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Spa City: the midcentury spa-tels of Desert Hot Springs

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Spa City: the midcentury spa-tels of Desert Hot Springs

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SPA CITY

THE MIDCENTURY SPA-TELS OF DESERT HOT SPRINGS

by

Willa A. Seidenberg

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF HERITAGE CONSERVATION

December 2023

Copyright 2023 Willa Seidenberg

ii
Acknowledgments

I first went to Desert Hot Springs in the early 1990s shortly after I moved to Los
Angeles. In our early ventures there, my husband and I stayed at the Ma-Ha-Yah
Lodge. Through the years we tried to make an annual trip to Desert Hot Springs. Before
our son was born, my husband and I spent our last out-of-town vacation at MiracIe
Manor Retreat. Desert Hot Springs was always a place of instant relaxation and
contemplation for me. As a young toddler, our son loved to swim in the pools. We were
devastated when it was sold and remodeled into a snazzier place, then became a
recovery center.

Willa Seidenberg, seven months pregnant, at Miracle
Manor Retreat. April 1998. Photo by William Short.
iii
This thesis was made possible by so many people who shared their time,
thoughts, and enthusiasm for my work. My biggest and most heartfelt thanks go to my
Committee Chair Trudi Sandmeier, who is always the smartest person in the room and
has a heart that matches her brain. Special thanks to my thesis committee members
Katie Horak and Mary Ringhoff who had to bear with me, especially as I struggled with
the policy sections of the thesis. They were patient and had insightful edits. I also thank
my classmates who offered encouragement and feedback all along the way.
Many people in the Desert Hot Springs orbit went out of their way to help me
along the way, and those I didn’t know before, I now count as friends. My first shout-out
goes to Jeff and Judy Bowman, former owners of the Kismet Lodge and Desert Hot
Springs residents. Jeff answered my cold-query email with an immediate response. He
and Judy not only gave me information and encouragement, but a place to stay and
introductions to other people in town. The second shout-out is to Christopher Tandon, a
former co-owner of the Hope Springs Resort, who generously shared his own research
and helped me go down two enriching rabbit holes: investigating the origins of the
Jewish community in Desert Hot Springs and discovery of the work of architect John F.
Outcault. It was an exciting day for me when I discovered the architectural drawings that
revealed Outcault had designed Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge and Hope Springs (originally La
Bella Sari). I couldn’t wait to text Christopher, who had spent many hours trying to
identify an architect for the property.
I am also indebted to people like Suchi Branfman, Stacy Ingber, and Loretta
Ayeroff who gave me personal recollections of the town. I found Loretta through her
project The Motel Series, a series of photographs of the motels in Desert Hot Springs in
iv
the 1970s. She is also an archivist and shared folders of material resources with me. I
am deeply appreciative of the time others gave me, such as Desert Hot Springs
Economic Development Director Sean Smith and City Councilman Gary Gardner (who
both answered my pesky emails promptly), plus architect Michael Rotondi, Miracle
Springs owner Mike Bickford, Marge Snell of the Desert Hot Springs Historical Society,
and M.J. Outcault, who made time to visit her father’s archives with me. I am also
grateful to Morgan Yates, archivist at AAA, his wife Susan Yates, archivist at City of
Hope, the incomparable Frances Anderton for referral and resources, Aaron Paley for
his perspective on L.A. Jewish community, and to Rochelle McCune of the Historical
Society of Palm Desert. Thanks also to the Bancroft Library at the University of
California Berkeley, Felicity Frisch at the Architecture and Design Collection at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, and the librarians at the Indio Public Library who
helped me operate an antiquated microfilm viewer. And I am indebted to Christian
Knudsen for patiently helping me format this thesis in Word.
I wrote this thesis while finishing my last year of a twenty-three-year teaching
career at the University of Southern California’s School of Journalism. I am grateful to
my colleagues and administrators who cheered me on, as did my friends, but especially
my best friend Ellen Schneider, and my son, Sam Short, who support me in ways I
cannot count. Finally, my deepest love and appreciation goes to my husband Bill Short
who cheerfully supported me along the way to this degree. He accompanied me to
Desert Hot Springs on many occasions, photographed properties, drove me around
town endlessly, and made me delicious dinners so I could keep working. Thank you for
sharing this journey.
v

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ ii
List of Tables .................................................................................................................. viii
List of Figures .................................................................................................................. ix
Abstract ........................................................................................................................... xi
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 1: Evolution of Desert Hot Springs ................................................................. 6
Geography of the Coachella Valley .......................................................................................... 6
Early History .............................................................................................................................. 8
Coachella Valley History ......................................................................................................... 10
The homestead gates open .................................................................................................... 12
Cabot Yerxa and the “discovery” of water ............................................................................... 14
Coffee and Spas ..................................................................................................................... 15
Palm Springs ........................................................................................................................... 27
Post-heyday ............................................................................................................................ 31
Energy Vortex ......................................................................................................................... 36
CHAPTER 2: Leisure, Mobility, Health Seekers, and the People of Desert Hot Springs
....................................................................................................................................... 38
The rise of leisure time ............................................................................................................ 38
Car ownership ......................................................................................................................... 41
Vernacular Mo-Tels ................................................................................................................. 44
Health and Wellness Spas ...................................................................................................... 47
The People of Desert Hot Springs .......................................................................................... 51
Women Pioneers in Desert Hot Springs ................................................................................. 52
Jewish Community .................................................................................................................. 55
Korean Spas ........................................................................................................................... 64
Celebrities ............................................................................................................................... 67
CHAPTER 3: Significant Property Profiles ..................................................................... 70
vi
Coffee’s Desert Hot Springs Mineral Baths ............................................................................ 71
Desert Hot Springs Motel (Lautner Compound) ...................................................................... 73
The Desert Spa (Two Bunch Palms) ...................................................................................... 75
Miracle Manor Boutique Hotel & Spa ...................................................................................... 77
Bertram’s Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge .................................................................................................. 80
Hope Springs (formerly La Bella Sari) .................................................................................... 84
Sagewater Spa ....................................................................................................................... 89
Kismet Lodge .......................................................................................................................... 91
Desert Hot Springs Inn ............................................................................................................ 93
Desert Hot Springs Spa Hotel ................................................................................................. 95
Pil-O-Rox Rock House ............................................................................................................ 96
Angel View .............................................................................................................................. 98
CHAPTER 4: Historic Designation Options .................................................................. 101
National Register of Historic Places ...................................................................................... 102
National Register of Historic Places Criteria ..................................................................................... 102
Desert Hot Springs Eligibility ............................................................................................................ 104
Historic District vs. Multiple Property Submission ................................................................. 104
Historic District Definition .................................................................................................................. 105
Multiple Property Submission Definition ........................................................................................... 106
California Register of Historical Resources .......................................................................... 109
California Register of Historic Resources Criteria ............................................................................ 110
Desert Hot Springs Eligibility ............................................................................................................ 111
Local Preservation Ordinances ............................................................................................. 112
Advantages of Local Ordinances ..................................................................................................... 113
Economic Incentives and Historic Preservation .................................................................... 115
Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives ................................................................................... 115
California Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit ..................................................................................... 116
Mills Act Property Tax Abatement Program ..................................................................................... 117
City Planning Considerations ................................................................................................ 118
Desert Hot Springs Economic Incentives ......................................................................................... 119
CHAPTER 5: Recommendations ................................................................................. 125
Historic Resources Survey .................................................................................................... 125
National Register Designation .............................................................................................. 127
Historic Preservation Ordinance ........................................................................................... 128
Certified Local Government .................................................................................................. 128
vii
Legacy Business Program .................................................................................................... 129
Heritage Tourism .................................................................................................................. 133
Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 137
Summary of Findings ............................................................................................................ 137
Future Research ................................................................................................................... 138
Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 142
Appendix ...................................................................................................................... 158

viii
List of Tables

TABLE 1.1. U.S. CENSUS POPULATION FIGURES FOR DESERT HOT SPRINGS ................................................... 22
TABLE 1.2. 2022 U.S. CENSUS DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION FOR DESERT HOT SPRINGS ................................ 35
TABLE 2.1. CAR SALES IN THE UNITED STATES ............................................................................................... 41
TABLE 2.2. JEWISH OWNERS OF DESERT HOT SPRINGS MOTELS ..................................................................... 59

ix
List of Figures
WILLA SEIDENBERG, SEVEN MONTHS PREGNANT, AT MIRACLE MANOR RETREAT. ............................................... II
FIGURE 0.1. POSTCARD OF DAVID'S SPA. YEAR UNKNOWN. .............................................................................. 2
FIGURE 0.2. ARCHIVES OF DESERT HOT SPRINGS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. .......................................................... 5
FIGURE 1.1. MAP OF COACHELLA VALLEY. ....................................................................................................... 6
FIGURE 1.2. MAP OF FAULT LINES. ................................................................................................................... 7
FIGURE 1.3. BRADSHAW TRAIL ROUTE. .......................................................................................................... 10
FIGURE 1.4. MAP OF CAHUILLA LAND. ............................................................................................................ 12
FIGURE 1.5. CABOT YERXA’S FIRST CABIN,EAGLE NEST. ................................................................................. 15
FIGURE 1.6. L.W. COFFEE’S FIRST BATH HOUSE. ........................................................................................... 17
FIGURE 1.7. MAP DESERT HOT SPRINGS MINERAL WATER. ............................................................................. 18
FIGURE 1.8. MIRACLE MANOR POSTCARD. ..................................................................................................... 19
FIGURE 1.9. DESERT HOT SPRINGS MOTEL. .................................................................................................. 20
FIGURE 1.10. VFW POST 1534. .................................................................................................................... 21
FIGURE 1.11. IDLE CAFÉ. .............................................................................................................................. 24
FIGURE 1.12. DESERT HOT SPRINGS WATER CONTENT CHART. ....................................................................... 25
FIGURE 1.13. COLUMN FROM THE DESERT SENTINEL, 1957. .......................................................................... 26
FIGURE 1.14. PALM SPRINGS MAP. FEBRUARY 1936. ..................................................................................... 28
FIGURE 1.15. EDGAR KAUFMANN RESIDENCE. ............................................................................................... 30
FIGURE 1.16. SITE OF FORMER PLEASANT VIEW LODGE. ................................................................................ 31
FIGURE 1.17. PART OF THE SAHARA HOTEL COMPLEX. ................................................................................... 32
FIGURE 1.18. HOPE SPRINGS RESORT. ......................................................................................................... 34
FIGURE 2.1. WOMEN SHIP FITTERS WORKING ONBOARD THE USS NEREUS AT THE U.S. NAVY YARD IN MARE
ISLAND, CALIFORNIA, CIRCA 1943. ......................................................................................................... 39
FIGURE 2.2. VETERANS ADMINISTRATION FLYER. ............................................................................................ 40
FIGURE 2.3. 1953 VIEW OF US 60/70/99 AND STATE ROUTE 111 JUNCTION. ................................................... 43
FIGURE 2.4. THE OLD HADLEY FRUIT ORCHARD STORE ON MORONGO TRAIL. .................................................. 44
FIGURE 2.5. MILESTONE MO-TEL. SAN LUIS OBISPO. ..................................................................................... 45
FIGURE 2.6. DRAWINGS OF MOTEL CONFIGURATIONS. ..................................................................................... 46
FIGURE 2.7. KITCHENETTE AT KISMET LODGE. .............................................................................................. 47
FIGURE 2.8. BATH, ENGLAND. ....................................................................................................................... 48
FIGURE 2.9. DESERT SENTINEL FRONT PAGE. ................................................................................................ 50
FIGURE 2.10. BILLBOARD REPRODUCED IN THE DESERT SENTINEL, DECEMBER 13, 1957. ............................... 51
FIGURE 2.11. ADS CONGRATULATING THE JEWISH TEMPLE SHOW THE PROMINENT PLACE WOMEN HAD IN MOTEL
OWNERSHIP. ......................................................................................................................................... 53
FIGURE 2.12. HILDA M. GRAY. PHOTO FROM CABOT'S PUEBLO MUSEUM. ....................................................... 54
FIGURE 2.13. BLUE HEAVEN RANCHO AD IN THE DESERT SENTINEL . .............................................................. 55
FIGURE 2.14. STAR LIGHT LODGE ADD IN THE DESERT SENTINEL. .................................................................. 57
FIGURE 2.15. AD IN THE DESERT SENTINEL. 1954. FROM MICROFILM. ............................................................. 58
FIGURE 2.16. CLASSIFIED PAGE FROM B’NAI B’RITH MESSENGER, JANUARY 14, 1955. ..................................... 59
FIGURE 2.17. JEWISH LEADERS POSING TEMPLE SITE. ..................................................................................... 60
FIGURE 2.18. TEMPLE DEDICATION. ............................................................................................................... 61
FIGURE 2.19. CONGRATULATORY TELEGRAM. ................................................................................................ 62
FIGURE 2.20. DEMOLITION OF JEWISH TEMPLE. ............................................................................................. 64
FIGURE 2.21. SIGN FROM THE SAHARA HOTEL, FEBRUARY 2022. ................................................................... 65
FIGURE 2.22. VACANT HYUNDAE HOTEL, PALM DRIVE. ................................................................................... 66

