In the heyday of the Hollywood movie studios, and film stars flocked to Palm Springs, California. Just a short distance from the studios lay a slightly out of the way place where luxurious resorts awaited their arrival. The common guy, Joe Six-pack, didn’t come here in any numbers thus allowing the privileged movie stars to live a fabulous lifestyle here on the desert, free from news reporters and cameras.
An example of such a resort is the Ingleside Inn. This luxury retreat began its life as the private residence of the family who owned the Pace Arrow
Automobile Company. It was originally constructed in 1926 and covered more than 10 acres of land just a block off the main highway through the Palm Springs area. After deaths in the family, the home became a 10-room inn called by its present name. It had a major difference, however, from all other hotels. You didn’t call here for a reservation; the owner of the inn called and invited you. Anyone accepting the invitation was then charged for the privilege.
Virtually every famous name from the 1930’s through the present time have stayed here at Ingleside, including the current governor of California, Arnold Swartzenegger.
Even former President of the United States, Gerald Ford, was a guest.
A restaurant was created, originally only for guests and their guests (diners who were not registered guests had to be approved by the owner before they could enter a dining room.) Today, Melvyn’s restaurant caters to the well-heeled general public where the parking lot is populated with the likes of Bentley, Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, and Maserati. A geocache celebrates the Inn from a real estate sign across the street.
Many of these stars built fabulous homes and estates here as winter homes. Since it is not uncommon for summertime temperatures in the Coachella Valley to rise to 120 degrees or more, many if not most of the Hollywood crowd only inhabited the valley during the fall, winter, and spring months. That job has now been taken over by the thousands of “Snow Birds” that flock here every fall to spend the winter in the relative warmth of the valley.
In the post WWII era, as building construction materials and techniques improved and refrigerated air conditioning came into its own, many of the notables built large homes and estates and some lived here year round. Today many of these fabulous homes can be seen on tour busses boarded in downtown Palm Springs.
For us, an enjoyable alternative is to see these places completely on our own as we follow the “celebrity geocache tour”.
Our first stop was at “Piazza Liberace”, a guy who loved Palm Springs so m
uch he owned eight homes here at one time. He is quoted as saying, “Some people collect stamps, I collect real estate.” This particular home has a piano shaped swimming pool in back and hundreds of candelabra inside.
One cannot help but be struck by how different conditions are today. Here a performer as famous and popular as Liberace lived in a home on a regular street with the front door not 50 feet from the street. It wasn’t many years after this that many of the luminaries began retreating behind the closed doors and guard shacks of the country club communities that dot the local landscape. As fans and the news media became more aggressive they simply could not continue to live, more or less, as normal people.
One of the most well known local residents who came to stay and live year-round was Sonny Bono. After getting grief for remodeling and restoring his home, Sonny ran for Mayor of Palm Springs and won, thus proving again that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
He held that post for a few years before settling down for a few more. His final gig was as a U.S. Congressman for several years before his untimely death in a skiing accident. His wife Mary was given his seat and, while remarried, continues to occupy it today.
Sonny’s contribution to what Palm Springs is today is memorialized in this bronze statue of him downtown on Palm Canyon Drive. His most noticeable contribution is the lighted palm trees along Palm Canyon Drive. Sonny’s statue is also a “virtual geocache.”
Many of these estates are behind ornate gates and walls leaving you to wonder what lies inside or under the Spanish-tile roofs visible over them. Visiting them takes you through magnificent neighborhoods that offer peaks into many of these fabulous places, making the tour well worthwhile. As we drove slowly through these neighborhoods we repeatedly crossed paths with some of the commercial tour busses from downtown.
The homes of Jack Benny, Barry Manilow, Sonny Bono, Robert Wagner, are amongst those that cannot really be seen from the street. A home once owned by Elvis Presley (it’s uncertain if he ever actually lived in the house) is fully visible from the street.
For us the trip was more about locating some of the geocaches hidden around these homes and seeing all of the fabulous landscaping (in full bloom) in these neighborhoods. Even Mother Nature's garden is spectacular at the end of the residential streets.
After hitting a high of more than 1000 measurable quakes, the west seems to be calming down again as can be seen in the much lower 622 quakes on the chart above. Actually, a newer chart has that total below 600.
Now you can’t find a space in a storage yard as they are full. Many folks, especially Canadians, leave their RV here for the summer since it’s cheaper to store it here than move it back and forth each year.
As we continue with warm spring weather here on the desert, the strange and other-worldly cactus plants come into spectacular bloom. Every day now there are more and more amazing and colorful blossoms popping out of some of the least attractive plants imaginable.
gusts to 50 mph or more. We met up again with good friends, enjoyed some pleasant outings, ate some wonderful food at restaurants that were new to us, and no problems developed with our motorhome requiring repair.
