PALM SPRINGS ETERNAL
Palm Springs Eternal - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Palm Springs Eternal | |||||
| By: Helen Razer, Issue 45 – Summer 2011 | |||||
| (Palm Springs, California) | |||||
| IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SONORAN DESERT, HELEN RAZER FINDS AN END TO THE DESIGN DROUGHT. FANS OF MID CENTURY MODERN, AND THE MAD MEN TV SERIES, LOOK TO THIS AMERICAN FUTURIST OASIS FOR A WAY FORWARD INTO STYLE. Here you couldn’t move without bumping into a tiny starlet sprawled poolside on a big Eames chair, and it was here that the clean and spare informal elegance of the American mid century was truly developed; Palm Springs was the style lab from which Mad Men’s Don Draper might have emerged. Back in the heyday of American design, anyone who was anyone knew that the new standard in architectural bliss could be found in Palm Springs. From civic buildings, luxe residences and even gas stations, the stark, glassy lines of what came to be known as Mid Century Modern were etched into the consciousness of the world. In the 1940s, the small desert town of Palm Springs was already famous as a Hollywood colony. Every weekend, moguls, movie stars and the occasional mob boss took the two-hour drive from Los Angeles toward a perfect privacy and perfect climate. Here, Humphrey Bogart, Lucille Ball and Elizabeth Taylor decamped. Boltholes were built by Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Liberace. It’s rumoured that Marilyn Monroe was talentscouted at one of the town’s many mid-century hotspots and it’s almost certainly true that Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn kept their long, long affair alive at the desert town’s old Racquet Club. Old Hollywood is well remembered for its A-List bed-hopping, but rarely for exquisite taste in design. Nonetheless, commissions from stars and their millionaire pals in a town that became known as the “Movie Colony” left a style legacy that has just begun its second act. Here, Frank Lloyd Wright’s most eminent students fused steel and rock with big, big budgets. Here, you couldn’t move without bumping into a tiny starlet sprawled poolside on a big Eames chair. And it was here that the clean and spare informal elegance of the American Mid Century was truly developed; Palm Springs was the style lab from which Mad Men’s Don Draper might have emerged. By the 1970s, Old Hollywood had gone and New Hollywood had built its boltholes in California’s coastal towns. As money evaporated from the desert, so did international fascination for a town that had resolutely defined the style of the Atomic age. Palm Springs was no longer the wellspring of Mid Century Modern; it was the place where famous addicts went to dry out. Shortly after its opening in 1982, the Betty Ford Center became the most famous building in town. Across the past decade, that’s changed once more. Betty Ford is still open for business but now, too, we have a range of high-end hospitality for fans of true California chic. Some come to Palm Springs purely for its old-school spa retreats. Two Bunch Palms, made famous in Robert Altman’s movie The Player, still attracts a clientele eager to spend its fortune on solitude, silence and, um, colonic irrigation. Now, however, stiff cocktails out-number wheatgrass shots and a new generation of style aficionados thirst, more than anything, for extraordinary design. There are few places better to view the fall, decline and glorious rebirth of Palm Springs style than the Kaufmann Desert House at 470 West Vista Chino. You can punch the address into your GPS or you can take this bare glory in as part of a guided architectural tour. It is here, according to the Los Angeles Times, you will see one of LA’s top ten architectural marvels, but it is more than one-hundred clicks outside city limits. In 2008, Christie’s brought the gavel down at US$15 million for this modestly sized residence. In the decades before its restoration, however, a place now costly enough to be called “collectible art” had fallen into chaos. A house once impeccably decorated with Danish chaise lounges and Expressionist art had been redecorated with floral wallpaper. According to some reports, one-time owner Barry Manilow was the culprit. In 1946, Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte Richard Neutra addressed the desert landscape for department store tycoon, Edgar Kaufmann. For his efforts, Neutra was lauded on the cover of Time magazine and his work captured by famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman. These images not only brought modern architecture to the American mainstream; in their composition and clever, seductive use of people and of objets d’art, they set the template for what we all now recognize as luxury style. Throughout Palm Springs, there are dozens of other residences that remind us of the origin of high design. The place, in fact, is something of a Hajj to those building or remodelling their own modern-inspired homes. Buy a map, take a tour and drink in the sine qua non of contemporary architecture. Or, just stroll past Palm Springs City Hall or the old cowshed-modern gas station, now the Palm Springs Visitor Center, and try to imagine what Glenn Murcutt might have done without architects like Albert Frey, William Cody or Neutra. Make no mistake, Palm Springs is currently a design hotspot. Fully restored motels like the Orbit In cater to the most ardent Modernism fans; fully maintained cocktail joints like Melvyn’s serve ratpack melancholy in a high-ball glass. However, interest in Palm Springs is mounting at such a rate, its growth can exceed the capacity for comfort. Which is a polite, mid-century way of warning: be prudent when you choose to use your nostalgic dollar. This desert town is still catching up with the fast rebirth of its own mid-century cool. The back-to-the-future progress of this town as a tourist destination, however, shows no signs of slowing. The next few years will bring travellers expanded options in dining, lodging and ultra-vintage shopping. But, as we wait for form to follow function a little more closely in the tourist trade, we can be sure that the sleek lines of famed Palm Springs architecture will always marry style with substance. | |||||