x
FIGURE 2.23. AD IN THE DESERT SENTINEL, FEBRUARY 2, 1967. ................................................................... 68
FIGURE 3.1. GOOGLE EARTH MAP OF PROPERTIES IN CHAPTER 3. ................................................................... 70
FIGURE 3.2. COFFEE’S NEWLY CONSTRUCTED BATH HOUSE.1947. .................................................................. 71
FIGURE 3.3. POOL AT COFFEE'S NATURAL MINERAL BATHS. ........................................................................... 72
FIGURE 3.4. VACANT LOT WHERE COFFEE'S ONCE STOOD, PALM DRIVE AND EIGHTH STREET. .......................... 73
FIGURE 3.5. ROOM AT THE LAUTNER COMPOUND. .......................................................................................... 74
FIGURE 3.6. LORETTA AYEROFF AT TWO BUNCH PALMS, CIRCA 1950S. .......................................................... 75
FIGURE 3.7. TWO BUNCH PALMS POOL. ......................................................................................................... 77
FIGURE 3.8. MIRACLE MANOR ARTICLE FROM THE DESERT SENTINEL, DECEMBER 1955. ................................. 78
FIGURE 3.9. MIRACLE MANOR, 2023. ............................................................................................................ 80
FIGURE 3.0.10. MA-HA-YAH LODGE POSTCARD. ............................................................................................ 81
FIGURE 3.11. AD FROM THE DESERT SENTINEL, MARCH 31, 1961. ................................................................. 83
FIGURE 3.12. ARTICLE FROM DESERT SUN, MAY 10, 1963. ............................................................................ 84
FIGURE 3.13. ARTICLE ABOUT LA BELLA SARI IN DESERT SUN, NOVEMBER 1, 1963 ......................................... 85
FIGURE 3.14. ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING OF LA BELLA SARI. .......................................................................... 86
FIGURE 3.15. OLD POSTCARD OF LA BELLA SARI, CIRCA EARLY 1960S. ........................................................... 87
FIGURE 3.16. HOPE SPRINGS EXTERIOR WITH CURVILINEAR LINES. .................................................................. 89
FIGURE 3.17. (L) MONA LISA, DATE UNKNOWN; (R) SAGEWATER, 2022. .......................................................... 90
FIGURE 3.18. KISMET LODGE POSTCARD. ...................................................................................................... 91
FIGURE 3.19. KISMET LODGE/LIVING WATERS, FEBRUARY 2022. .................................................................... 93
FIGURE 3.20. MONTE CARLO MOTEL. ............................................................................................................ 93
FIGURE 3.21. DESERT HOT SPRINGS INN. ...................................................................................................... 95
FIGURE 3.22. INTERNATIONAL LOUNGE INTERIOR FROM DESERT HOT SPRINGS SPA HOTEL. ............................ 96
FIGURE 3.23. PIL-O-ROX PHOTO FROM THE STEVE LECH COLLECTION. ........................................................... 97
FIGURE 3.24. ROCK HOUSE. ......................................................................................................................... 98
FIGURE 3.25. SAN JACINTO MOUNTAINS. IMAGE FROM COACHELLAVALLEY.COM. .............................................. 98
FIGURE 3.26. HISTORIC PHOTO FROM THE ANGEL VIEW WEBSITE, DATE UNKNOWN. ....................................... 100
FIGURE 4.1. MAP OF HOT SPRINGS LOCATIONS. FROM DATABAYOU.COM. ....................................................... 101
FIGURE 4.2. GRAND BOULEVARD HISTORIC DISTRICT, CORONA, CALIFORNIA. ............................................... 106
MAP FROM NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES REGISTRATION FORM. ............................................... 106
FIGURE 4.3. OCEANFRONT, VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA. ................................................................................ 107
IMAGE FROM GPSMYCITY.CO ................................................................................................................... 107
FIGURE 4.4. GOOGLE EARTH MAP OF HISTORIC RESOURCES. ....................................................................... 109
FIGURE 4.5.. AZURE PALMS HOT SPRINGS RESORT, HACIENDA BOULEVARD. ................................................ 121
FIGURE 4.7. FORMER SMILE INN. ................................................................................................................. 122
FIGURE 4.6. DESERT HOT SPRINGS SPA, PALM DRIVE. ................................................................................ 122
FIGURE 4.8. SAHARA AND OTHER SPA-TELS BEING DEMOLISHED MARCH 28, 2023. ........................................ 123
FIGURE 4.9. SITE OF FORMER SAHARA, WHITE HOUSE, PRIMAVERA, AND STAR DUST MOTELS. ..................... 124
FIGURE 6.1. SPA ZONE SIGN ON MIRACLE HILL. ........................................................................................... 138
FIGURE 6.2. HISTORIC MARKER IN THE SUGAR HILL NEIGHBORHOOD OF LOS ANGELES. .................................. 139
FIGURE 6.3. JOHN F. OUTCAULT AND FAMILY, CIRCA 1960. ........................................................................... 140

xi
Abstract

Desert Hot Springs is a town of almost 33,000 people in the Coachella Valley,
surrounded by two mountain ranges. The town is situated atop two aquifers: one cold,
the other hot. The hot mineral waters have been enjoyed for centuries, first by the
Cahuilla Indians who occupied the area, then by homesteaders who arrived in the early
twentieth century, and later by tourists, beginning in the mid-twentieth century.
In the 1950s, Desert Hot Springs became a spa destination for middle and
working-class families with more than one hundred simple mid-century motel spas (spa-
tels) that featured hot mineral water pools. By the 1980s, the number of lodgings had
dwindled, and many had seen better days. The city went through a period of high crime,
bankruptcy, and blight. By the mid to late 1990s, the rundown motel/hotels became
attractive to architects and developers as an alternative to the trendy and more
expensive Palm Springs area. A handful of the surviving 1950s-era motels were given
makeovers and re-opened as expensive boutique resorts. As the spas began attracting
visitors, the town leadership concentrated on restoring its financial health, bringing down
crime, and attempting to develop the downtown area. Yet, the median household
income in 2021 was just under $38,000, and spa owners struggled to stay solvent.
1

This thesis documents the history of Desert Hot Springs and the factors that led
to the development of motel/spas in the 1950s, known as spa-tels, that served a modest
class of health and wellness tourists and seasonal visitors Additionally, the thesis
explores the current status of the town and its surviving collection of mid-century spa-

1
Desert Hot Springs Quick Facts, U.S. Census Bureau, 2017-2021.
xii
tels, and looks at possible preservation tools to help the spa-tels and the city survive
and thrive.

1
Introduction

Desert Hot Springs is a city of almost 33,000 people in the Coachella Valley; a
city that came to life as a place of relaxation and healing in the years after World War II.
Desert Hot Springs’ unique geography gives it abundant hot mineral water, long thought
to have healing properties. The water spawned the town’s plentiful motel spa resorts,
known as spa-tels, between 1940 and 1970 that catered to a working- and middle-class
clientele. The spas and the modest mom-and-pop motels were established first, and the
town grew up around them. Promoters of the town took to calling it “Spa City.”
Desert Hot Springs never achieved the success or fame of well-known resort
cities like nearby Palm Springs, but it has loyal fans who describe it as:
“a funky little desert town that hasn’t been all L.A.-a-fided like Palm Springs”
“the old desert”
“quirky, but relaxing”
“truly diverse”
“neutral ground”
“a place where you “could sit for hours … and see the great
wonders, the optical illusions of the winds blowing through, sand
coming up, clouds dropping down, and then sunlight doing all kinds
of incredible things.”

“a social experiment that works”
2

2
Quotes taken from interviews with the author, including Jeff and Judy Bowman, Loretta Ayeroff, Emory
Lesco, M.J. Outcault, and Michael Rotondi.
2
“If Palm Springs is women in heels buying Brie at Jensen’s Finest
Foods, Desert Hot Springs is women in fuzzy bedroom slippers
buying Chips Ahoy at Stater Bros.”
3

More than one-hundred motels dotted the town in its heyday of the 1950s-
1970s. [Figure 0.1] It had a vibrant community engaged in civic-minded activities; it
welcomed people of all religious backgrounds (though not necessarily people of color)
and economic statuses and respected the people who came there because they just
wanted to be left alone. By the 1980s Desert Hot Springs fell into hard times and many
of the motels were adaptively reused as apartments or recovery centers for substance
abuse; some were abandoned and demolished. Some hung on and continued to
operate as spas, or temporarily as apartments and were later turned back into spa-tels.
The city’s fall into bankruptcy, crime, drugs, and gangs caused it to gain the moniker
“Desperate Hot Springs.”
4

3
Bender, “Seaweed in Desert Hot Springs’ sand,” Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2003.
4
Steven Greenhut, “Desperate Hot Springs,” City Journal, December 5, 2013.
Figure 0.1. Postcard of David's Spa. Year unknown.
3
In the early 2000s, Desert Hot Springs began seeing restoration and revival of its
remaining spa-tels, some reborn as boutique hotel/spas catering to well-heeled health
and wellness seekers who liked the off-beat ambiance of the town. The city was the first
in Southern California to jump full swing into the burgeoning cannabis industry, and it is
now marrying “cannatourism” with spa treatments.
5
Crime in the city has decreased
dramatically and its population has become more diverse, with Latinos and whites
making up the lion’s share of its residents. Housing construction is booming and big
mobile home parks on the edges of town attract the RV crowd and the 55+
demographic. But the town is still struggling: the median income is less than $38,000,
there is not a vibrant restaurant or shopping scene, nor many attractions beyond the
motel spas, and it still suffers from a negative image problem.
Desert Hot Springs and much of the desert surrounding it are ripe for historic
preservation. In fact, during the 2023 writing of this thesis, five historic motel properties
were demolished, highlighting the need for preservation to save the extant properties.
This thesis provides a rationale for why Desert Hot Springs’ spa-tels should be
protected. The first three chapters document the town’s development and how it
connects with the larger social and cultural landscape of the United States, and more
specifically California, after World War II. Chapters four and five look at historic
designation and economic incentive tools that are available to the motels and the city
and provide recommendations for strategies that could help the city and its residents
protect the properties.

