The Ghost of Steve Chase 1

Jack Murray, a friend in Santa Barbara (hope that heart bypass surgery went well dude), has a favorite saying that goes something like this: "This was another one of those moments when you realize there are only twelve people in the world and the rest is done with mirrors."



I was reminded of this useful maxim once again when I went to one of the only two Walgreen's in the Palm Springs area for a prescription...



...and the pharmacy turned out to be installed at the entrance to the Desert AIDS Project (click here for the link)...



...where the name of Steve Chase was plastered everywhere.



From the 1970s to 1994, Steve Chase was the top interior decorator in the Coachella Valley and the arbitrer of good taste for most of the rich people in the desert.



The only San Francisco equivalent would be the interior decorator Michael Taylor in the 1960s and 1970s (before his early AIDS death) and Stanley Gatti now.



Steven's various projects around the world seemed to be featured in the magazine "Architectural Digest" every other month for decades...



...and he was an early member of "Interior Design" magazine's "Hall of Fame" (click here for the link).



He also became an avid art collector and a major supporter of the Palm Springs Art Museum.



Upon his death in March of 1994 from AIDS, he donated the bulk of his fortune to the museum...



...along with his 150-piece art collection...



...which consisted mostly of Abstract Expressionist sculptures and paintings.



Steve's $1.5 million bequest spurred the museum into the construction of a roof and a whole new wing...



...which they named after him.



My first host in Palm Springs sometime in either 1978 or 1979 was Steve Chase, and it was a legendarily disastrous experience which I still remember clearly. There really are only twelve people in the world.

The Ghost of Steve Chase 2

The short bio in "Interior Design" magazine's Hall of Fame Entry for Steve Chase relates the following:

"Known for their contemporary elegance and comfort, Steve Chase's residential interiors embody the casual yet opulent style of California's affluent. Natural elements such as wood, granite, and leather prevail in his sensuous designs, often enhanced by subtle lighting. Preferring to work closely with each project's architect, Mr. Chase deftly blends all the elements of design to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts."



"Realizing his talents earlier than most, Steve Chase began shaping his career and his distinctive style at the age seventeen when he joined the design firm of La Tienda in Los Angeles. A fourteen-year affiliation with Arthur Elrod Associates followed, ending in 1980 with the founding of his namesake firm, Steve Chase Associates. With a staff of more than twenty based in Rancho Mirage, California, Mr. Chase's projects extend beyond his signature residential work to include aircraft, yachts and homes in such far-off lands as Singapore and Germany. In addition, Mr. Chase has designed the Bob Hope Cultural Center, the Behring Auto Museum and several West Coast country clubs."



I met Steven Chase on Beto's Beach in Acapulco in the late 1970s where the scene was mostly elderly gay gringos who were flirting with younger Mexican beach boys, most of whom who were casually bisexual.



Though Steve wasn't all that much older than myself, he was one of those people who was probably born an old queen, which must have been discouraging when he was younger and hoping to be sexually desirable.



I knew nothing more about him other than the fact that he was extraordinarily intelligent, thoughtful and funny.



He invited me to visit his home in Palm Springs from San Francisco, and though I should have known better, I had no idea that I was being invited as his "twink" for the weekend to share his bed.



This shouldn't have been a problem because I would have sex with just about anybody during my early twenties. It was all interesting. However, Steve figured a marijuana brownie and a number of margaritas would make me a bit more pliable. Instead, it just made the room spin around and I pleaded for my own bed before passing out.



The next day Steve pretended he didn't know who I was.



There was another guest for the weekend, the famous fashion designer for Republican First Ladies, James Galanos, and he had invited his own "twink" for the weekend, a very silly young man from San Francisco who was trying to make it in the fashion biz by sleeping with older designers. Because Galanos had gone to visit his old friend Betty Ford for lunch, I was stuck with the fellow-twink all afternoon who insisted we get on roller-blades, which had just come into fashion during the brief and horrendous "roller-disco" period.



Reluctantly, I got on a pair of rollerblades and then watched a phone repairman who was heavily bejeweled with silver and turquoise trip while trying to repair a short, and he somehow set off the loud Westinghouse alarm for Steve's gargantuan estate. The repairman shrugged his shoulders in a "What, Me Worry?" gesture and fled while I stood on the front sidewalk wondering what the hell to do. At this moment, Steve drove by in his yellow Jeep, slowed down, looked at me, raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead, and kept driving.



I went back inside the house and called a cab to the Greyhound bus station, and while waiting, Steve returned. He looked quite startled when I told him I was leaving, as if twinks being treated like nonexistent entities was a routine occurrence. To his credit, he apologized and made an attempt to be a polite host for the next 24 hours, but any chance of friendship on the part of either one of us had vanished.

The Ghost of Steve Chase 3

As an employee at the museum confessed to me, he thought Steve Chase was a great interior designer, but as an art collector he left a lot to be desired, particularly since his collection makes up about half of the art on display in the museum. (All of the photos in the first two sections were a "Gift of Steve Chase.")



Part of the problem is that most of the great abstract expressionist works have already been collected and are in homes and museums on the East Coast.



Plus, a lot of abstract expressionism is just plain boring, particularly compared to the work in the Palm Springs Art Museum's permanent collection...



...that made up a smashing show called "Beyond Borders: Mexican Art Inspires 20th Century Art."



They convincingly showed off Mexican art from pre-Columbian times to the present...



...juxtaposed with work by Henry Moore, Botero, and others.



The show also included one of the most beautiful Diego Rivera drawings ever of his wife Frida minus all her wounds which are usually on display in Kahlo's own paintings.



Part of Steve Chase's decorating style, at least when I met him, was the use of bold, third-world art from huge Guatemalan ceramics to Mexican retablos.



How he decided "Abstract Expressionism" was what he needed to collect (most of the works are from the early 1980s), I don't have a clue.



When trying to research Steve for this blog entry, I realized that he died slightly too early, for the AIDS drugs that might have saved him, and for the internet and its search engines to really immortalize his own work. Instead, he's becoming a faint ghost, known as either an AIDS philanthropist whose name is on an annual A-Gay and Society event, The Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards at the Palm Springs Convention Center, or as an anonymous art patron with questionable taste.



The greatest favor the Palm Springs Art Museum could do for their benefactor, I believe, is to put together a show of Steve's actual design work rather than his art collection.



There have to be archives from great photographers all over the world displaying what it was that made his vision interesting.



The museum could also publish a catalogue and sell it in their very bright gift shop.



This would probably make the ghost very happy.