Richard Zerbe - Residential Projects

Sach Residence - de Anza Country Club - 1960

Designed for original owners Mr. & Mrs. Denis Sach, this house has an unusual undulating roofline and features an indoor pool. Originally one bedroom, an additional guest quarters has been added just off the pool. The house maintains many of its original features, including vintage Youngstown kitchen cabinetry and fireplace.

Sach Residence - Judy Parker Photography — Sach Residence - *Judy Parker Photography*

Cosgrove Residence - 1956 - de Anza Country Club

As par of his project files, Zerbe included a brief narrative for some of his plans. Of this home built at de Anza Desert Country Club he wrote:

Good example of integrating floor plan with characteristics of site. Low profile suits desert. Floor plan provides good privacy to sleeping wing. Deep cantilevered roof overhangs provide protection from desert sun. Designed as a desert vacation house for a married retired insurance executive with one grown stepson.

BS May 1957 Cosgrove Home Front Page.jpg

Petit Residence - 1963 - de Anza Country Club

This is one of 3 homes that Zerbe would design for Dr. Mary Petit, a gynecologist and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania who is considered a pioneering woman in medicine in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Two homes, including this one, were in Borrego Springs, the third in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

A unique floor plan taking advantage of the adaptability of unit masonry to curved services. The doughnut shaped plan provides maximum protection to the circular interior patio. The plan is open to the view and takes advantage of the green expanse of the driving range. The locking arrangement of doors D, K and C permits renting the building as a one bedroom house, a two bedroom house, a one bedroom studio apartment, a one bedroom sleep room or any combination of the latter.

Although altered, the home retains its “doughnut” shape and offers spectacular views of the mountains beyond the driving range from the patio. The two other homes designed for Dr. Petit contained indoor lap pools that were contiguous with the living room. Betty Zerbe recalls that he went to great lengths to design an interior environment so the lap pools wouldn’t “sweat”.

Lewis Chapel & Guest House - 1968

This home was originally constructed in 1953 by contractor Donald H. Castle for Opera Star Madame Amelita Galli-Curci and her husband Homer Samuels who came to Borrego after seeing a television program about the Valley in San Diego. In an interview with the Borrego Sun, Galli-Curci said of the valley “During our musical career we have had the opportunity to travel the world many times. We are not stretching the truth when we say Borrego Springs is one of the most beautiful spots we have ever seen. The closest to it is Africa in the Valley of a Thousand Hills” Galli-Curci and her husband also maintained a home in La Jolla, where she died in 1963. The Borrego Springs home was purchased by Dr Minott Lewis and his wife Mildred who were disciples and close friends of Paramahansa Yogananda founder of the Self Realization Fellowship. It was at the Fellowship’s prominent Hermitage and Meditation Gardens on the ocean in Encinitas, CA where Yogananda lived and wrote “Autobiography of a Yogi”. Borrego Springs was also a desert spiritual retreat for Dr. James Lynn, another disciple and friend of Yogananda and officer of the Fellowship who purchased the 600+ acre “Lynn Ranch” with the idea to grow crops that would feed the members of the SRF nationwide. (Zerbe’s Projects List includes the Ranch House for the Lynn ranch). The Self Realization Fellowship has an interesting relationship to Borrego Springs, in that the desert community has offered a desert contrast to the Self Realization’s coastal center in Encinitas. In 1968, Lewis’ widow contracted with Dick Zerbe to design and build a chapel to honor her late husband.