Palm Desert will give you $50,000 to fix up Walter White’s wave house

(Google Maps)

The City of Palm Desert will give you $50,000 if you buy a 60 year old house the city calls “an important example of Palm Desert’s midcentury modern architectural heritage” and and fix it up.

The house, called the Miles C. Bates home by the city, is at 73697 Santa Rose Way.  It will be auctioned off in February to the highest bidder. If the buyer chooses to preserve the home, the city will give them $50,000 in matching funds, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

The 1,900-square-foot residence was designed by Walter S. White in 1955 – no, not the meth guy, the celebrated architect (so don’t guy throwing a pizza on the roof!).

There is an application to add the home to the National Register of Historic Places that is pending. It’s hard to see now as additions to the home were made, but the original structure has a big wave roof dominating the design – seen here:

(Modernism Week)

The plan is to do tours during Modernism Week, then auction the home off on February 24 at 2 pm at the UC-Riverside’s Palm Desert campus. You can also tour the property by getting in contact with the city.

Why any of this is happening is beyond me, since this is clearly the perfect script for a special 5 episode story arc of the next season of Desert Flippers.