On the March 1964 cover of GQ, a dashing gray-haired Cary Grant sits atop a horse in denim and a red work shirt. The headline reads, “GQ Visits CG in Palm Springs.” At the time, Grant owned a home in the Movie Colony neighborhood of Palm Springs and spent much of his leisure time in the desert on horseback, often at Smoke Tree Stables.
At Casa Cody, the only sight brighter than the pink bougainvillea spilling over the walls is the vivid orange horseshoe hanging in every room. “We think of those as our good luck charms,” says Sana Keefer, head of brand for Casetta Group, which runs Casa Cody, the oldest continuously operating hotel in Palm Springs.
David Loftus sees trees differently. He notices the wrinkles in their bark, the red tinge in new leaf tissue (nature’s sunblock), the gnarled, “Tim Burtonesque” twists of their limbs. And with his camera, he captures their artistry as living sculptures.
“When you’re looking up into a tree,”
Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt is responsible for both Bootlegger Tiki and Ernest Coffee Co. in Palm Springs. These Uptown Design District establishments now take up the space, and share a patio, where Don the Beachcomber opened in 1953. The venue was part of a chain of South Seas–inspired “Tiki bars” envisioned by Donn Beach, the “godfather of Tiki,” born the aforementioned Ernest Gantt (who became the eventual namesake of Ernest Coffee).
The Old Schoolhouse Museum in Twentynine Palms displays a list from a 1950s edition of The Desert Trail newspaper titled “29 Reasons for Living in Twentynine Palms.” The list highlights, among other attributes, “no fog, smog, smudge”; “glorious sunsets — star-studded nights”; “good hotels, motels, trailer courts, restaurants, nightclubs”; and the area’s reputation as a “paradise for artists, outdoorsmen, rockhounds.”
Cue the midcentury architecture and colorful doors. Here are four neighborhoods to check out by car on a self-guided modernism tour of Palm Springs.
How Bird Singing Preserves the Culture of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians
John R. Preckwinkle III, an Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Tribal Council member, grew up in Northern California, away from his tribe’s reservation and culture in the Palm Springs area — until a Christmastime visit at age 14 changed everything. Tribal members gave him and other young people iPods with recordings of the songs of his great-grandfather, John Joseph Patencio, considered the last ceremonial bird singer, or hawanik, of his people. Preckwinkle was intrigued by the family connection as well as the music.