5
According to the website Green State, “cannatourism” is defined as “any excursion, destination, or
lodging facility where cannabis use is encouraged.” Accessed July 8, 2023.
https://www.greenstate.com/food-drink/what-is-cannatourism-heres-everything-you-should-know-about-
the-newest-travel-trend/. .
4
I have visited the spa-tels of Desert Hot Springs over the course of thirty years. In
researching this thesis, I went there half a dozen times to become more familiar with the
streets and the properties. I spent hours driving around town identifying current and
former spa-tels and photographing them. I interviewed the following sources:
Loretta Ayeroff, frequent visitor to Desert Hot Springs from childhood on, and
photographer whose Motel Series featured the spa-tels of the town.
Mike Bickford, owner of Miracle Springs Resort & Spa and Desert Hot Springs
Spa Hotel.
Jeff and Judy Bowman, former owners of the Kismet Lodge and current
residents of Desert Hot Springs and active in the Desert Hot Springs Historical
Society.
Suchi Branfman, Desert Hot Springs homeowner with long family history in
Desert Hot Springs.
Gary Gardner, Desert Hot Springs City Council member.
Scott Harner, now former owner of Sagewater Spa & Resort.
Stacy Ingber, frequent visitor to Desert Hot Springs as a child.
Emory Lesco, frequent visitor to Desert Hot Springs and now an employee of
Miracle Springs Resort & Spa.
Luke Rainey, Desert Hot Springs City Manager (former).
Irene Rodriguez, director of the Cabot Pueblo Museum.
Michael Rotondi, Los Angeles architect and former co-owner of Miracle Manor
Retreat.
Sean Smith, Desert Hot Springs Director of Economic Development.
Marge Snell, Desert Hot Springs resident and archivist for the Historical Society.
Christopher Tandon, former co-owner of Hope Springs.

I also examined some primary sources by visiting the following archives:
a) Isaac Bloch Papers, University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library.
Archives of the rabbi who helped the town’s Jewish residents build a temple.
b) John F. Outcault Architectural Drawings, Architecture and Design
Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Drawing of the Coachella Valley architect who designed at least two of the prominent
spa-tels.
c) Desert Hot Springs Historical Society’s archives, Desert Hot Springs.
Ephemera of the town. [Figure 0.2]
5

In addition to books that have been written about Desert Hot Springs and the
entire Coachella Valley, I relied substantially on newspaper articles from the period
when Desert Hot Springs was established and growing. These sources and the
research convinced me that the spa-tel district of Desert Hot Springs is a candidate for
designation on the National Register of Historic Places and/or the California Register of
Historical Resources, and that the city should make special efforts to protect its spa-tels.

Figure 0.2. Archives of Desert Hot Springs Historical Society. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
6
CHAPTER 1: Evolution of Desert Hot Springs
Geography of the Coachella Valley
July 12, 1941, when the Desert Hot Springs Mineral Baths opened its doors, is
considered the birth of the town of Desert Hot Springs in Southern California’s
Coachella Valley, shown in the map in figure 1.1.
6
It was the first of many spas, resorts,
and lodges that came to dot the town, but its history began many centuries before.

Ten million years ago, the area now known as the Coachella Valley was covered
in water flowing from the Colorado River. The largest of these bodies was Lake Cahuilla
which gave early inhabitants a source of fresh water.
7
Over time, the water dried up
leaving a hard-packed desert floor with sparse vegetation.
8

6
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort, p.101.
7
Singer, "Geology of the Imperial Valley California: A Monograph." 1998. p. 36; An instructive StoryMap
of the Imperial Valley over time can be found at “Water is King – Here is its Kingdom” by Ivan G. Soto,
UCHRI, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/15c5149c1252414da3bcfa628fea38e7.
8
Mendenhall, “Ground waters of the Indio region, California.” U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply
Paper 225, 1910. p. 15.
Figure 1.1. Map of Coachella Valley. From Palm Springs Life Magazine.

7
Desert Hot Springs sits in the San Gorgonio Pass between two mountain ranges:
San Bernardino and San Jacinto, part of the Peninsular Ranges Province which is one
of the largest geological areas in North America.
9
A strand of the San Andreas Fault,
represented by the red line in figure 1.2, called the Mission Creek strand, runs through
Desert Hot Springs. To the west of the fault lies an aquifer with cold water that gives the
town its award-winning tap water.
10
Runoff from Mount San Gorgonio in the San
Bernardino Mountains falls through cracks in the rock and with the help of geothermal
pressure, creates a natural hot aquifer with water temperatures ranging from 140 to 180
degrees Fahrenheit.
11

9
California Geological Survey, “150 Geologic Facts about California” Fact 32, accessed March 4, 2023.
chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/Documents/Melange/
Geologic-Facts-about-California.pdf; Geological areas are defined as areas that have similar rock masses
and sedimentary basins. Electronic Code of Federal Regulation, 30 CFR § 57.2.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/30/57.2.
10
Desert Hot Springs’ water has been a winner multiple times in the International Water Tasting
Competition held in Berkley Springs, West Virginia. Accessed March 4, 2023.
https://berkeleyspringswatertasting.com/winners/.
11
Weather Spark, “Winter 2022 Weather History in Desert Hot Springs.” Accessed January 30, 2023
[https://weatherspark.com/h/s/2105/2022/3/Historical-Weather-Winter-2022-in-Desert-Hot-Springs-
California-United-States#Figures-WindSpeed.
Figure 1.2. Map of fault lines.From Whitewater Canyon Earth & Biological
Sciences, http://whitewatercanyon.org/san-andreas-fault/.
.
8
The mountains offer visitors stunning views and provide Desert Hot Springs with
its signature water; but the desert sun and the mountains also create windy conditions,
known as the Venturi effect.
12
The strong sun heats up the desert floor, and as the heat
rises it creates low-pressure conditions on the surface. When high-pressure air from the
coastal areas of the west drift into the Coachella Valley, the high and low pressures
collide to create gusts that average between five and ten miles per hour but can get up
to fifty miles per hour. Visitors, and even some residents, complain about the winds
which are far stronger than in nearby Palm Springs. Desert Hot Springs’ average
temperatures in the summer reach well above 95 degrees and in the low 70s during
winter months.
13
The heat wave during July 2023 saw temperatures regularly hitting 110
degrees.
Early History
Archeologists believe that the Cahuilla people migrated to the Southern
California region anywhere from two to five thousand years ago. Over time, the Cahuilla
people evolved into tribal groups that inhabited different areas of the Coachella Valley:
The Desert Cahuilla tribe lived in the lower part of the valley and near the Salton Sea;
the Pass Cahuilla settled in the San Gorgonio Pass; and the Mountain Cahuilla

12
Coachella Valley Water District, 4.5 Biological Resources, April 6, 2016, p. 4.5-5. Accessed January
30, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cvwd.org/DocumentCenter/View/3005/45-Biological-
Resources?bidId=.
13
Weather Spark, “Winter 2022 Weather History in Desert Hot Springs,” Accessed January 30, 2023.
https://weatherspark.com/y/2105/Average-Weather-in-Desert-Hot-Springs-California-United-States-Year-
Round.
9
inhabited the San Jacinto Mountains.
14
Today there are nine federally recognized
Cahuilla tribes in Imperial, Riverside, and San Diego Counties.
15

The Cahuilla are a Takic-speaking people of hunter-gatherers who made ample
use of the natural vegetation. Yucca, agave, creosote, ocotillo, indigo bush, fan palm
trees, cholla, and saguaro cacti provided them with the resources for medicines, basket
weaving, constructing homes, food, hunting, and cooking instruments. They also had
access to a variety of rodents, lizards, and insects.
The Cahuilla lived a semi-nomadic existence. They did not have permanent
settlements in what is now Desert Hot Springs, but they are known to have passed
through the area regularly as evidenced by pottery shards and the knowledge of water
sources passed down over time. In the lore of the town, it is said that the Cahuilla
enjoyed the healing powers of the natural mineral springs that centuries later would be
central to the town’s identity.
16
That claim may be more than just folklore because
Indigenous people all over North America valued hot springs as sacred places, and
used mineral waters for rituals and ceremonies as evidenced by artifacts.
17
While
Desert Hot Springs was within the territory of the Cahuilla, it does not appear that the
early inhabitants lived in the area.

14
Caudell, “A People’s Journey,” Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians website. Accessed May 8,
2023. https://aguacaliente.org/documents/OurStory-10.pdf.
15
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service, List of Federally-Recognized
Tribes in CA, Vol. 87, No. 19.
16
Bonner, “Desert Hot Springs California’s Spa City.” Desert USA. Accessed March 22, 2023.
https://www.desertusa.com/desert-california/desert-hot-springs.html.
17
Erfurt-Cooper and Cooper, Health and Wellness Tourism, p. 112.
10
Coachella Valley History
The Cahuilla had the Coachella Valley to themselves for centuries until Spanish
explorers Captain José Romero, José Maria Estudillo, and Romualdo Pacheco led a
series of expeditions through the area in the 1820s.
18
When gold was discovered in the
neighboring territory of Arizona in the mid-nineteenth century, adventurers began
searching for a direct route from Los Angeles to the gold fields. In 1862, William David
Bradshaw stumbled upon an ancient indigenous trading route that is today loosely
followed by the route of Highway 111, the highway that branches off Interstate 10, south
to Palm Springs.
19
It became known as the Bradshaw Trail, seen in figure 1.3, and
served as a key route between the Pacific Ocean and the Colorado River.

18
Johnston, “The Bradshaw Trail.” p. 92-95.
19
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort, p. 33.
Figure 1.3. Bradshaw Trail route. Illustration by Norton Allen, Mojave Gold Mining website,
https://mojavegoldmining.com/the-bradshaw-trail/.

11
Indigenous people had successfully lived in the area for centuries, but for newly
arrived explorers it was inhospitable terrain. As Walter C. Mendenhall wrote for the U.S.
Geological Survey, “Water is the first requisite to the existence of all life; hence
everywhere in the arid West the question of water supply is of paramount importance.”
20

The Coachella Valley has hundreds of artesian wells, and as a journalist in the early
1900s wrote, “…here we have the first dots of vivid green strung along the railway like
ganglia on a nerve fiber – Mecca, Thermal, Coachella, Indio, four oases in the
wilderness.”
21

The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad, completed in 1877, had a dramatic
effect on the Coachella Valley. As Mendenhall notes, the building of the railroad
reduced “desert tragedies” but it led to a “greater influx of inexperienced travelers.”
22

The route from Los Angeles to Indio was nicknamed The Sidewinder, and the “little
desert local.”
23
In the 1860s, the federal government gave the railroad ten miles of land,
chopped up into odd-numbered square mile plots on each side of the railroad tracks as
an incentive to finish the rail lines. The rail company sold off land to the early settlers of
Palm Springs, including Judge John Guthrie McCallum who built an aqueduct, and the
government retained the even-numbered sections. When President Ulysses S. Grant
established a reservation for the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in 1876, the
tribe was given rights to the government’s share of the parcels which created a
checkerboard pattern as seen in figure 1.4.

20
Mendenhall, p. 5.
21
The Story of the Coachella Valley Water District, p. 10.
22
Ibid.
23
Shumway, Your Desert and Mine. p. 2.
Figure 1.4: Map from “Cahuilla Territory” by Mona De
Crinis, me yah whao, Fall/Winter 2021-2022. P. 67
https://aguacaliente.org/documents/Cahuilla_Territory.pdf

Figure 1.4. Map from “Cahuilla Territory” by
Mona De Crinis, me yah whao, Figure 1.4: Map
from “Cahuilla Territory” by Mona De Crinis, me yah whao,
Fall/Winter 2021-2022. P. 67
https://aguacaliente.org/documents/Cahuilla_Territory.pdf

Figure 1.4. Map from “Cahuilla Territory” by
12

The plots gave the tribe just a fraction of its traditional territory, and none of it in
Desert Hot Springs proper. The railroad hired Cahuilla laborers to build the tracks which
did not stop in Desert Hot Springs but did in nearby Indio and Palm Springs.
24

The homestead gates open
Until the early twentieth century, most of the travelers along the Bradshaw Trail
and the railroad’s route were just passing through with no thought of settling in the
severe territory. As author Marc Reisner writes about the desert, “One does not really
conquer a place like this. One inhabits it like an occupying army and makes, at best, an
uneasy truce with it.”
25
Eventual settlement in the area was sparked by laws enacted by

