April 7, 2022
Palm Springs is a modernist mecca. And when visiting, it can seem like the safest bet is to stay in a modernist hotel. Don’t be afraid to gamble on something different, though. You can’t lose.
Many years ago, during my first-ever trip to Palm Springs, I went on a holiday hotel crawl. It was December, it was evening, and it was chilly. We hopped from hotel to hotel, drinking hot toddies under heat lamps and sipping cocoa and coffee under strands of twinkling Christmas lights. It was all very romantic. Each hotel was a totally new, totally warm and welcoming environment. You know how in those Hallmark Christmas movies there’s not a flake of snow out of place? No slush to step in or ice to slip on? That’s what it was like.
Palm Springs is famous for its mid-century modern architecture, and that night, I assumed that pretty much every hotel in town would be that style. Quickly I learned there was a lot more on offer. We saw hotels with Spanish influences, Moroccan, Mediterranean, and more. The city’s first building and tourism boom was before World War II, before modernism went mainstream, and the remnants of that explosion were all around, as were examples of mid-century America’s willingness to be more playful with design.
Today, it all adds up to a collection of boutique hotels that are full of character, and a vacation destination that succeeds at repurposing its past — improving upon it, even — without ever feeling like a museum exhibit or like the last gasps of a desperate tourism board. Modern or otherwise, in Palm Springs, you really can’t go wrong.
