West of Los Angeles is the desert – well, two deserts, actually: the Mojave and the Colorado. Somehow lots of little towns survive in this punishing landscape and I spent a couple of hot, dry days between two such spots – the famous Palm Springs and the collapsed Desert Hot Springs. No two places could be closer and yet more far apart.
Palm Springs: Bob Hope, Ronald Reagan and Frank Sinatra, just some of the glamorous names that come to mind. In the region to explore Joshua Tree National Park, I couldn’t pass up the chance to experience the glitzy enclave of the rich and 1950s famous. And it didn’t disappoint.
Palm Springs is somehow large and small all at once. Expansive, palm-lined lanes collide with the original cozy back streets in downtown Palm Springs while collages of mid-century modern and old Spanish neighborhoods ring the small city center as makeshift suburbs. The distinctive Museum of Art, cultural center, golf courses and a large new luxury hotel, The Rowan, serve as anchor points with tons of shops, restaurants and hotels scattered among.
But the most impressive feature of the Coachella Valley city is its natural backdrop of a series of mountain ranges (Little / San Bernadino, San Jacinto and Santa Rosa). More fun than eating, drinking or playing was driving through the 1950s – 1970s neighborhoods ogling homes that may have once belonged to Nat King Cole, Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin, Elvis, Steve McQueen and Cary Grant. I even got a chance to check out a mid-century gem from the inside thanks to a local realtor’s open house.
Palm Springs and its neighboring cities have been through many iterations, at first home to the Agua Caliente Cahuilla Indian tribe, then as therapeutic sites in the early 1900s due to mineral springs, then gambling meccas in the 1930s and celebrity playgrounds during the height of the mid 20th century. More recent years have seen ebbing and flowing fortunes as tourism became a primary source of revenue and fluctuated with national economic trends.
Recent reports show that Palm Springs is experiencing a tourism boom, thanks in part to the emerging festival culture spurred by Coachella and other events. In the early 2000s, Sometimes known as the more average man’s Palm Springs, sister city Desert Hot Springs grew alongside its posh neighbor and experienced huge increases in population and income during the spa boom of the 1980s through the early 2000s.
While Palm Springs largely retained its destination reputation in good times and bad, Desert Hot Springs was not so lucky, devastated by the latest recession. Today’s Desert Hot Springs downtown is more aptly called a ghost town with strings of new town center style retail shops all empty of tenants. With the exception of a few upscale gated communities and remaining spas, the homes populating Desert Hot Springs are run down and boarded up, surrounded by alien-like windmill farms and acres and acres of vacant land for sale or lease.
I spent a day at Desert Hot Springs’ El Morocco Inn, a modest spa with a great masseuse and then had lunch at local Mexican restaurant Casa Blanca. On the surface, there’s not a thing going for Desert Hot Springs, especially when compared to its relative over in Palm Springs. Next time I’ve got a day to hang, you won’t find me in D.H.S. But, let’s not write the place off as our white trash cousin just yet, they’ve got a potential ace up their sleeve.
See, there is a particular kind of high value growth that Desert Hot Springs is courting and it turns out that this kind of growth is perfectly suited for a place with less chi-chi homes, fewer resorts and no hot spot gastro pubs. Desert Hot Springs wants to be the mecca for marijuana commerce and they’ll tell you that right out.
Desert Hot Springs was the first place in Southern California to legalize medical ganja and has since also become the first place to issue permits for commercial marijuana plant growth. Recently featured on CNBC’s show The Profit, Desert Hot Springs is trying to green its coffers by being hospitable to the growers of green.
Given the explosion in marijuana culture and its growing social and legal acceptance, they just might be onto something. For now, though, I think I’ll stick to wandering around the desert paradise of Palm Springs imagining I’m meeting Nat and Lauren Bacall for a honey-vanilla latte at local spot Koffi. Scratch that, obviously we’d be throwing back very elegant shots at the bar.