24
Goolsby, “Southern Pacific Railroad made path through the wild.” Desert Sun. August 23, 2014.
Accessed January 23, 2023. https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/2014/08/24/southern-pacific-railroad-
history-coachella-valley/14446763/.
25
Reisner, Cadillac Desert, p. 4.
Figure 1.4. Map of Cahuilla land.From “Cahuilla Territory” by Mona De Crinis,
me yah whao, Fall/Winter 2021-2022. p. 67.
https://aguacaliente.org/documents/Cahuilla_Territory.pdf.
13
Congress to encourage growth in the American West. One was the Homestead Act of
1862, which offered 160 acres of surveyed government land for anyone who would live
on and cultivate their plot of land.
26
The other was the Desert Land Act passed in 1877
in which people could “apply for a desert-land entry to reclaim, irrigate, and cultivate arid
and semiarid public lands.”
27
The first documented homesteader to live in Desert Hot
Springs was Hilda M. Gray, who in 1912 set up a homestead about a mile from Two
Bunch Palms, where the hot mineral water naturally seeped above ground. A
government survey team in 1858 identified Two Bunch as a site of water, but the team
never completed its work because the surveyors concluded the environment was too
forbidding to stay.
28

In those early days of the area’s development, settlers would trudge to the
muddy water hole at Two Bunch to fill their jugs and canteens with water. Hilda Gray
didn’t last long in the desert, and in 1916 she sold her plot to Cabot Yerxa who holds a
prominent and revered place in the history of Desert Hot Springs. He described the
Two Bunch Palms water hole this way:
The source of the water was tiny driblets of water oozing out of a five-foot clay
bank. A dilapidated, rickety ladder stood there, and by going down a half-dozen
rungs it was possible to fill a canteen where the slightly moving water kept the
scum from forming too thickly. It was here we obtained our water.
29

26
The United States Senate, “Landmark Legislation: The Homestead Act of 1862,” Accessed February
13, 2023.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/civil_war/Homestead_Act.htm#:~:text=To%20help
%20develop%20the%20American,western%20land%20to%20individual%20settlers and National
Archives, Homestead Act (1862), Accessed February 13, 2023. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-
documents/homestead-act.
27
Bureau of Land Management, “Desert Land Entries.” Accessed February 13, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files/Desert%20Land%20
Entries.pdf.
28
Coffee, “Desert Hot Springs Why?” p. 7.
29
Yerxa, On the Desert Since 1913. (Cabot’s Museum Foundation, 2011) p. 29.
14
Other than Two Bunch, the only other watering hole was in Seven Palms five miles
away – a “fer piece” when traveling by burro or on foot.
Cabot Yerxa and the “discovery” of water
Cabot Yerxa is often called “the Father of Desert Hot Springs” and he is credited
with “discovering” the aquifers that would make the town a spa destination.
30
Yerxa,
who is almost always referred to by his given name Cabot, was an eccentric fellow -- a
“Renaissance” man, and an entrepreneur who was born on a Sioux reservation where
his parents ran a trading post.
31
Those early beginnings led him to a lifelong interest in,
and connection with, Indigenous cultures. Before he landed in the Coachella Valley in
1913, he had traversed Mexico, Alaska, Cuba, and Florida. In 1893, when he was a
child, he briefly stopped in the California desert during a train trip between Yuma,
Arizona, and Los Angeles. Years later he was lured to that part of the desert by a friend
who enticed him with claims of “free land.”
32

After traipsing around the area, Cabot discovered broken bits of pottery on a hill
about a mile north of Two Bunch Palms. He deduced that Native peoples had been
there and had found access to water, so he put his stake in the ground, and under the
Homestead Act, Cabot claimed his 160 acres. He built himself a cabin in 1913 that he
called Eagle’s Nest, seen in figure.1.5. A chance conversation with an old Cahuilla man

30
Summons, “Trevor’s Travels: Story behind Cabot’s Pueblo Museum includes a donkey named Merry
Christmas.” Daily Bulletin. May 22, 2019. Accessed February 13, 2023.
https://www.dailybulletin.com/2019/05/22/trevors-travels-story-behind-cabots-pueblo-museum-includes-a-
donkey-named-merry-christmas/.
31
Cabot’s Museum Foundation, “The Story of Cabot Yerxa & His Pueblo.” (2016) p. 4; Cabot Yerxa is
always referred to by his first name Cabot, and even his house that is now a museum is called Cabot’s
Pueblo Museum.
32
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort. p. 72.
15
led Cabot to the underground water beds not far from his rustic domicile. He used a
divining rod and found two water sources where he dug wells – a hot one outside his
cabin and a cold one just 600 yards away. Thinking it was a miracle, he named the hill
Miracle Hill.
33

Coffee and Spas
Cabot Yerxa is described as an “itinerant adventurer” and when not in residence
in Desert Hot Springs he traveled around, including a stint in the U.S. Army during
World War I and operating general stores in Blythe and Moorpark, California.
34
In 1932,
he had a visit from L.W. Coffee at his Moorpark store. While Cabot is known as the
father of Desert Hot Springs, Coffee is called the founder of the town.
35
Coffee was a

33
Cabot’s Museum Foundation, “The Story of Cabot Yerxa & His Pueblo.” (2016) p. 12.
34
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Cabot’s Pueblo Museum, 2011. p. 8.
35
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort. p. 88.
Figure 1.5. Cabot Yerxa’s first cabin,Eagle Nest. Date unknown. From Images of America: Desert
Hot Springs.
16
land developer who migrated to Los Angeles from Denmark by way of Northern
California. He was intrigued by Cabot’s description of the hot mineral waters, so Cabot
gave him an introduction to a fellow homesteader and Coffee ventured out to the desert.
Almost immediately he had a vision of a town devoted to health and wellness. He set
about drilling wells with Bill Anderson, an acquaintance of Cabot. Coffee was intrigued
by the geology of the area and wanted to find the sources of the hot water. He wrote, “I
became more and more interested every minute and, after a few days of rest, taking hot
baths and sweats and drinking plenty of the hot mineral water, I began to feel like I
wanted to tramp every part of the area.”
36

Coffee connected with other homesteaders in the area to pitch his idea of
developing a town devoted to health. He developed a property trust for the land and
decided to subdivide it into acre lots, which he later described as a mistake.
37
A survey
of the area was completed in 1933 and Coffee began selling plots of land for two-to-four
hundred dollars each.
38
His financial dealings were fraught from the start and during
most of the 1930s, his trust was tied up in litigation. In 1939 Coffee was contacted by
William “Aubrey” Wardman, a Whittier, California land developer who got rich in the oil
and telephone industries, because he wanted to join Coffee’s trust. Wardman obtained
160 acres of land in what would become the center of the town. He went on to fund
many projects in Desert Hot Springs, including a recreational park and the installation of
a telephone exchange. He became one of the town’s biggest advocates. Wardman later
fell out with Coffee, like so many others did, and filed a lawsuit against Coffee.

36
Coffee, “Desert Hot Springs Why?” p. 6.
37
Ibid., p. 7.
38
Ibid., p. 8.
17
Meanwhile, Coffee installed a pump in the first well he found -- which he dubbed
the “Discovery Well” -- and he set up some hot tubs in the sand, and began building his
bath house.
39
In 1941, he opened the Desert Hot Springs Mineral Baths seen in figure
1.6, where more than two thousand visitors reportedly showed up for the grand opening,
even though there were no lodging services, only hot mineral baths and changing
rooms. Coffee and his wife Lillian served foot-long hot dogs, ice cream, and soft drinks,
and an orchestra played as the guests danced and swam in the pools. He even had a
licensed chiropractor on hand who ran the so-called Rubbing Room and gave
massages and chiropractic treatments to the guests.
40
With no lodgings in town, people
slept in their cars or pitched tents out in the open desert, all for the chance to soak in
the hot mineral water.
41

39
The Waters of Comfort, p. 97.
40
Ibid., p. 9.
41
Coffee’s bathhouse went through trials and tribulations, including fires and the ravages of time. It was
finally demolished in 1991.
Figure 1.6. L.W. Coffee’s first bath house. Date unknown. From Images of America:
Desert Hot Springs.
18
In the twenty years that followed the opening of Coffee’s bath house, dozens of
new spas opened with lodging. Most were small mom-and-pop operations: one-story,
vernacular motels in a Mid-Century Modern style, but with solid building construction.
Some had catchy neon signs popular in the era. Many of those early lodgings were
located near Coffee’s bath house, which was on Eighth Street and Palm Drive, the main
drag that took visitors from the highway into the center of town.
As figure 1.7 shows, some of the hottest water from the natural aquifer was on
Miracle Hill, Cabot’s old stomping grounds. One of the first motels to appear there was
Miracle Manor, built in 1950, just across the street from where Cabot was building his
home.
42
Miracle Manor had just seven rooms grouped around a garden courtyard with a

42
The first permit record for Miracle Manor is 1948, however, it was not until December of 1955 that The
Desert Sentinel announced that it was open to guests. It’s unclear whether guests stayed there in the first
half of the 1950s.
Figure 1.7. Map Desert Hot Springs mineral water.
From Palm Springs Hot Springs website
[https://www.palmspringshotsprings.com/hot-springs-water-maps
19

kidney-shaped swimming pool, an enclosed hot mineral water pool, and a dazzling view
of the San Jacinto Mountains. [Figure 1.8] This was a somewhat typical size for the spa-
tels of the era in Desert Hot Springs. Ironically, it was the rehabilitation of Miracle Manor
almost fifty years later by a Los Angeles-based architect/designer that sparked a new
round of interest in these modest spa-tels.
Most of the motel spas were unremarkable in their design, but one notable
exception is the Desert Hot Springs Motel, aka the Lautner Hotel (or the Lautner
Compound as its current owners call it). It was commissioned in 1947 by Hollywood
director Lucien Hubbard who tapped Los Angeles architect (and Frank Lloyd Wright
mentee) John Lautner for the design.
43
This property is unusual in the city for being

43
Merkel, “John Lautner - The Lautner Compound, Desert Hot Springs, CA (1947)” May 3, 2022.
https://www.midcenturymichigan.com. Accessed March 22, 2023.
Figure 1.8. Miracle Manor postcard. Date unknown. Courtesy of Desert Hot Springs Historical
Society.

20
designed by a well-known architect, but also because it sits in the lowlands of Desert
Hot Springs, south of the main area of the town. [Figure 1.9]

Lucien Hubbard was also responsible for a Desert Hot Springs “dude” ranch.
Hubbard and his son-in-law Charles Bender bought 240 acres of land from the Southern
Pacific Land Company and opened the B-Bar-H Guest Ranch (derived from Bender and
Hubbard) in 1927, initially an invite-only resort. It opened to the public in 1937 and
attracted Bing Crosby, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, and a host of other Hollywood
luminaries. The ranch was advertised as located in Palm Springs, but that was most
likely because Desert Hot Springs wasn’t known as such until the early 1940s.
44
One of

https://midcenturymichigan.com/2020/05/03/john-lautner-the-lautner-compound-desert-hot-springs-ca-
1947/.
44
Images in America: Desert Hot Springs. P. 84.
Figure 1.9. Desert Hot Springs Motel.
© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)
21
the regular columns in The Desert Sentinel in the 1950s was called “Eavesdropping on
B-Bar-H” and featured news about who was staying at the ranch and what was
happening at the complex. B-Bar-H closed in 1950, and in 2005 the lots around it were
sold off.
45
The only surviving building today is a clubhouse that was donated to the
VFW, seen in figure 1.10, in 1972 by actress Mary Pickford. Other guest ranches of the
era were The Circle K Ranch and the T Cross K Ranch.

