Sagewood: Donald Wexler’s Oasis for Living” is the first history of the famed Palm Springs architect’s 1972 condo complex. It details the project from concept and site plan to design and construction.

The beautifully designed 24-page booklet, with more than 20 color photos, recalls the growth of condominiums in the area in the 1960s and ‘70s, when  the postwar demand for desert vacation homes was on the rise.

Famed East Coast developer Levitt & Sons bought the land and retained Wexler, already well-known for his Palm Springs Airport and Steel Homes, to design 108 modern living units on 18 acres.

In interviews, experts from design curator Sidney Williams to historian Alan Hess and landscape designer Ron Gregory talk about Sagewood and how it fits into Wexler’s desert modernist legacy. An essay by architectural historian Steven Keylon focuses on Sagewood’s landscape design, “the best of its type and one of the finest examples in the Coachella valley.”

Also included are a timeline of Wexler’s career and a “Lost Wexler” list of key projects by him that have been lost to the wrecking ball.

The book is by veteran journalist and writer Claude Peck, who lives in Palm Springs and Minneapolis. It is designed by Henry Connell of Palm Springs.