or less impossible to stay in a house like this—a shrine of sorts to the desert—and not consider how humans impact this incredibly fragile ecosystem. There’s already anguished debate about the effect of Joshua Tree’s short-term rental "gold rush" on environmental and cultural resources, yet there’s no question that being here can be an invitation to truly appreciate, and hopefully learn to protect, the landscape.

Wednesday

11 a.m.: As we drive away from the Monument House, I feel a deep sense of calm and a connection with the view around me; the exquisite boulders and Joshua trees. I grew up in New Mexico, another desert landscape, and have spent plenty of time in the Mojave, and yet something about this trip was different. Schweitzer once said: "When you leave this house, you should take some of the desert with you." I can only hope that’s true.   

Photos by Tod Seelie.

More from this series:

One Night In Snøhetta’s Remote Hiking Cabin In the Norwegian Wilderness

One Night In a Hogan on Navajo Nation