The residential part of the town grew up around the hotels. The population rose
from twenty residents in 1941 to 2,738 in 1970.
46
The U.S. Census Bureau does not
track seasonal residents, and neither does the city.
47
It is impossible to say how many of

45
Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty, “Stepped in Celebrity History, the Historic B-Bar-H Guest Ranch
Outside of Palm Springs Hits the Market. July 31, 2020. Accessed March 25, 2023.
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8zc8827/entire_text/.
46
Riverside County Center for Demographic Research. 2008. Accessed January 31, 2023.
https://rctlma.org/portals/0/rcd/content/progress_reports/pr_2008/12_Desert_Hot_Springs.pdf; see
population chart later in this chapter.
47
Citizens filling out census forms are asked to document the residences where “they live and sleep most
of the time.” “2020 Census Residence Criteria and Residence Situations,” Accessed July 1, 2023.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www2.census.gov/programs-
surveys/decennial/2020/program-management/memo-series/2020-memo-2018_04-appendix.pdf; A
Riverside County Local Agency Formation Commission report says the Western Coachella Valley has a
Figure 1.10. VFW Post 1534. Photo By Willa Seidenberg.
22
the residents were seasonal then or now, but several Desert Hot Springs residents told
me it’s a given that the town has a number of snowbirds, and many live in the mobile
home parks.
48
After reviewing newspaper articles from the era, it appears that most
residents were transplants from the Southern California region, but it’s difficult to
ascertain how much the population changed over the course of a year. As table 1.1
documents, Desert Hot Springs has been steadily growing since those early decades.
Table 1.1. U.S. Census population figures for Desert Hot Springs
Historical population figures from U.S. Census
49

1941 Unknown
1950 Unknown
1960 1,472
1970 2,738
1980 5,941
1990 11,549
2000 16,582
2010 25,938

“considerable influx” of seasonal residents, but no documentation to back up the claim. Riverside County
Local Agency Formation Commission, Section 2.0 “Regional Population and Growth.” February 2007. P.
2-5. Accessed July 1, 2023.
48
Snowbird is defined as “one who travels to warm climes for the the winter,” Miriam-Webster Dictionary.
49
Desert Hot Springs was not incorporated as a town until 1963. Therefore, census figures for 1940 and
1950 only document the townships. It appears Desert Hot Springs was in the San Gorgonio Township.
Sources vary on Desert Hot Springs’ population in 1940, listing anywhere from 22-41 people.
23
2020 32,510

Since Desert Hot Springs did not incorporate until 1963, the U.S. Census Bureau did
not count the number of residents until the 1960 census, and even then, it would have
been counting the enumeration district of San Gorgonio Township and not Desert Hot
Springs specifically. Additionally, there is no reliable demographic information about the
make-up of the population. However, in reviewing historic photos and newspaper
articles, the town was overwhelmingly white, but with a diversity of religious
denominations (including Methodists, Catholics, Baptists, and Jews), there were some
foreign-born residents, and it appears that many of the original residents were middle-
aged or early retirement age.
Emory Lesco, who visited his aunt and uncle in Desert Hot Springs in the 1960s,
remembers many World War II veterans living in town, as well as people of Hungarian
and German descent.
50
Author John Hunt notes that early residents of the town told
him some Black families lived in town in the 1950s but left fairly quickly because of
racist threats.
51
L.W. Coffee reached out to the Japanese community in Los Angeles,
hoping to interest someone in purchasing one of his lots in Desert Hot Springs, but he
dropped that idea immediately when the Japanese Imperial Army bombed Pearl Harbor
in 1941.
52

50
Interview with author, May 11, 2023.
51
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort, p. 244.
52
Ibid., p. 104.
24
The first restaurant in town was the Idle Hour Café, seen in figure 1.11, which
opened in 1940 by Leonora Dodd, known as “Mom.” It quickly became a central place
for townspeople to gather. Dodd told the Desert Sun in 1965, “There was no gas
or electricity here. We made juice with a Kohler plant so anyone who didn’t want to sit at
home by lamp light came to the café.”
53

There were several markets in town in the early 1940s, including Morgan’s
Market and Delicatessen, El Pueblo Market, and Haidet’s Hardware.
54
Los Angeles
resident Loretta Ayeroff remembers visiting the Kingdom of the Dolls, a museum run by
Betty Hamilton who used discarded materials to construct miniature replicas of scenes
and events throughout history.
55

53
Saunders, Desert Sun, April 23, 1965. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DS19650423.2.67&e=-
------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------.
54
Images of America: Desert Hot Springs, p. 117-118.
55
More on Hamilton’s work can be found at Kingdom of the Dolls by Sean Dockray.
https://www.bidoun.org/articles/kingdom-of-the-dolls; A KABC Channel 7 Eyewitness News series called
Figure 1.11. Idle Café. Date unknown. Images of America: Desert Hot Springs.
25
The heyday of the Desert Hot Springs motels was in the 1950s and 1960s when
spa-tels dotted the desert landscape with names like Ambassador, Blue Water, Caliente
Springs, Mona Lisa, Lido, The Moors, and others that were named after their owners:
Bertram’s, David’s, Doty’s, and McLaughlin’s.
56
In addition, there were a number of
small apartment complexes that did not have spas or pools but catered to snowbirds
and regional visitors who would stay at the apartments and buy day passes to enjoy the
mineral waters at spas like Coffee’s, Hacienda Spa, and Desert Highland Hot Springs.
Figure 1.12 shows the chemical analysis of the mineral water in Desert Hot Springs,
that spas would use as a selling point to tourists.

Some spas catered directly to the health and wellness trend, such as The Swiss
Health Resort, the We Care Health Center, and Healing Waters. There are still claims

“The Travels of Fred and Elmer to Desert Hot Springs” in 1980 has a short profile of Kingdom of the Dolls
from :42 to 1:40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYtcY9HQSYY.
56
Images in America: Desert Hot Springs. p. 101.
Figure 1.12. Desert Hot Springs water content chart. From a Desert Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce
brochure. Date unknown, but most likely before 1960 based on information contained in the publication.
Courtesy Desert Hot Springs Historical Society.
26
today that hot springs, particularly water with high concentrations of sulfur, are healing –
for the mind, for pain and circulation, and skin.
57
.
As the town developed, its newspaper The Desert Sentinel documented its
growth, its inhabitants, and its visitors. One feature of the newspaper called “Who’s
Where in DHS,” gave a roundup of which visitors were in town and where they were
staying. Figure 1.13 is one of those columns from the 1950s showing that visitors came
from all over the United States and Canada, and many were yearly visitors. The Rental
Owners Association, Improvement Association, and Chamber of Commerce acted as
the town’s de facto governing body until 1963 when the town was incorporated. Fifty-
eight percent of voters approved the incorporation initiative and elected a city council,
and Councilmember Stone Wright, Jr. became the first mayor.
58

57
“SCL Health, “Do Hot Springs Really Have Healing Powers?” Accessed March 25, 2023.
https://www.sclhealth.org/blog/2020/02/do-hot-springs-really-have-healing-powers/.
58
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort. p. 138 and 143.
Figure 1.13. Column from The Desert Sentinel, 1957.

27
Palm Springs
It is impossible to talk about Desert Hot Springs without also looking at the
history of its more famous neighbor – Palm Springs. The rise of Palm Springs as a
resort city can be traced back to a small oasis of palm trees in Tahquitz Canyon that
featured a hot spring. Palm Springs grew from there, initially as an agricultural venue
and a place for recovering from respiratory diseases. As far back as the 1870s, the
Agua Caliente people were charging a fee to visitors who wanted to enter its small
bathhouse that had a hot spring.
59
Palm Springs’ first white homesteader was John
Guthrie McCallum whose son suffered from tuberculosis. McCallum was appointed the
Indian agent for the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, and his attempts to divert
water from sources guaranteed to the tribe were only the first of many efforts by white
settlers to deprive the original residents of their land and water.
60

Soon, date cultivation came to the Coachella Valley, largely through the work of
William L. Paul.
61
The date palm has a revered place in history, as Paul’s daughter Nina
Shumway writes in her memoir, Your Desert and Mine, especially to Muslims and
Hebrews, to whom it was a symbol of immortality.
62
The dates became a tourism selling
point.
Nellie Coffman, known as the “mother of Palm Springs,” is credited as the person
most responsible for the city’s eventual reputation as a tourist destination.
63
[Figure
1.14] Coffman, who suffered from respiratory problems, went to Palm Springs in 1908 in

59
Culver, The Frontier of Leisure, p. 150.
60
Ibid., p. 145.
61
Conrad, Desert Sun. Accessed March 20, 2023.
https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/history/2023/01/15/palm-springs-history-nina-paul-shumway-
discovered-recorded-elfin-forests-above-desert/69806290007/.
62
Shumway, Your Desert and Mine, p. 51.
63
Culver, The Frontier of Leisure, p 152.
28
search of relief, and she opened the Desert Inn a year later. At first, it served as a
sanatorium for guests with tuberculosis. Her husband Dr. Harry Coffman was a doctor
and used his medical skills to treat the guests, while Nellie provided nourishing food and
nurturing care. But as Lawrence Culver writes, there were worries that Southern
California was becoming too much of a haven for consumptives, and Coffman, always
the shrewd businesswoman, decided to promote her hotel to tourists instead.
64
That led
Coffman and her husband to divorce, and with the help of her two sons, she expanded
The Desert Inn which eventually spread over thirty-five acres. Coffman astutely
promoted her inn to the Hollywood crowd. She helped organize the business community

64
Ibid., p. 153.
Figure 1.14. Palm Springs map. February 1936. Westways Magazine. Courtesy of AAA archives.

29
promoted her inn to the Hollywood crowd. She helped organize the business community
and worked for the incorporation of Palm Springs, which was approved in 1938.
65

Between the world wars, Palm Springs became a place for the affluent, a
destination for the burgeoning Hollywood community and the “national elite.”
66
As
Lawrence Culver writes, this set up an inevitable conflict between white tourists and the
Agua Caliente -- as well as other non-white residents -- and paved the way for
restrictions on who could own homes in the city. Racial restrictions were baked into
property sales in wealthy neighborhoods, and the Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people
providing labor to the tourist industry were confined to living on land owned by the Agua
Caliente, known as Section 14, which did not have restrictions.
67

After World War II Palm Springs became more urbanized and suburbanized,
complete with racial tensions and discriminatory practices. The white leadership wanted
to control the city’s “picturesque resort” image and working-class people of color didn’t
fit that vision.
68
The post-war growth included huge residential golf complexes and a
collection of stunning modernist architecture by titans of the profession such as Richard
Neutra, Albert Frey, William Krisel, John Lautner, E. Stewart Williams, Donald Wexler,
and others. They designed homes for the rich and famous such as Frank Sinatra, Bob
and Dolores Hope, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, and department store magnate Edgar
Kaufmann. [Figure 1.15]

65
Brown, “Nellie Coffman’s hospitality helped Palm Springs grow,” Desert Sun. March 28, 2015.
Accessed July 8, 2023. “https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2015/03/28/palm-springs-nellie-coffman-
history/70563318/.
66
Culver, Frontier of Leisure, p. 139.
67
Ibid., p. 165.
68
Ibid., p. 172.
30

As Palm Springs grew in population and affluence in post-war California, it is
perhaps not surprising that Desert Hot Springs carved out a place in the world of leisure
among working and middle-class visitors. The spa-tels and residences were modest
and utilitarian – there was little notable architecture -- and the restaurants and shops
provided basic necessities, unlike the expensive shops and department stores in Palm
Springs. Loretta Ayeroff regularly visited Desert Hot Springs with her mother as a child,
and occasionally her family would take a trip to Palm Springs where “you had to dress
up,” unlike Desert Hot Springs where “you could just wear your shorts and your
sandals.”
69

69
Interview with author, April 18, 2023.
Figure 1.15. Edgar Kaufmann Residence. © J. Paul Getty Trust.
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)
31
Post-heyday
In the 1970s, the country reeled from some of the highest inflation rates in
years.
70
When the number of visitors started dropping off in Desert Hot Springs, some
of the spas were converted into apartment buildings, others maintained their resort
business, and still others languished. [Figure 1.16]

Amid the downturn in tourism, more people started making the town their home

Amid the downturn in tourism, more people started making the town their home and the
population doubled each decade. (See table 1.1.) The early 1980s saw two severe
economic recessions, and in Desert Hot Springs the hard times included a significant
increase in poverty and crime and a full-blown problem with gangs that were spreading
throughout Riverside County. The “Spa City” was now referred to by another nickname:
“Desperate Hot Springs.”
71
[Figure 1.17]

70
Kramer, “How the Great Inflation of the 1970s Happened.” Investopedia. Accessed February 17, 2023.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/1970s-great-
inflation.asp#:~:text=The%201970s%20saw%20some%20of,contributed%20to%20the%20high%20inflati
on; .
71
The Hotelier’s Association uses the moniker “Spa City,” though it’s unclear when it was done;
Greenhut, “Desperate Hot Springs,” City Journal. December 5, 2013. Accessed February 17,
2023.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vvdz-LYzuA6sdmnu5RfObvJP3-qpcslGK1EgO_i-
NWgFebruary /edit.
Figure 1.16. Site of former Pleasant View Lodge. Demolished April 2023. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
32

