Marian DaCamara Chace and Cooperative Dwelling at the "Schindler House" in West Hollywood, LA. Conference Paper by Dr Sarah Riviere. Presented 17th June 2026

The letter from the desert, Coachella, 1922 (Chace, M. DaC., n.d., unpublished manuscript)

Riviere, Sarah ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1629-6370 (2026) Marian DaCamara Chace and Cooperative Dwelling at the "Schindler House" in West Hollywood, LA. Conference Paper by Dr Sarah Riviere. Presented 17th June 2026. In: IWWA Inaugural Conference, 17 - 19 June, 2026, Falmouth University.

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Abstract / Summary

FORMAL ABSTRACT:
In late September 1922, Marian DaCamara Chace wrote to Pauline Gibling Schindler from Coachella in the Californian desert (Chace, M. DaC., n.d.). Her letter (see Figure 1) is immediately and physically evocative, as Marian describes the desert heat, her full breasts and a missing breast pump, stunning landscapes with “wonderful moonlit nights”, and the cold water in which she bathed two chatty babies: her own Anne Harriet and little “Pablito”, the son of her hosts, Paul and Betty Popenoe.

Marian, her husband Clyde, and four-month-old Anne Harriet were staying at Coachella near Palm Springs (see Figure 2), while Pauline, her husband Rudolf and their baby Mark were back at 835 Kings Road, Los Angeles (commonly known as the “Schindler House”), the shared house that the Schindlers and the Chaces were working on as a cooperative dwelling, and to which Marian’s letter was addressed.

The letter’s content reveals the active and as yet unacknowledged role that Marian took on the house at 835 Kings Road. It shows the lives of the two couples—the Chaces and the Schindlers—as being closely intertwined, with their home taking a central position, with creative ideas and questions relating to the shared project flowing freely between them.

However, within two years of this vibrant letter having been penned from the desert, Pauline was struggling with her mental health, and “on 21 June 1924 made an unsuccessful attempt at suicide” (Hines, 2019, p. 52). Soon after, in July 1924, Marian and Clyde left the project with their young family to embark on a new life in Florida.

Their shared cooperative enterprise at 835 Kings Road had failed.
This 20-minute paper locates this original and unpublished archival letter by Marian daCamara Chace within discourse on feminist archives (Hartmann, 20121; Hartman, 2022; Haraway, 2016).

Grounded in historical research on the lived history of the house at 835 Kings Road (the “Schindler House”) the paper reveals the significant yet unacknowledged role of Marian DaCamara Chace on this self-build residential project in West Hollywood, Los Angeles. In doing so it challenges the authorship of Schindler as sole “architect” of the house at 835 Kings Road, and reveals the ongoing impact of the denial of unacknowledged voices within the architectural design process.

REFERENCES:
ADC/UCSB R. M. Schindler Collection. Architecture & Design Collection at the University of California Santa Barbara (ADC/UCSB). Available at https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt709nf40k/entire_text/ (accessed 26 and 27 November 2018).

Chace, M. DaC. (n.d., estimated late September 1922). Letter to Sophie Pauline Gibling. [ms.]. R M Schindler Collection at the Architecture & Design Collection, University Art Museum, University of California Santa Barbara (ADC/UCSB).

Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the
Chthulucene. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

Hartman, S. (2021). Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals. Paperback edition. London: Serpent’s Tail.

Hartman, S. (2022) “Between Visual Scenes and Beautiful Lives: A
Conversation with Saidiya Hartman”. In OCTOBER 180, Spring 2022, pp. 81–104. Available at http://direct.mit.edu/octo/articlepdf/
doi/10.1162/octo_a_00454/2029776/octo_a_00454.pdf
(Accessed on 14. November, 2022). Cambridge MA and London:
MIT Press.)

Hines, T. S. (2019). “Pauline Gibling Schindler (1893–1977)”, Getty Research Journal, 11, pp. 39–80.

Item Type:	Conference Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Cultural, historical & social contexts; Writing women’s lives; Cooperative Dwelling; Self-build; Smith College USA; 1922; Californian Modernism; architectural authorship; archival voices.
Subjects:	Architecture Creative Art & Design Research
Department:	School of Architecture, Design & Interiors
Depositing User:	Dr Sarah Riviere
Date Deposited:	29 Jul 2026 14:26
Last Modified:	29 Jul 2026 14:26
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6557

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