How ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Became the First Movie to Film at Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House

There’s a lot of beauty to gaze upon in Don’t Worry Darling, and we’re not just talking about the film’s cast of young, hot Hollywood A-Listers, some of whom started dating during filming and some of whom may are rumored to hate each other. While much of the conversation leading up to the film’s release focused on alleged behind-the-scenes drama between director Olivia Wilde and star Florence "Miss Flo" Pugh, leaked texts from one-time leading actor Shia LaBoeuf, Chris Pine’s pained face at the Venice Film Festival press conference, and more than a few less-than-glowing early reviews, even the film’s harsher critics agree that Olivia Wilde’s second directorial feature is visually impressive, chock-full of gorgeous Palm Springs vistas, swinging Eisenhower-era fashions, and more than a few excellent examples of midcentury architecture. 

Chief among those architectural marvels is Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Desert House, which the celebrated modernist architect built in 1946 for Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. (the same Pittsburgh department store mogul that charged Frank Lloyd Wright with designing Fallingwater). The International Style structure plays off the nearby San Jacinto mountains using walls of windows that thoughtfully frame vistas and natural materials such as sandstone and birch-veneered plywood. Vertical aluminum louvers protect the various wings from harsh desert temperatures and create a strong connection between the inside and outdoors. Neutra novices might recognize the home’s adjacent poolside pavilion from photographer Slim Aarons’s quintessential 1970s photo, Poolside Gossip, which featured a couple of mod, bubble-haired socialite types perched on lounge chairs while in candid conversation. (A writer for the New York Times once said the image "has become as much a symbol of modernism" as its setting.) Olivia Wilde certainly did. As she told Variety, the director actually had a print of Aarons’s photo on her wall when she was beginning work on Don’t Worry Darling, and had visions of using the home as a model for the film’s set design.

But it wasn’t until she and production designer Katie Byron started to scout for locations in Palm Springs that location manager Chris Baugh told them they might actually be able to shoot there. Prior to Don’t Worry Darling, no Hollywood productions had been allowed to shoot in the architecturally significant residence, which is designated a Class 1 Historic Site by Palm Springs City Council. Baugh, however, had made headway with the home’s longtime owners, Brent and Beth Harris, through an acquaintance and thought he might be able to get Wilde and company in to at least see the space. (The Harrises, he a financial executive and she an architectural historian, bought the house in the early 1990s, but sold it this May to an undisclosed owner for a reported $13 million.)

In the film, the angular, glass-and-metal building is the residence of mysterious Victory svengali, Frank (Chris Pine) and his all-too-perfect wife Shelley (Gemma Chan). (Victory being the incredibly insular company town that everyone works, shops, and resides in throughout the film. The goal of Victory is to change the world, Pine’s character says, though it’s not clear until very late in the movie what he means by that.) Viewers first see the home when Jack (Styles) and Alice (Pugh) are invited to a garden party there, which is considered quite an honor. Baugh says he immediately thought of the Kaufmann House when hearing about Pine’s character, who, he explains in an interview, "has idealized affluence, taste, and wealth. When you’re thinking about where somebody like that might live in a community like Palm Springs, it’s got to be a pretty spectacular place."