By the early 2000s, the city had the highest level of crime per capita of any of the
cities in the Coachella Valley. The Los Angeles Times reported that by 2009, seven
gangs were based in Desert Hot Springs and parolees were moving to the town
because of its low housing prices and understaffed police department.
72
Desert Hot
Springs was reported to have sixty-five percent of the Coachella Valley parolees, yet the
town was only five percent of the total population of the Valley.
73
Before 1997, the year

72
Before 1997, the year Desert Hot Springs got its own police force, law enforcement services were
provided by the Riverside County’s Sheriff’s Department. Kelly, “Desert Hot Springs is fighting for its life.”
Los Angeles Times. August 23, 2009. Accessed February 17, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
xpm-2009-aug-25-me-desert-hot-springs25-story.html; .
73
Balchan, “In a gritty, gusty city with image issues, sense of safety,” CVReporter, November 28, 2022.
Accessed February 17, 2023. https://cvreporter.com/in-a-gritty-gusty-city-with-image-issues-positive-
growth-brings-sense-of-safety/
Figure 1.17. Part of the Sahara Hotel complex. February 2022. demolished in April 2023. Photo
by Willa Seidenberg.
33
Desert Hot Springs got its own police force, law enforcement services were provided by
the Riverside County’s Sheriff’s Department.
74

Adding to the city’s woes, a jury in Los Angeles found Desert Hot Springs in
violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act in a case brought by Silver Sage, Inc., a
company that purchased and developed low-income housing at a mobile park home.
The city was ordered to pay more than $3 million dollars in damages, plus millions more
in interest and lawyers’ fees.
75
That led to the city filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in
2001, from which it emerged in 2004.
Meanwhile, another trend was brewing, but this one more positive. In the 1990s,
architects and investors from Los Angeles and beyond were capitalizing on the
depressed property values in Desert Hot Springs and the growing interest in Mid-
Century Modern aesthetics and purchased and rehabilitated some of the iconic spa-tels,
such as the Miracle Manor and Cactus Springs (formerly La Bella Sari and now Hope
Springs).
76
[Figure 1.18] In 2000, there were forty-seven hotels still operating in the
city.
77

74
Kelly, “Desert Hot Springs is fighting for its life.” Los Angeles Times.
75
Silver Sage Partners, Ltd. v. City of Desert Hot Springs, Opinion Argued and Submitted October 7,
2003. Posted on Casetext. Accessed February 17, 2023. https://casetext.com/case/silver-sage-partners-
ltd-v-city-of-desert-hot-springs.
76
Fenton, “Why the world is obsessed with midcentury modern design.” Longform. April 8, 2015.
Accessed February 18, 2023. https://archive.curbed.com/2017/11/22/16690454/midcentury-modern-
design-mad-men-eames.
77
City of Desert Hot Springs, “City of Desert Hot Springs comprehensive general plan.” (Published by
Terra Nova Planning & Research, Inc. 2000.) Accessed February 17, 2023.
https://cdm16255.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p266301ccp2/id/715
34

The newly refurbished motels catered to a growing interest in wellness and spa
tourism by branding themselves as “boutique” hotels and offering an array of spa
services, such as massage, hot pools, saunas, quiet, and relaxation. Many of the
boutique hotels became adult-only; it was often easier to find a spa-tel that would
accept pets than children. Desert Hot Springs was reclaiming its old moniker “Spa City”
and despite continued city budget problems, poverty, and gang and drug activity, the
next few decades saw the numbers steadily heading in a better direction.
Author and anarchist Paul Krassner and his wife moved to Desert Hot Springs
just after 2000. He wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2005 that they “observed the
evolution of a small town into a burgeoning city.”
78
What brought them to Desert Hot
Springs from Venice, California was the same thing that motivated others to move to the

78
Krassner, “It’s not hip, but it’s heaven,” Los Angeles Times. February 10, 2005.
Figure 1.18. Hope Springs Resort. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
35
desert town – cheaper housing. In 2000, the median home price in Desert Hot Springs
was $81,400 compared with $221,600 in the City of Los Angeles.
79

In 2014, as Desert Hot Springs was having yet more budget woes, it took the
bold step of becoming the first city in Southern California to embrace the cannabis trade
by legalizing large-scale cultivation for medical marijuana. Four years later, when
California legalized recreational marijuana, Desert Hot Springs was in the perfect
position to promote “cannatourism.” Cannabis cultivation added to city coffers and
helped Desert Hot Springs weather the COVID pandemic. Desert Hot Springs city
councilman Gary Gardner said he doesn’t want the city dependent on one source of
revenue:
The bulk of our city revenue comes from cannabis taxes, almost 39%,
in my book too much to have in one bucket. I have been working
diligently … to grow our tourism factor; what we also need a bigger
retail factor. And we need to have that three-legged stool to have that
to have a nice balanced municipal city.
80

The city’s main sources of revenue are sales taxes and a Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT)
paid by the spa-tels. And while Desert Hot Springs’ fortunes have improved, it is still a
relatively impoverished town, as table 1.2 shows.
Table 1.2. 2022 U.S. Census demographic information for Desert Hot
Springs
Median Household Income $37,924 2021 dollars
Total Population 33,091 2022 estimate
Demographics

Latino/Hispanic: 59.1%
White (alone): 26.4%
African American: 8.4%

79
“California: 2000: Summary of Social, Economic, and Housing Characteristics. 2000 Census of
Population and Housing, March 2003. Pp. 441 and 445.
80
Interview with the author, January 31, 2023.
36
Asian: 3.1%*
Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/deserthotspringscitycalifornia.

Even many Southern California residents have not visited Desert Hot Springs or
even know about it, and those who are familiar with it still associate it with blight and
crime. The city is working to change that image by trying to attract more retail and
restaurants, and its 2020 General Plan proposes the creation of an Arts and Culture
District.
81
During its prime, Desert Hot Springs attracted middle- and working-class
visitors, and today its funky and off-beat vibe is what attracts new residents and visitors
and distinguishes it from its glitzier neighbor. That has made Desert Hot Springs an
attractive place for celebrities who wanted to be off the radar and away from prying eyes.
The book Celebrities in Hiding dedicates more than 200 pages of stories about celebs
who have visited the town. Over the years, Two Bunch Palms, arguably the town’s most
well-known and exclusive spa resort since it was remodeled in 1978, has hosted
celebrities like Robert Altman, Ozzy Osborne, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Springsteen.
82

Energy Vortex
Palm Springs resident Roger Sunpath insists that Desert Hot Springs is an
“energy vortex” which are sacred and spiritual spots where different strands of energy
are leaving and entering the Earth, places like The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt or
Sedona, Arizona. Sunpath writes that in Desert Hot Springs “there is a convergence of
five energies. Earthquake faults, geothermal underground water, mountain peak

81
Desert Hot Springs General Plan, May 26, 2020, p. LU-6.
82
The enduring legend that Al Capone used it as a hideaway in the 1930s has largely been debunked.
See Hunt, Waters of Comfort, p. 168.
37
alignments, wind, and Sun energies.”
83
In his book The Vortex made me do it, Bill
Effinger suggests the Vortex could be responsible for the “colored” history of its
governmental leaders and economic woes, and the “strange behavior of the city’s
inhabitants.” But resident and former spa owner Judy Bowman explains the town this
way:
People don’t come to Desert Hot Springs for a typical corporate spiffed
up regulated environment. This is not quite the Wild West, but when we
came here there wasn’t a whole lot of regulation. People could do what
they wanted to do. You leave me alone; I’ll leave you alone. But we’re
growing up, you know, now we’ve gotten through our teenage years and
we’re into adulthood. And there’s people who don’t like that there’s got to
be regulations – and I’m not a real fan of regulations either – but you
need to have order. So, for me, it’s gone from the end of the Wild West
era to more of a modern era.
84

83
Sunpath, “Editorial: Is Desert Hot Springs an Energy Vortex?” March 12, 1997. Accessed February 20,
2023. http://energyvortex.net.
84
Interview with the author January 31, 2023.
38
CHAPTER 2: Leisure, Mobility, Health Seekers,
and the People of Desert Hot Springs
The rise of leisure time
The end of World War II brought a period of optimism, prosperity, and stability to
the United States, and more specifically to California. Americans had more money in
their pockets, more leisure time, and more mobility. This chapter explores the trends
and forces that led to the success of Desert Hot Springs as a “spa town.”
The U.S. and the world were still recovering from the effects of the Great
Depression, and unemployment was high heading into World War II. But when the
United States fully jumped into the war after Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor, the
wartime economy ramped up. Some seventeen-million civilian jobs were created
nationwide during World War II.
85
Millions of men and women joined the military and
others were employed in war-related manufacturing, such as aircraft and munition
production. Many women joined the workforce for the first time to fill in for labor
shortages caused by men joining the armed forces. [Figure 2.1] California became a
center of round-the-clock ship and aircraft manufacturing, and workers flooded into the
state to fill those jobs. Between 1939 and 1944, employment in aircraft factories rose
from 20,000 to 280,000 in California.
86

85
Library of Congress, “World War II” Accessed March 29, 2023. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-
materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-
1945/world-war-ii/.
86
California State Archives, “Home Front: California During World War II” Accessed March 29, 2023.
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/home-front-california-state-archives/3wURpwnUy6rKKg?hl=en.
39

When the war ended in 1945, many returning service men and women, and
wartime manufacturing workers decided to settle in California prompting the population
to increase by two million people between 1940 and 1945.
87
People had more money to
spend: veterans collected the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, known as the G.I. Bill of
Rights, and workers had accumulated savings during their wartime employment.
88

Many former GIs were able to buy homes with loans from the Veterans Administration.
[Figure 2.2] And, Americans were working less: the average number of hours in the

87
Ibid.
88
John A. Jakle, The Tourist, p. 185.
Figure 2.1. Women ship fitters working onboard the USS Nereus at the U.S. Navy Yard in Mare Island, California,
circa 1943. Department of Defense photo.
40
work week went from 44 hours in 1940 to 40 hours after the war, and by the early
1950s, union labor contracts were providing more paid vacation time.
89

Americans were becoming more inclined to spend their hard-earned capital on
leisure activities. No longer was travel and tourism solely for the wealthy, but average
Americans could partake in vacation adventures. The war opened new worlds to many
Americans, especially members of the military who had traveled overseas or to different
parts of the United States, giving them a taste of other cultures and locales, and in
some cases, relief from cold winters in the East and Midwest. Southern California was

89
Pomeroy, In Search of the Golden West, p. 216.
Figure 2.2. Veterans Administration flyer. National Archives photo.
41
especially well-positioned to take advantage of the growing interest in travel and tourism
with its temperate climate, sunny skies, and wide-open spaces – a region that offered
beaches, mountains, desert, and a “bright streak of promise.”
90

Car ownership
The end of World War II also led to an increase in mobility. Americans had been
primed for automobile ownership since the 1920s, but the allure of owning a car
diminished during World War II because gasoline and tires were rationed by the
government, and raw materials like rubber were needed for military manufacturing.
91

When the government lifted restrictions after the war, it took auto manufacturers a few
years to catch up with enough stock, and by 1949, as table 2.1 shows, car sales had
soared to five-point-one million and kept going up from there.
Table 2.1. Car sales in the United States
1946 2.1 million
1949 5.1 million
1955 7.9 million
1965 9.3 million
Source: Walsh, “Gender and the Automobile in the United States.” Automobile in American Life and
Society website. Accessed April 1, 2023.
http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Gender/Walsh/G_Overview3.htm.

