Party like Sinatra in Palm Springs
How do you top stunning scenery and lavish luxury? With an earthquake, of course!
AFAMILY gettogether for a rather important birthday shouldn’t be that difficult to organise. But when our daughter lives in London, my son in Sydney, and we are in Washington DC, this is going to be a reunion with a bit of a carbon footprint. The one thing we agreed on was it could only be one flight for everyone. So hello California.
We met in Los Angeles. Well, Santa Monica to be precise. Max and his girlfriend, Kate, arrived first at Loew’s hotel, fabulously situated on the beach next to the pier.
They took off at 9am from Sydney on Friday morning, flew for 14 hours, and arrived three hours before they departed at 6am (which I guess is slightly preferable to their return across the Pacific, when they took off on a Friday night and arrived on Sunday morning – carelessly losing a whole Saturday).
We rocked up next, having only flown across the US; our daughter, Anna, arrived last.
And after hugs and tears that we were together again for the first time in seven months, we did what families do and got competitive over who was most jet- lagged. Linda and I lost badly. Impressively no one’s head disappeared into their plate over dinner.
NEXT morning we set off for Palm Springs, just over 100 miles southeast of LA. We had a carefully selected playlist for the journey, starting with the opening number from the movie La La Land as we left the traffic jams in the city of angels; California by Phantom Planet as we got on to Route 101; and Hotel California, natch, as we drove along a dark, desert highway – although the wind was anything but cool in our hair. r.
When we left LA the temperature was a pleasant 74F, but by the time we had driven into the Sonoran Desert, the thermometer on the car showed it had reached a searing 106F (41C). It was hot, dry and stunning. I can’t imagine how dull a job it must be working as a local TV V weather forecaster.
Palm Springs came too prominence in the 1950s as a favourite hangout for the e Rat Pack of Dean Martin, n, Frank Sinatra and assorted d stars and starlets who were re drawn to this desert oasis.
The Hollywood studiosos demanded that their ‘talent’ nt’ live within a couple of hours of the film lots. Palm Springs just about ticked the box.
So up it grew, with great, low-rise modernist houses that are still there today. Think clean-shaven men, Brylcreemed hair, a cigarette in one hand, a tumbler of bourbon on the rocks in the other – actually think Mad Men. That was how it started.
There are bus tours to take you on architectural tours, and to the homes of the stars. And there are endless golf courses. I played the Thunderbird, Th d bi d which is ridiculously beautiful – or FAB, as Virgil might have said to Mr Tracy…
We stayed at the Parker, set in the most sumptuous 13 acres of land you will find in the area. It is cool and trendy but not achingly so. I think they call it hippie chic (not to be confused with the hippy, hippy shake). The rooms are gorgeous, the staff incredibly helpful – a particular shout out goes to Christine Hagen, the chief concierge who seems to know everything, every- one and everywhere i n Palm Springs. And the gardens are sensational. Thick, luscious green foliage, huge tall palm trees, delicate pink bougainvillea giving shade on your patio, magnolias with their big, waxy leaves bursting into life.
Humming birds hover, lizards scuttle across the hot, sandy walkways and mockingbirds – well – mock.
The gardens have little hidden areas. In one there is a fire pit with chairs arranged neatly around it; another has two boules courts, and you really do feel that you are in the South of France. Another is set up on an immaculate lawn for croquet (there is even a printed leaflet on how to play, and an indispensable rule 1: first, how to mix a Pimm’s).
ON OUR first night we drove away from the valley floor and up into the mountains to go to the Sky’s The Limit observatory. It is run by volunteers and costs nothing to enter (you don’t get a lot of that in the USA). From there we could see the lights of the town shimmering below, but that was as nothing compared to what the night sky had to offer, as dusk became blackness and the celestial light show got under way. Telescopes were set up, pointing to Venus, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and myriad constellations.
We also climbed up high on another occasion by something called the Aerial Tramway, a fantastic revolving cable-car that takes you from Palm Springs up to 8,500ft. You go from desert to a cool, ancient pine forest with the most spectacular views over the vast, flat, sandy bowl below. It’s definitely worth an outing. What is unmissable, though, is the Joshua Tree National Park. It’s about a 60- mile drive from Palm Springs, and is sensational.
It’s where the Mojave and Colorado deserts meet, and the landscape is occasionally barren, but with amazing boulder formations, diverse wildlife, an array of cacti and, of course, the distinctive Joshua trees. But there was also a big birthday to celebrate, and there is no shortage of great restaurants to choose from. After meeting up with friends, we all went to Copley’s and hired the private terrace, which looks out on to the mountains.
The single-storey building was originally Cary Grant’s summer bungalow. The current owners were worried we wouldn’t meet the minimum spend for hiring the private terrace. I explained that of the 14 of us, 12 were Brits and I felt sure the consumption of wine would be more than sufficient.
And boy was I right. We staggered back to the Parker and, after a little more imbibing round the fire pit, we got to bed in the wee small hours – only to be woken a couple of hours later by what seemed to be an express train passing right outside our window. Which was odd, as there is no railway. It was an earthquake measuring 4.6, with the epicentre just 20 miles away.
So did the earth move for us on our trip to Palm Springs?
Well, yes, it did, actually.