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 The
Morelli house was built in 1959 in the Desert Inn Estates in Las Vegas.
Antonio Morelli designed the house with the Sands' carpenter foreman,
Richard Small. It's called 'modern' but draws on diverse architectural
classifications: Contemporary, American International, and even Populuxe
styles.
The
house is basically rectangular in plan. Its appearance is long and low
with clean lines. The roof is covered with crushed white rock and in several
places, the front is screened with open-work cement blocks. Of particular
note is the integration of the building with the grounds. The living room
wall consists of floor-to-ceiling windows which open up the house to the
Golf Course beyond.
The
house's interior is fitted with all the accouterments of modernity. The
kitchen includes redwood cabinets, a built-in lazy-susan, a tea cart,
a breakfast bar with a Formica top, a double-door copper tone built in
oven and a range with a stainless steel hood above it. A marble-topped
hearth dominates the living room. Its hammered copper hood extends to
the ceiling.
More
about the Morelli house:
 Antonio
Morelli was the Sands Hotel musical director and orchestra conductor
in the '50s and '60s- The Morelli house was originally located at the Desert
Inn Estates but has since been moved to its new home on the northwest
corner of Ninth Street and Bridger Avenue.
- The Morelli House is the second attempt by the Junior
League to relocate a historic building to its property across the street
from the original Las Vegas High School. They originally planned to
move and rehabilitate the two-story Whitehead house. Vandals burned
that house to the ground as it sat temporarily only one block from its
final destination.
- The redwood ceiling was one of Antonio Morelli’s
favorite parts of the house. Great care was taken in its construction
and finishing. The boards had to be perfect clearcut redwood and the
stain had to be perfect. It had to be redone several times before it
met Mr. Morelli’s satisfaction.
- The swimming pool was in the front yard. It was separated
from the public by a six foot block wall.
 Mella
Harmon:
"My favorite aspect of this house is knowing the architectural influences
that Mr. Morelli employed. I really like being able to go back to the
books about Rudolph Shindler's designs and his philosophy about architecture
and seeing how the philosophies that he employed in the 1920s, that were
very novel then, were created in the Morelli house almost 40 years later.
And how they really fit in with Las Vegas being this young resort oriented
community, really coming into its own around 1960, and how that really
played into the Las Vegas image."
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