The automobile represented freedom to average middle-class Americans. Cars
were viewed as a “democratic, efficient, and frugal alternative to existing

90
Kilston, Sun Seekers: The cure of California, p. 9.
91
Walsh, “Gender and the Automobile in the United States.” Automobile in American Life and Society
website.
42
transportation.”
92
Now that Americans were well on their way to a love affair with
automobiles, the infrastructure had to catch up. The development of the federal
interstate system had profound effects on the nation, leading to slum clearance projects
in older city centers and enabling more Americans to buy cheaper land in the growing
suburbs to escape the congestion of urban life. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944
authorized the Public Roads Administration (PRA) to designate a 40,000-mile network
of highway routes. But it was President Dwight Eisenhower’s signature on the Federal-
Aid Highway Act of 1956, popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense
Highways Act, that spurred the system of highways that we now take for granted.
93
In
addition to federal legislation, funding from the State of California spawned the
construction of Interstate 10 (I-10), a cross-country highway that cuts across Southern
California, starting at its westernmost point in Santa Monica, skirting Downtown Los
Angeles on its way through the Inland Empire and the desert communities of the
Coachella Valley, before continuing on its way through Arizona and the rest of the
country.
Before the I-10 was assigned its number, the freeway through the San Gorgonio
Pass was US 60-70-99 and Legislative Route 26.
94
In the 1940s, travelers from Los
Angeles to the Coachella Valley had to drive through Ramsey Street in Banning, which
could become quite congested with weekend visitors heading to the desert. Work
started in 1954 on a four-lane divided freeway that paralleled the old Southern Pacific

92
Belasco, Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910-1945. p. 42.
93
U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. Accessed April 1, 2023.
https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/septoct-2000/genie-bottle-interstate-system-and-urban-problems-
1939-1957.
94
California Department of Public Works, California Highways and Public Works, September-October
1956, p. 33.
43
Railroad route. The final sections of the roadway were completed in the summer of
1956, and the California Highways and Public Works publication declared, “Motorists
driving between the Los Angeles metropolitan area and Palm Springs and other desert
resorts this winter should find traffic conditions greatly improved.”
95
[Figure 2.3]

Photographer and archivist Loretta Ayeroff went to Desert Hot Springs when she
was a child growing up in Los Angeles. She still clearly remembers the drive to the
desert:
We had a Buick station wagon and would make this arduous, long drive to
the desert. There was no superhighway, there wasn’t any freeway going
out there at that time. This is the 50s and I remember it as just a straight
road all the way to the desert. [Later] when I used to go up with Polly [her
daughter] I used to drive my Karmann Ghia. And before we would go to
the desert, we would go see Steve and he would put bags of cement in

95
Ibid., p. 47.
Figure 2.3. 1953 view of US 60/70/99 and State Route 111 junction. Photo from Caltrans.
44
the front of the Karmann Ghia to keep our nose down on the freeway. It’s
such a small car and so light that it would shift around [in the wind]. So,
the trips up to the desert were in and of themselves always kind of an
adventure.
96

Ayeroff, like many visitors to the desert, remembers landmarks along the way such as
the Hadley Fruit Orchard which is famous for its date shakes and shelves of dried fruit
and nuts. Hadley started in 1931 and has been in its location on Morongo Trail, visible
from I-10, since the 1960s.
97
In 1999, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians bought
Hadley and built a new and bigger store, while the old building still sits vacant and
abandoned right next to it.
98
[Figure 2.4]
Vernacular Mo-Tels
As Americans embraced the automobile and the freedom to hit the road, the
need for affordable, clean places to stay became an opportunity for small
entrepreneurs. The term “motel” wasn’t used until 1926 when Arthur Heineman opened

96
Interview with the author, April 19, 2023.
97
Harris, “Hadley, your date shake desert oasis, has moved,” Los Angeles Times. March 3, 2016.
Accessed April 1, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-hadley-date-shake-new-store-
20160302-story.html.
98
Ibid.
Figure 2.4. The old Hadley Fruit Orchard store on Morongo Trail. April 2023. The new store is seen on the right.
Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
45
the Milestone Mo-tel in San Luis Obispo.
99
As seen in figure 2.5, Heineman’s motel may
seem grand compared to our impressions of motels today.

Automobile travelers also stayed in hotels, but they were often located in
congested, urban areas, or resort hotels in vacation areas along the coast or in the
mountains, and that made hotels less accessible and/or less affordable.
100
As the
number of cars increased, other accommodations popped up to service auto travelers,
among them: auto camps, tourist homes in private houses, cabin camps, cottage courts
(which often included kitchenettes), and motor courts, which were distinguished as
having all the units under a single roofline.
101
[Figure 2.6]

99
Mo-tel is a contraction of motor and hotel. The Motel in America, p. 18.
100
Ibid., p. 29-30.
101
Ibid., p. 43.
Figure 2.5. Milestone Mo-Tel. San Luis Obispo. Date unknown. Photo from SAH Archipedia.
46

After World War II, the word motel became ubiquitous as a term for motor courts,
and in their early days, they were largely mom-and-pop businesses.
102
By the 1960s,
some of those small motels gave way to chains like Howard Johnsons and Holiday Inn.
The spa-tels that appeared in Desert Hot Springs in the 1950s and early 1960s were
often hybrids of the cottage and motor courts. Most had rooms under a single roofline
that surrounded or were adjacent to the hot mineral and swimming pools. They also
featured small kitchens or kitchenettes to accommodate snowbirds who put down roots
for the winter months or even weekend visitors from Los Angeles and other parts of
Southern California. [Figure 2.7]

102
Ibid., p. 49.
Figure 2.6. Drawings of motel configurations. The Motel in America.
47

Health and Wellness Spas
Hydrothermal bathing is a global practice that is documented throughout history.
It has been tied to cleanliness, spirituality, religion, and general well-being. The healing
power of mineral waters has been – and still is – thought to address ailments like skin
irritations, gout, arthritis, and various muscle aches and pains. The term “take the
waters” came to mean a person who went to a “spa with healing thermal waters.”
103

Historians generally pinpoint the first place to use the term spa as Spa, Belgium
where mineral springs were discovered in the fourteenth century.
104
But humans have
been dipping in hot and cold mineral waters for centuries. As noted in Chapter 1, the

103
WordSense Dictionary definition. Accessed April 15, 2023.
https://www.wordsense.eu/take_the_waters/.
104
Erfurt-Cooper and Cooper, Health and Wellness Tourism: Spas and Hot Springs, p. 15.
Figure 2.7. Kitchenette at Kismet Lodge.
Courtesy of Jeff Bowman.
48
Cahuilla were said to often visit the mineral springs of Desert Hot Springs, mirroring
other North American Indigenous peoples who considered hot springs as sacred places
where they held important ceremonies.
105
The ancient Greeks used baths primarily as a
way of getting clean, but they were also viewed as a tonic for unwinding from stress and
addressing afflictions.
106
The Romans expanded Greek bathing rituals by constructing
elaborate bath complexes in cities they conquered. The Roman baths in the city of Bath,
England, built about 70 AD, are some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in the world.
[Figure 2.8] Even today, the ancient site in Bath is filled with spring water that reaches
temperatures of 114 degrees Fahrenheit.
107

105
Ibid., p. 112.
106
Nathe, “Bathing Beauties,” Accessed April 9, 2023. https://endeavors.unc.edu/win2007/truemper.php.
107
Visit Bath website. Accessed April 9, 2023. https://visitbath.co.uk/things-to-do/the-roman-baths-
p2588863.
Figure 2.8. Bath, England. Photo from www.romanbaths.co.uk.
49
In Muslim and Jewish cultures, bathing rituals were often key to religious
practices of purification as in the hammams and mikvahs.
108
The Japanese too have
bathing customs at thermal hot springs, known as onsen. By law, an onsen must be 77
degrees Fahrenheit or more, and contain at least one of nineteen substances
proscribed in laws that govern them.
109
And, Koreans enjoy jimjilbangs that feature hot
and cold pools, saunas, and massage.
110

Health tourism is one of the fastest-growing tourist sectors in the world,
especially among the baby boomer generation.
111
The term wellness was first
popularized in 1959 when Dr. Halbert L. Dunn wrote, “Good health can exist as a
relatively passive state of freedom from illness in which the individual is at peace with
his environment – a condition of relative homeostasis.”
112

As Desert Hot Springs was developing in the 1950s, it was well-positioned to
take advantage of the interest in health and wellness. The Desert Sentinel reported on
Dr. Broue who came to town to analyze the curative power of the water.
113
He is quoted
as saying the water in Desert Hot Springs was unlike any he had found in “any country I
have explored.” He went on to say, “What has impressed me is the mineral content of

108
Pollock, Without the Banya We Would Perish, p. 11.
109
Japanese Onsen Association, “What is onsen?” Accessed April 9, 2023.
https://www.spa.or.jp/en/onsen/.
110
“Starting as early as the Neolithic Age, the tradition of the public bath has changed over the years to
adapt to evolving cultures and social norms.” Accessed April 14, 2023.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20121129-the-origins-of-bathhouse-culture-around-the-
world#:~:text=Turkish%20baths%2C%20called%20hammams%2C%20were,hand%20with%20purifying%
20the%20soul.
111
Patterson & Balderas-Cejudo (2022), “Baby boomers and their growing interest in spa and wellness
tourism.” p. 238.
112
Dunn, “What High-Level Wellness Means,” Canadian Journal of Public Health, November 1959. P.
447. Accessed April 14, 2023.
113
The Sentinel article calls him an English scientist, but an April 2009 article in the Inland Empire
Business Journal says he was Austrian. Broue is quoted in the Sentinel in 1950 as saying his
headquarters was located in London. Citation: p. 32.
50
the water and their suspension in solution and RADIO ACTIVITY being generated.” The
article headline in figure 2.9 calls Desert Hot Springs the “Baden Baden of America,” but
it should be noted that quite a few spa areas in the United States claim that nickname.

Regardless of the veracity of the health claims, they became a selling point in
drawing people to Desert Hot Springs. The town’s newspaper, The Desert Sentinel, ran a
photo in 1957, seen in figure 2.10, of a billboard on Highway 99 touting it as the “Home
of Natural Hot Curative Waters.”
One of the early developers of the town, businessman John “Aubrey” Wardman,
who joined L.W. Coffee’s land trust (and who donated the land and money to start Angel
View Crippled Children’s Foundation), scolded the city in 1960 saying, “We should be

Figure 2.9. Desert Sentinel front page. From microfilm.
51
telling the world, not just a little area around the Southland … We have something here in
Desert Hot Springs I have never experienced any other place in the world.”
114

The People of Desert Hot Springs
A 1966 article in the Desert Sun remarked on the extensive development of
Desert Hot Springs in the 1950s and 1960s, writing, “The development was based
chiefly on the community’s desirability as a place for lovers of the desert. The mineral
baths are a pleasant bonus.”
115
The desert is not for everyone, but some people who
love the climate and atmosphere find the low-key vibe and mineral-filled water in Desert
Hot Springs an ideal place for rest and relaxation. Because the Cahuilla did not have
reservation land in Desert Hot Springs, the white founding inhabitants were at liberty to

114
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort, p. 139.
115
“First White Settler Finds Precious Mineral Water in Desert Hot Springs,” Desert Sun, November 17,
1966. Accessed April 5, 2023. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19661117.2.170&e=-------en--20--1--txt-
txIN--------.

Figure 2.10. Billboard reproduced in The Desert Sentinel, December 13, 1957. From microfilm.
52
put down stakes in whatever part of town they wanted. People of color would most likely
not have received a warm welcome in those early years, but it has always had religious
diversity, including Baptists, Methodists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Lutherans, Roman
Catholics, Jews, Church of the Latter-Day Saints, and Protestant congregations. Emory
Lesco, who grew up in San Francisco but frequently visited his aunt and uncle in Desert
Hot Springs in the early 1960s, said there were always a lot of different kinds of people
in town – Hungarians, Germans, Armenians, and later Asians.”
116

Women Pioneers in Desert Hot Springs
Women figured prominently in the development of the town. It was not
uncommon for the spa-tels to be owned and run by married couples, and many were
owned by divorced, widowed, or single women. [Figure 2.11] The Desert Sentinel,
which at times had women editors, featured articles about the women living and visiting
the town, and it had regular columns such as “Feminine Reflections” that presented
women’s voices, though largely in a stereotypical way as many newspapers did in that
era.

