PALM SPRINGS
AS AWARDS SEASON GETS UNDERWAY, LOTTE JEFFS CHECKS OUT HOLLYWOOD’S FAVOURITE LA ESCAPE
Where to sleep, eat and hang out for a retro Californian getaway with glamour in spades
I NEVER DID GET TO SING CHER’S
‘Joe and I EAT, drink and PARTY like the GLITTERATI’
‘Believe’, because we’d made some enemies at The Ace Hotel’s karaoke night, and it was clear we had to leave, fast. There was a trio of septuagenarian ladies on a table at the front of the basement bar, near the makeshift stage. The women had pouffy hairdos and wore more sequins than there are on Broadway; for them, the legendary Tuesday-night singing session was serious business. They had no time for drunk out-of-towners guffawing their way through ironic Nineties R’n’B. They had requested Rat Pack classics mainly, and were looking daggers at the visiting hipsters taking up their stage time. Cher would not have gone down well, so we downed our margaritas and ran for it before the compère called me up again. Laughing wildly, we tumbled up the stairs into the hot desert night.
My best friend Joe and I were in Palm Springs to recharge after a heavy few months at work, and to reconnect
‘Palm Springs BEATS with my favourite kind of PEOPLE ’
as friends since the inevitable drifting apart that happens when one BFF is single (him) and the other married (me). We lived together in a tiny flat during our last two years at university in Leeds, 17 years ago, and developed the easy rapport of an old married couple. We ate pasta and pesto together almost every night, balancing plates on our knees as we sat on Joe’s bed watching Will & Grace.
‘Look at us now!’ I cry as we drift on lilos in The Parker hotel’s pool (there’s a second pool for families and a third inside the spa). Around the water are loungers with yellow-and-white-striped sun umbrellas, which look cartoonishly upbeat against the bright, cloudless sky. Eyeing the hot guys in the cabanas and contemplating whether 11am is too early for a cocktail, Joe and I can’t help but feel the 20-year-old us would be thrilled that we’d finally arrived.
Palm Springs is all good times – bar the threat of a catastrophic earthquake at any moment (if you’ve seen the movie San Andreas, you’ll get my drift). Hedonism rules. At the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains, the sun always shines and the city is famed for its Hollywood legacy, with Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley to Leonardo Di Caprio and Angelina Jolie all making the 100-mile trip east of LA to kick back without judgement. Joe and I take a leaf out of their books and eat, drink and party like the glitterati, our morning gym trips the only sign ‘consequences’ had crossed our mind.
Palm Springs beats with my favourite kind of people: beautiful gay men on retreat from their Hollywood jobs as actors-slash-waiters, Glam-mas – Iris Apfel lookalikes staying in their holiday homes and drunk-driving their mobility vehicles down palm-shaded boulevards, the mix of lost souls who never quite made it in LA, and jobbing writers hunkering down in a quiet hotel to finish off their latest screenplays.
The Parker makes its intentions very clear: from the moment you check in there’s an ‘anything goes’ attitude that permeates the place as much as the scent of jasmine. From the eclectic, laidback furnishings that are just asking to be flopped on, to the cucumber-infused vodka shot you’re offered when you arrive at the newly renovated spa The Palm Springs Yacht Club (’We believe in the American Country Club experience: mixed doubles, a long steam and a stiff cocktail’ declares the website) – this is somewhere to seriously let off steam.
The hotel opened in 2004, when designer Jonathan Adler’s luxurious and playful interiors marked a new era of hospitality in Palm Springs. The resort originally launched as California’s first Holiday Inn in 1959, but after various renovations, it was its reincarnation as the Parker that really put it on the map. There are 144 rooms, so it’s a testament to the landscape of the resort that there’s a feeling of seclusion; you need barely see another guest if you so
wish. Pathways turn in on themselves, high hedgerows making every area feel deliciously private. We loved the Lemonade Stand, which served icy lemon pressé near the pétanque court. Meanwhile, inside, the gilt mirrored Mini Bar was the perfect place for a nightcap after dinner in Counter Reformation, the Parker’s newly opened speakeasy of a restaurant. Multiply the coolest place you’ve been in London or New York by ten and you’ve got some idea of how thrilling this fantastically quirky Mediterranean tapas joint is (they even shipped in a priest’s confessional booth from Italy). We ate well at the Parker – breakfast at Norma’s, the casual terrace diner, was Instagrammable perfection. Why not order the Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata with a side of caviar? Really, why not?
We ventured out of the Parker’s sanctuary a few times, once to check out artist Doug Aitken’s incredible mirrored house installation in the desert – part of the Desert X Art Festival, which sees pieces of work dotted around Palm Springs
(the next one is in February 2019). We also spent a night on the town, culminating in our karaoke showdown, but starting with a stroll to observe the quirky mid-century architecture, and dinner at Truss & Twine (trussandtwine.com), a hip new spot serving the best cocktails in Palm Springs and a menu of small plates using ingredients from the Coachella Valley, 15 miles south east of town.
The night took in the A-list favourites: Seymours, a dimly lit cocktail bar where many a celebrity has been known to bed in for the night (seymoursps.com), Bootlegger Tiki (bootleggertiki.com), all plush reds and sophisticated Tropicana (try the Acid Drop cocktail), before dancing the night away at the legendary gay club Toucans Tiki Lounge (toucanstikilounge.com).
We were there off-season, in March, so it was cooler than the 90 degrees it gets up to in summer and quieter than it is during events such as the Palm Springs Film Festival (January) and Coachella (April), when hordes of movie-industry bigwigs and bareskinned party people roll into town.
By the end of our four-night stay, Joe and I had fallen into that easy rhythm of our old friendship. We lay in hammocks discussing our idea for a screenplay. We toasted marshmallows on the fire pit, read our books in happy silence, swam, ate and occasionally toppled into those fits of uncontrollable laughter only your very best friend (and three cucumber vodka shots before midday) can provoke.