USA TODAY International Edition
PALM SPRINGS FINDS BRIGHT FUTURE IN MODERNIST PAST
The former getaway to the stars is home to a new growth spurt
JPALM SPRINGS, CALIF. aime Kowal left Vancouver for Palm Springs in 2012, deciding to move to this southern California paradise almost on a whim.
“I came for Christmas vacation and never left,” she says.
A freelance photographer, she decided to channel her creative spirit into being an entrepreneur of another sort. She founded The Desert Collective, which in three years has grown to include a coffee house, tiki bar and boutique accommodations.
She’s not stopping there. A yoga retreat in nearby Joshua Tree also is in the works.
“There’s a lot of culture. We have a lot of entrepreneurial friends,” Kowal says over wine at Ernest Coffee, one of her properties. “It’s a new generation that has seen the potential of the architecture and history. It’s a new wave.”
Palm Springs once was known as a desert playground for retirees and Hollywood celebrities of a bygone era. Now, a new crop of entrepreneurs is reviving the community with restaurants, hotels, boutiques and art galleries.
This town of 46,000 is a beaming example of Mid- century modern architecture. The Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center highlights the town as a go- to place for design buffs.
Each year, the city plays host to Modernism Week, an 11- day festival celebrating Mid- century modern design, architecture, art and culture. This winter, the festival drew 97,000 participants, an increase of more than 25% over last year.
“It’s much of what put Palm Springs back on the map,” says Robert Imber, an architectural enthusiast and tour guide and executive producer of the documentary Desert Utopia: Mid- Century Architecture in Palm Springs. “Palm Springs became the mecca of modernism. … People have some kind of a bond or affinity for modernism.”
An effort to preserve buildings from the 1930s and 1970s became the focus of the community.
Notable homes include the Edgar Kaufmann house, by architect Richard Neutra built for the Pittsburgh department store millionaire in the 1940s. The southeast part of town is where Howard Hughes built his tri- level mini- estate. The Alexander Estate, more commonly known as “the house of tomorrow,” is where Elvis Presley spent his time off in the 1960s.
Even the town’s Visitors Cen- ter is a popular spot for architectural buffs, as it is housed in a 1965 gas station designed by Albert Frey.
The Architecture and Design Center is one of the most recent success stories.
Housed in a building designed by E. Stewart Williams in 1961, it was originally used as the Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan. The art museum purchased it in 2011. Prominent members of the local community, including fashion designer Trina Turk, donated funds to restore it.
The result: a 13,000 squarefoot glass- and- steel building with floor- to- ceiling windows. Parts of the original building were restored, including the terrazzo floor and the bank vault door.
“It’s a great preservation story,” Imber says. “It was a major, major win.”
Another win has been the development of the Uptown Design District, a growing retail area with about 60 boutiques and art galleries housed in historic buildings.
Turk, who dresses celebrities such as Halle Berry, opened her colorful and whimsical flagship store in the district in 2002. She has since expanded it to include a men’s store and a furnishings shop.
Walk around and the word “modern” pops out from many of the awnings.
Woody Shimko, who owns the Woodman/ Shimko gallery on North Palm Canyon Drive, sees the scene surging, “It’s changing big time and it’s only going to get better.”
The city is expanding thanks to firms such as Chris Pardo Design: Elemental Architecture, which is working on a new Kimpton Hotel.
Pardo also is the co- founder of the Arrive Hotel, one of the newest, hippest properties in the city.
The property spans nine buildings, with Mid- century modern roofs designed to echo the adjacent mountain ridges. Pardo chose materials such as rusted steel, wood and concrete to reflect the desert landscape.
The pool area has cabanas and fire pits. In a hint of playfulness, there also is a bocce court and ping pong tables. In addition, there is a full- service restaurant called Reservoir, a coffee house and an ice cream shop. There’s no front desk. Guests check in at the bar and get their drinks of choice. To make requests, they text- message the staff.
The complex has transformed a once- desolate block.
“We saw an opportunity to do this and make a big difference,” say Pardo, 38.
He also designed Kowal’s Ernest Coffee and the Bootlegger Tiki in the same complex. He found a “large group of architectural fanatics” in Palm Springs.
Many restaurateurs also are getting into the hotel business.
Tara Lazar owns F10 Creative, which has four restaurants and a hotel. Alcazar Palm Springs is a 34- room boutique hotel with sleek décor, a pool and garden courtyard.
“We take food a lot more seriously now,” Lazar says. “There’s a more sophisticated demographic and people care more these days.”
At Sparrows Lodge, chef Gabriel Woo’s family dinners are consistently booked.
“It’s up and coming,” he says of the town and the food scene. “I’m hoping to ride that wave.”
“A new generation has seen the potential of the architecture and history.” Jaime Kowal