Palm Springs is the new hotness

PALM SPRINGS -- It didn't occur to me until I arrived in Palm Springs that I have been in a bad mood for most of the last three years.  It should also be noted that it has been about three years since I moved to New York from San Francisco (different part of the state, but California is California.)

I went to Palm Springs on business, which sounds a little off for a place known mostly for retirement, occasionally for spring break and recently for Coachella.  But, let me tell you...Palm Springs is the new hotness!

My friend Ezra is building a hotel in Palm Springs and since he is one of the smartest people I know, the hotel seemed like a great investment opportunity.  There have been whisperings of a new dawn in the desert and after a few years of watching Brooklyn blow up, I've been looking to find the same sort of combustible energy in new (and less crowded) places.  I mean, just ask the New York Times.  No sooner than when I turned in my paperwork, they ran a story with the headline "The Desert in Demand" on the front page of the Style Section.  The recap?  Leonardo DiCaprio bought a house in town signaling the return of the the mega-celebrity Palm Springs, the Hacienda Pool Club (think water, not billiards) is opening where there was once just a grassy field, and a little something about the new Arrive Hotel (that's us!).  How's that for a sign from the universe?

Since the hotel is just a dirt lot for the time being, Ezra set me up at the Sparrows, a boutique hotel mixing a rugged western vibe with all the luxuries of a California spa.  From the street, it looked like nothing but a small building with a picture of two birds for a sign, but beyond the front desk, it opened into a gorgeous pool oasis surrounded by little bungalows that was just my style. For this and many reasons, it is nice to do business with friends who know you.

The plan was for Ezra to drive out from Pasadena the following day, so he left me in the care of his business partner Chris for my first night in Palm Springs.  Chris is the main architect on both the hotel and the Hacienda Pool club.  His firm was originally in Seattle, but after starting the project with Ezra, he moved to Palm Springs and now it seems that is working on almost every new project in town.

I went to dinner with Chris and friends at Workshop Kitchen + Bar, an über hip restaurant with concrete tables, industrial lighting and a farm to table menu - all the things that Athalie needs to feel at home in a place!  In all we were a party of eight and I quickly learned that Chris was friends with only the most interesting and successful people in Palm Springs.

Now, I went to Stanford and I worked at Facebook, so I know a few things about successful young people, but I have never had an experience like my first night in Palm Springs: everyone was under 35 and everyone seemed to run their own business or businesses and everyone was absolutely killing it!  There was talk of sending text messages to the mayor and going out for drinks with the city councilman.  Everyone was doing their own thing, but working towards the common goal of rebuilding Palm Springs.   The city itself was sounding more and more like one of these cool start-ups the kids are working for these days.

During dinner, I sat next to Jaime and as soon as we started chatting, I warned her that she was quickly becoming my new best friend.  She had come to live in Palm Springs after buying a Bed and Breakfast during what was supposed to be a short visit.  Even more, Jaime is Canadian and had nearly overstayed her legal time in the United States.  Of course everything is sorted out now and her B&B, The Amado, is booked solid.  When I asked her if she had any hotel experience before, she said no and explained that she is a photographer by trade.

Mind = blown.  The very reason for my foray into hotel investing is that I have a piece of land in Haiti that I would like to turn into a Bed and Breakfast but I don't know the first thing about the hospitality industry other than being a frequent traveler and demanding hotel guest.  My initial thought was to enroll in a graduate program of sorts, but school is expensive and boring and I have the good fortune of having friends who build hotels, so investing seemed like the better choice.  Meeting a successful first-time B&B owner on my first night was another sure sign from the Universe about Palm Springs.

I spent a good part of the night chatting with Molly who was sitting across from me at dinner and spoke of Bar, the whiskey bar she owned with her husband.  That was our next stop after dinner and when we arrived, I was surprised to see a sprawling nightclub-sized space with an even more sprawling outdoor space outfitted with picnic tables, bocci ball and lights on strings.  Mind = blown, again.  The group was throwing a surprise farewell party for their friend Jordan who was moving to Santa Barbara to manage a new hotel.  (Search Instagram for #justjordan to see me and my new friends rocking matching shirts at Bar with Jordan's cartoon face.)  Even though we had just met, I had the opportunity to chat with him for a while and it seemed like he was genuinely sad to leave Palm Springs.  I had only been there a few hours, but I completely understood.

Both Ezra and my business partner, Jared, arrived the next day and we had lunch with Chris at the Colony Palms.  They explained that it was one of the older, more classic hotels in the area and that we'd spend the day touring the others to get a feel for the hotel scene.  We toured the Ace, the Viceroy, the Riviera and the Parker Meridien (where we may or may not have spotted Orlando Bloom getting out of a black Mercedes.)  The highlight was, of course, stopping at the grounds for the new Arrive hotel.  We talked about the storefronts and what the area will look like when it's all done and how Jared and I might carve out a slice of the block for a twokidsfrombrooklyn project.  Running around the streets with these guys, I thought of how The Rat Pack was known for making Palm Springs cool the first time around and that maybe we were the Rat Pack, version 2.0 - just in case, Jared has started calling me "Samantha Davis."

The weekend ended much in the same way that it started - surrounded by all of my new, impossibly cool Palm Springs friends.  Jaime threw a pool party at her house (something everyone does every weekend, they promised me) and scheduled a photoshoot to capture portraits to show at Art Bar, the weekly art show at Bar.  I wasn't supposed to be a part of it, but when Jaime saw me wearing a palm tree print dress, she joked that I must have known I was going to move to Palm Springs and asked to photograph me.  Moi?  Cameras make me uncomfortable, but I couldn't let down my new friends.  (This was my same logic when I jumped into the pool later that night.)

I had a flight out to Miami on Sunday night, so I missed Art Bar by a day, but right as it was bed time on the east coast, my phone started blowing up with texts from the desert.  Jaime had put me in the show!

Looks like there's a piece of me left back in Palm Springs...and she looks pretty ecstatic!