| THE HORIZON HOTEL | |||||
| 1050 East Palm Canyon Drive Palm Springs, CA 92264, United States +1 760 323 1858 thehorizonhotel.com | |||||
| N.B. No guests under 21 will be permitted William F Cody, alumnus of the Desert Modern school, designed L’Horizon in 1952. The high-end party shack was built for oil man, hotelier and movie producer Jack Wrather who hosted family and famous friends eager for deluxe seclusion amid the still desert air. Walt Disney, Marilyn Monroe and Mama Wrather were among the personal guests who enjoyed hospitality, clean design and splendid views of the San Jacinto Mountain Range. These low-slung, standalone apartments, now restored to Cody’s specification, transposed seamlessly in 2004 into a hotel retreat. Wrather’s own, grander one-bedroom bungalow, with separate pool, kitchen, wet-bar and dining area, remains the white, luminous jewel in this unfussy crown. The Residence, as it’s now known, is a snip at around A$450 per night. Smaller, surrounding jewels, many with al fresco showers and all with the blithe, boxy beauty of the modern era, can be snared for a song. The caveat here: this is a minimum service hotel. Staff ebb into the desert night by 8pm and when they return with your breakfast coffee and a cleaning team, they disappear again unless your rouse them. It is in this gracious hands-off approach, however, that much of the hotel’s charm inheres. It is certainly the reason that a new generation of celebrity chooses to stay in a place which is, after all, somewhere not to be seen. To guarantee absolute privacy in this gracious, gated hotel, you can play Father Wrather and rent all of its 22 rooms. Get married, get nude in the Old Hollywood style pool or get into all kinds of trouble. There’s one guarantee: nobody will ever tell. RATES: Queen Standard room from US$129 (around A$131) per night. The Residence from US$400 (around A$406) per night. | |||||
| THE PARKER PALM SPRINGS | |||||
| 4200 East Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs CA 92264, United States +1 760 770 5000 theparkerpalmsprings.com | |||||
| This is a Starwood property; bring your SPG card. As any guest who has ever wrestled with the fixtures of a Philippe Starck bathroom can attest, quirk doesn’t always work. Extreme style is often eclipsed by extreme discomfort as sunny service is eclipsed with a sneer. “Design led” can translate to mean: we’ve spent all our money on the cushions and, now, we’re in a very bad mood. If you doubt me, visit New York or Berlin sometime. The Parker, however, manages that rare fusion of eccentric design with spotless hospitality. Here, acclaimed ceramicist Jonathan Adler was afforded free-reign to transform a spa resort once owned by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry. This is Old Hollywood as viewed through the prism of psychedelic drugs. This is Gidget on the Magic Bus or Rock Hudson at a never-ending dance party. The passionate décor, which is unstuck in any era and gives birth to fish shaped faucets and unexpected croquet lawns on its 13 lush acres, is oddly soothing. The eye is so distracted by beauty that the mind just gives in and says: a game of petanque, a quick pastis and a kobe-beef hot dog with relish, why not? If you elect to stay at The Parker, and, really, you must, choose a Villa. The standard rooms are perfectly lovely but what they don’t have are private patios, easy access to the grown-ups only pool and the full scope of Adler’s interior imagination. Secure the Gene Autry Residence for a night or five, you won’t regret it. Nor, will you regret any time spent in inimitable spa facility, the Palm Springs Yacht Club. Treatments can be patchy however any lavish, nautical themed facility that runs on pure fun is okay by me. There are no regrets at The Parker at all. There’s not a spot more luxe in town. RATES: Standard rooms from US$255 (around A$258) per night. Villas are from US$1,200 (around A$1,218) per night and the Gene Autry Residence is from US$3,000 (around A$3,077) per night. | |||||
| What to do and see mid-century modern | |||||
| Your single Palm Springs commandment is to take in Neutra’s Kaufmann House. Do so as part of the guided Palm Springs Modern Tours (+1 760 318 6118) or purchase A Map of Modern Palm Springs from the Palm Springs Visitor Center, itself a modernist landmark +1 760 778 8418. Truly Modern Mad Men will set aside the last half of February for the annual Palm Springs Modernism Week, modernismweek.com Total mid-century immersion can be had at the Orbit In. If it’s authenticity, rather than luxury, you crave, join amiable staff and modern-mad clientele +1 760 323 3585 | |||||
| orbitin.com | |||||
| Bona Fide California Girl and well-known designer Trina Turk opened the first of her boutique and residential stores in Palm Springs. Her store is housed in an Albert Frey building and her heart belongs to the desert. +1 760 416 2856,They’re vintage, not reproduction. No player in the long-playing, kitsch loving Palm Springs Follies is under 55 years old, +1 760 327 0225. From the super-slick swinging cartoons of Shag to desert inspired Plein Air, original visuals abound in the many galleries of Palm Springs. For an overview from Native American to contemporary Californian, head to the city’s Art Museum, +1 760 322 4800 trinaturk.com | |||||
| Make like Deano and dive headfirst into a Caipirinha cocktail at old-timey Melvyn’s , +1 760 325 2323 The Falls Steakhouse may be no older than a decade, but its tableside Caesar is prepared with the care of a gentler, and hungrier, age. Nebraska beef and fine views of the Springs’ postprandial promenade can be had on the balcony, +1 760 416 8664 thefallsprimesteakhouse.com | |||||
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