DESERT LIFE
Beyond business and golf, Palmer also found time to relax and to enjoy the company of friends in the desert. Among other celebrities, this included visiting President Dwight D. Eisenhower at his Palm Springs home. President Eisenhower was a desert fixture, frequently seen at The Hope and forever remembered in Eisenhower Health (formerly the Eisenhower Medical Center). Today, in front of the center, Arnold Palmer has a “Golden Palm Star” on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.” Closer to his home at Tradition, since 2004 Palmer’s name has adorned Arnold Palmer’s Restaurant, a friendly upscale eatery in La Quinta that offers some of Arnie’s favorites (such as Arnie’s Homemade Meatloaf) and a top-notch wine list, impressively manifested in The Wine Room, available for special events and showcasing more than 2,000 bottles of the good stuff. There’s also a substantive collection of one-ofa-kind Palmer memorabilia and photos on display, most of it in the incredible Palmer Room, making the restaurant a perfect stop for fans in the area.
There’s more: The Nest restaurant in Indian Wells, which Palmer liked; a Palmer statue at Tradition, one of only three of the type (the other two are on display at Wake Forest and at Bay Hill Club & Lodge); “Arnold Palmer Day,” which La Quinta started celebrating in 2014, and plenty more. For the man who left an impression anywhere he visited, the desert provided ample opportunity for impact— and he left it better than he found it.
“I just like it,” Palmer had said of the Greater Palm Springs area. “I came here in 1955 and I never left.”
Thanks to a legacy of fantastic area achievements, he never will.