Yahoo Finance Palm Springs Eternal: Mid-century modern design and easy living in California's desert city
“When I came here, I fell in love with the architecture and how well-maintained it is – you can’t find this concentration of mid-century anywhere else,” says the tattooed, skinny-jeaned Chris Pardo, entrepreneur and the architect of the Arrive hotel in Palm Springs, which opened last year. We are sitting in the Arrive’s Customs Coffee, discussing the revitalisation of this mid-century-modern resort town, beloved by the great movie stars of the golden age of Hollywood. Sinatra and the Rat Pack, Monroe, Taylor, Grant, Presley and more – everyone had a home here.
Arrive itself has been a significant part of this revitalisation, and looks impressive with its low-profile architecture in rusted steel, wood and concrete. At this new Palm Springs hotspot, anyone, not just the boutique hotel’s guests, can drop in for cocktails around the pool. Customs Coffee and Arrive’s ice-cream parlour serve passers-by, while its restaurant, Reservoir, offers “modern southern California cuisine”. It’s relaxed and informal, tapping into the poolside vibe you find everywhere in the town.
Pardo is the man of the moment. His business partner in Arrive is Ezra Callahan, who was one of Facebook’s first employees, and this is the first hotel of a new brand. It sits at the top of what is now called Uptown Design District, a growing strip of hip boutiques, homeware stores, coffee shops and restaurants, such as the newly opened Eight4Nine, with its dramatic, all-white onyx bar and, outside, a fire pit that runs the length of the garden, where black-and-white films are projected under the stars.
If Pardo is sprinkling magic into uptown, he is doing the same at the opposite end of Palm Canyon Drive, in downtown. Late last year, the new-build Kimpton Rowan hotel opened on a plot that has been a blot on the landscape for decades. At seven storeys high it is, somewhat controversially, by far the tallest building in the city. What swung it for the local council was the idea of a hotel with a rooftop pool bar-restaurant, a first for the entire Coachella Valley, in which Palm Springs is one of nine “cities”.
This is where Pardo came in, with his designs for the pool deck, restaurant, lobby bar and lounge, as well as the building’s façade. The pool deck will be open to all, and day visitors are sure to flock here for the uninterrupted, panoramic views across a sea of palm trees. Sadly, the rooms themselves are a bit generic.
The Kimpton is part of a 14-acre, $250 million grand-plan by Grit Development to provide locals with more places to socalise and shop – Kiehl’s and MAC are among the stores to come, along with a Virgin hotel and the much-delayed Hyatt Andaz. In addition, another downtown razed plot, owned by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, is to be redeveloped, to include a large-scale cultural centre and spa complex .
These developments are symptomatic of the city’s changing fortunes. In the 1970s, people began to desert Palm Springs for gated communities and flashier cities such as Miami. Businesses shuttered and by the 1990s, you could buy a mid-century home in Palm Springs for well under $100,000. There’s a new energy now, though, and all these projects and investments should ensure that the city will thrive all year, not just during the sunshine winters.
The rediscovery of Palm Springs has been partly led by mid-century-modern fans – certainly, the best and most private places to stay here are the renovated luxury villas, with acres of space, lawned gardens and pools. But there’s also an A-list film festival every January, and the hugely successful Coachella music festival in April, when hipsters descend on this valley city. Surprisingly, there are still no hotels in Coachella itself, so party people stay in Palm Springs, an easy half-hour drive away. “Coachella brings 150,000 people to the desert,” Pardo says. “They fall in love with Palm Springs, just as I did. Now that my friends have been out here, they are moving here. Every street has something amazing.”
He is referring, of course, to the plethora of single-storey holiday homes and civic buildings from the 1920s to the 1960s that are everywhere to be seen, designed by star names such as Albert Frey, Richard Neutra, Donald Wexler, E Stewart Williams, A Quincy Jones, John Lautner, William F Cody and the Alexanders. The best introduction to these is a private tour, while in-depth architecture tours are led by Robert Imber and Kurt Cyr. Modernism Week – the annual festival of talks, tours and events held in February – gets bigger every year.
Pardo’s favourite building in the US is just down the street – the privately owned Kaufmann House, designed in 1946 by Richard Neutra. The photographer Slim Aarons did a shoot there in 1970, creating the iconic Mad Men-style image Poolside Gossip. This is still the essence of Palm Springs. If you visit and are hooked, it is because the architecture is so human in scale. Desert modernism facilitated a free-and-easy, low-rise, indoor-outdoor lifestyle. Everywhere you go feels private. If you’re in a pool garden, at the Parker Palm Springs, say, or the Colony Palms, L’Horizon or the newly refurbished Holiday House, only the soaring pink mountains and palm trees intrude, into a cloudless blue sky. It’s a place to reconnect with a time when people read books, played records and had fun.
Pardo, though, has other things to do: he’s off to look over his designs for the new Sandfish Sushi & Whiskey restaurant over the road. Another sign that Palm Springs is on the up.
For more on what to do in the city, see visitgreaterpalmsprings.com
