Rat Pack Redux
Not since the days of Sinatra has Palm Springs had so much swing.
In 1947, a first album out and a hit radio show to his name, Frank Sinatra wanders into an architect’s office in Palm Springs. He’s 31. He has a gorgeous wife, cute kids and, well, a few pals to entertain. And he wants a house by Christmas, which means architect E. Stewart Williams has maybe six months to do the job. Williams goes for it and pulls it off. He even talks Ol’ Blue Eyes out of a Georgian manor and into the sleek Twin Palms. Williams moves on to other modernist feats, such as the Palms Springs Aerial Tramway’s Mountain Station and the Palm Springs Art Museum. Sinatra enjoys poolside soirees and a spate of familial bliss, then moves on to Ava Gardner.
So began the Rat Pack era that defined postwar Palm Springs and launched its current renaissance. The Coachella Valley’s style and showbiz oasis, this desert town of 40,000 today hosts two million travelers a year. As ever, they come for the sizzle, the glamour, the pools, the iconic architecture, and the Eisenhower/Kennedy-era optimism. Economic downturns aside, what better than youthful happiness to trigger a development boom?
Fresh in the scene with its emphasis on green is the Ace Hotel and Swim Club—a ’60s Howard Johnson and Denny’s that Seattle’s Alex Calderwood spent $20 million transforming into a 180-room, boho-chic haven and organic diner. Reasons to stay put on this Commune-designed property include the delicious swimming pools, massages in a Mongolian yurt, and a VW microbus that delivers the adventurous to nearby hiking trails.
Then again, for some regulars at Korakia Pensione, a magic bus is hardly novel. Soon after it opened in the early 1990s, this hideaway found favor as a shoot location among fashion media royalty (Annie Leibovitz, Bruce Weber) and was immortalized in The New Yorker within the decade. In 2007, Newport Beach development company Makar Properties took the reins, careful to preserve the pensione’s storied ambience. Arising from a 1918 adobe, a 1924 bungalow, and a ’30s villa, its 28 rooms and suites exude Mediterranean luxe. In lieu of clocks, phones, and TVs, are board games, bocce ball and al fresco film screenings.
it was Frey who put desert modernism on the map, but it was Williams who got lucky. Shortly after He joined his father’s firm, Ol’ Blue Eyes showed up at his office….
Perhaps closest to Palm Springs’ Rat Pack roots, modeled after the bygone Sands in Las Vegas, the 406-room Riviera Resort & Spa oozed glam when it opened in 1959. Sinatra and Dean Martin both caroused here. After last year’s $70 million makeover, the 406-room property remains a paean of splashy sophistication and lighthearted cool. Snazzy mid-century interiors mix houndstooth with bursts of acid green, burnt orange, and lemon yellow. Circa 59, the chummy red steakhouse, encourages such choices as the lobster pot pie, and the Starlight Lounge entertains with wall videos and billiards.
Another onetime Sinatra stomping ground, the Colony Palms Hotel opened in 1934 as a speakeasy and casino. The venture of a Prohibition-era mobster, the 57-room resort began its 25-year reign with the movie industry elite after changing hands in the late 1940s. Its latest reinvention, a $17 million modernization, has preserved its Spanish colonial architecture while adding 10 casitas, the Purple Palms restaurant, and a spa, and reopening the original Speakeasy lounge.
The maiden hotel project of Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, Colony Palms’ decor spices up vintage Hollywood with Moroccan exotica. Also of historical note, California’s first Holiday Inn debuted in this town in 1959, then morphed from Gene Autry’s ranch to Merv Griffin’s glitzy resort compound to the $27 million Parker Palm Springs. Happy Home designer Jonathan Adler’s claim to hotel fame, the 144-room retreat opened in 2004 and is chockablock with Eames, Platner, Adler, space age chandeliers, and animal prints. At Mr. Parker’s, champagne sippers perch on bar stools touting the seven deadly sins or dine on steak tartare, then top it off with profiteroles. The spa touts “good sport” (pastis and pétanque, Pimm’s Cups with croquet…). Best of all, the Parker has a discreet helipad.
Finally, when in Palm Springs, why not stay in a historic abode—say, Albert Frey’s 1957 steel-and-glass Russell House. One could argue, it was the architects rather than the ’60s Rat Pack who ushered the town into the pantheon of cool. Frey, who studied under Le Corbusier in Paris, took on his first Palm Springs project in 1934 while working on New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The same year brought E. Stewart Williams, then plugging away under Raymond Loewy on the New York World’s Fair. Frey settled in Palm Springs in 1939 and designed 200 more area landmarks, among them Loewy’s house, the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Valley Station, and Palm Springs City Hall.
Indeed, it was Frey who put “desert modernism” on the architectural map. But it was Williams who got lucky. Shortly after Williams joined his father’s firm in the desert, this singer showed up at his office…. •
C Magazine
By Trish Reynales. All rights reserved.