116
Interview with author, May 9, 2023.
53

The first documented homesteader in Desert Hot Springs was Hilda M. Gray.
She was living in the Los Angeles area and working as a legal secretary when she
learned about the Homestead Act. During a visit to Palm Springs, she took a hike up the
mountain, and on the other side of the railroad tracks she saw “… a small oasis of two
bunches of palms – stuck alone in the midst of much nothingness…”
117
She quit her job
and in 1911 filed a claim for 160 acres of land about a mile from the Two Bunch Palms
oasis she had seen from the mountains nearby.
118

With the help of other desert adventurers, she managed to enlarge the only
watering hole there for washing, and she acquired a small dog named Trixie, a couple
of burros, chickens, and a small two-room cabin. [Figure 2.12] She also started the first

117
Effinger and Betts. Taming the California High Desert, p. 23.
118
Ibid. p. 24.
Figure 2.11. Ads congratulating the Jewish Temple show the prominent
place women had in motel ownership. The Desert Sentinel, October 30,
1958. From microfilm.
54
general store in what would become Desert Hot Springs.
119
By 1918, Gray had enough
of the challenging conditions in the desert, and she pulled up stakes for Arcadia,
California. She passed away in 1953, and in the year before she died spent most of her
time in Desert Hot Springs.

Another female pioneer came along in 1933. Viola DeWitt Dinsmore happened to
pitch a tent for her and her daughter on the corner of Palm Drive and Eighth Street –
directly across the street from where L.W. Coffee had tapped into hot wells. Dinsmore,
who became known as “The Little Lady in White of the Desert,” was scrappy and self-
sufficient. She hauled materials to the site and built a home, then added onto it to host
travelers who came to town to visit Coffee’s bath house. She eventually dug a well on

119
Ibid. 27-28.
Figure 2.12. Hilda M. Gray. Photo from Cabot's Pueblo Museum.
55
her property and opened the Blue Heaven Rancho which offered a bed, meals, and, of
course, the waters.
120
[Figure 2.13]

According to The Desert Sentinel, Dinsmore was the first to join the Chamber of
Commerce and the town’s Improvement Association held its first meeting at her
Rancho, as well as many other gatherings, such as the Women’s Republican Club and
a Christian Scientist group.
121
She died on New Year's Day of 1966.
Jewish Community
As Desert Hot Springs was growing in the 1950s, a sizable Jewish community
found its way to the town; many came from Los Angeles where the Jewish population
rose steadily throughout the twentieth century. During the early part of the century,
many Jewish migrants who settled in Los Angeles, especially those of Eastern

120
In The Waters of Comfort, John Hunt writes that it was the first motel with hot mineral water, p. 98.
121
The Desert Sentinel, January 6, 1966; Hunt, The Waters of Comfort, p. 147.
Figure 2.13. Blue Heaven Rancho ad in The Desert Sentinel . From
microfilm.
56
European descent, suffered from tuberculosis. Some had worked in industrial factories
in cities on the East Coast, such as garment and meat packing, and lived in crowded
tenements where tuberculosis spread quickly.
122
The renowned City of Hope was
formed in 1912 as The Jewish Consumptive Relief Association. Rose Bertram, an
immigrant from Romania, who with her husband Nathaniel, built and ran Bertram’s Ma-
Ha-Yah Lodge in Desert Hot Springs, was a fundraiser for City of Hope for many years.
She suffered from painful arthritis, which is how she found Desert Hot Springs and its
“curative” waters.
123
(See Chapter 3 for more on Rose Bertram.)
Jews may have been attracted to Desert Hot Springs, in part, because they were
essentially locked out of Palm Springs. Though Palm Springs’ deed covenants did not
officially ban Jews from owning property, Lawrence Culver asserts that discrimination
effectively prevented them from owning commercial real estate, businesses, or other
property.
124
Even Hollywood celebrities like Jack Benny were prevented from joining
country clubs like the Thunderbird.
125
Desert Hot Springs may have been considered a
more open and affordable destination. Many of the early Jewish visitors and residents
were middle-aged and older and the mineral waters were a draw for those suffering
from arthritis and other ailments. [Figure 2.14]

122
Luce, “The White Plague in the City of Angels,” Accessed April 30, 2023.
https://scalar.usc.edu/hc/tuberculosis-exhibit/thejewishconsumptivereliefassociation.
123
“Groundbreaking Held for New Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge Here” The Desert Sentinel, April 14, 1960.
124
Culver, The Frontier of Leisure,. p. 165.
125
Kotkin, “Palm Springs: A Rich Haven for The Fords.” The Washington Post. January 17, 1977.
Accessed July 28, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/01/17/palm-springs-a-
rich-haven-for-the-fords/1b9d2174-8708-457f-a88d-f2acb2e9003f/.
57

Early issues of The Desert Sentinel list church services and featured articles
about the Baptists, Methodists, and Roman Catholic congregations, but in January
1954, an ad for Kosher food is a hint of the presence of a Jewish community. [Figure
2.15] By 1955 there were frequent listings of services for weekly Shabbat observances,
and Jewish holidays, such as Passover, Yom Kippur, and Chanukah, as well as social,
recreational, and educational programs held in private homes or rented facilities. The
newspaper frequently featured articles about social, religious, and cultural events being
held by Jews living in or visiting Desert Hot Springs.
In articles written by and about the “Jewish Community Group,” and later the
Sisterhood of Temple Nove Sholom, it was estimated that the community of Jewish
residents had grown to about seventy-five people by 1960, and some owned motels in
Figure 2.14. Star Light Lodge add in The Desert
Sentinel. From microfilm.

58
town.
126
From reviewing issues of The Desert Sentinel from the 1950s and early ‘60s,
those motel owners were the driving force behind establishing the Jewish community in
Desert Hot Springs. Ads for motels regularly appeared in Jewish newspapers such as
the B’nai B’rith Messenger, which served the Southern California Jewish community.
[Figure 2.16]

126
“Village Visitor Eyes Growth of Jewish Community,” Desert Sun. February 24, 1960.
Figure 2.15. Ad in The Desert Sentinel. 1954. From
microfilm.
59
Table 2.2 lists the Jewish motel owners I have been able to identify from reviewing
newspaper articles and other sources from the early years of Desert Hot Springs,
though it is likely there were more:
Table 2.2. Jewish owners of Desert Hot Springs motels
Furmans El Reposo Motel
Greens Dos Palmas Resort Motel
Dorsks Dorsk House
Lees Granada Apartments
Figure 2.16: Classified page from B'nai B'rith Messenger,
January 14, 1955

Figure 2.16: Classified page from B'nai B'rith Messenger,
January 14, 1955

Figure 2.17. Jewish leaders posing temple site.
Isaac E. Bloch Archives. University of California,
Berkeley, Bancroft Library.Figure 2.16: Classified page
from B'nai B'rith Messenger, January 14, 1955

Figure 2.16: Classified page from B'nai B'rith Messenger,
January 14, 1955

Figure 2.16. Classified page from
B’nai B’rith Messenger, January
14, 1955.
60
Bertrams Bertrams Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge
Nettie Zide and Lillian Rose La Bella Sari (now Hope Springs)

By the mid-1950s, Rabbi Isaac E. Bloch became the “spiritual leader” of this
community in the desert. Bloch served in the Jewish Legion in the Middle East during
World War I and for a time was part of the first civil government of what was then
Palestine. He came to California in 1949 and worked as a circuit rabbi for the Southern
California-Arizona desert region. When he connected with the Jewish residents of
Desert Hot Springs, he decided to resign his position and devote himself full-time to
helping the community build a temple. By 1957, the congregation had raised enough
money to start construction at 66777 E. Pierson Boulevard of the Temple Nove Sholom,
a Conservative Jewish congregation. [Fig. 2.17]

Figure 2.17. Jewish leaders posing temple site. Isaac E. Bloch Archives. University of
California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library.
61
The temple was dedicated on November 2, 1958, with the American Legion providing
the color guard as rabbis from around the country toting Torahs paraded through town.
[Figure 2.18] Rabbis and dignitaries from around Southern California were on hand for
the celebration, including Congressman Dalip S. Saund, and others sent well-wishes,
including the Governor of California.
127
[Figure. 2.19] A 1961 editorial in The Desert
Sentinel proclaimed, “We are very proud of the relationship which exists between our
religious groups in Desert Hot Springs. As far as we can see, Brotherwood [sic] Week is
not necessary in this community, since the brotherly spirit exists thruout [sic] the entire
year.”
128

127
Saund, an Indian-American, was the first member of the House of Representatives of Asian descent.
Accessed May 2, 2023. https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/21228.
128
“The Manifestation of Brotherhood,” The Desert Sentinel editorial, February 24, 1961.
Figure 2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library

Figure 2.18. Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library.Figure
2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library

Figure 2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library

Figure 2.18. Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library.Figure
2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library

Figure 2.19. Telegram. Archives of Rabbi Isaac Bloch, University of
California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library.Figure 2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch
Archive, Bancroft Library

Figure 2.18. Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library.Figure
2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library

Figure 2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library

Figure 2.18. Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library.Figure
2.18: Photo from Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library
Figure 2.18. Temple dedication. Isaac E. Bloch Archive, Bancroft Library.
62

Many of the Jewish visitors came from Los Angeles where the Jewish community
was established in Boyle Heights. After World War II they began moving westward,
settling in the Fairfax area and the San Fernando Valley. Stacy Ingber grew up in the
1960s and 1970s attending the Mogen David Temple in the Pico-Robertson area of Los
Angeles. She and others from her temple frequently spent weekends in Desert Hot
Springs which she described as the Catskills for Westside Jews:
When I would go to Hebrew school on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school,
my peers would talk about going to Desert Hot Springs with their
grandparents. There was something about many of the Jews of my
grandparents’ generation, and of their friends, who were very hard-working
blue-collar families, and it was a place to unwind and relax and spend time
with their daughters and sons and their grandchildren.
129

129
Interview with the author, February 2023.
Figure 2.19. Congratulatory telegram. Archives of Rabbi Isaac Bloch, University
of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library.
63
That experience is echoed by Suchi Branfman, a Los Angeles artist and activist. Her
grandmother Margaret Stromberg was a Russian Jewish immigrant who lived in Boyle
Heights and was drawn to the Coachella Valley in the 1920s, even working for a time as
a secretary for Nellie Coffman.
130
While hiking in the mountains, Stromberg discovered
the hot mineral waters of Desert Hot Springs. Branfman remembers visiting town with
her grandparents and mother, staying in small motels with kitchenettes. Her mother
later bought a house that Branfman now owns and uses as a second home and an artist
retreat.
Temple Nove Sholom had a succession of rabbis over the next few decades,
and, in a bizarre twist, the last one was a Christian minister (Steve A. Mesarch) turned
Messianic rabbi (Rabbi Alon Barak). Barak offered to sell the temple to the city of Desert
Hot Springs, which eventually did purchase it in 2008 for $1.4 million, which was more
than the value of the land.
131
There were plans to turn it into a health clinic, then a fire
station, but a building inspection recommended demolition. It was taken down in 2010.
[Figure 2.20]

130
Suchi Branfman, “Catalpa Residency History.”
131
Effinger, The Vortex Made Me Do It, p. 337.
64

Korean Spas
The Los Angeles area has been home to Korean immigrants since 1904, but it
was the Immigration Act of 1965 that bolstered the Korean presence, and by 1979, Los
Angeles had the largest number of Koreans outside of Korea.
132
They established
grocery stores, banks, restaurants, shopping malls, and spas in the Koreatown section
of Los Angeles, as well as other areas. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Koreans
have their own bathing rituals so it’s no surprise that they found their way to Desert Hot
Springs. [Figure 2.21]
In 1991 investor Chong Lee built the Miracle Springs Hotel, and he proposed an
initiative to legalize gambling and card rooms in Desert Hot Springs.
133
In 1976, the city

132
Survey LA, “Korean American Context Statement” p. 43. Accessed April 29, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://planning.lacity.org/odocument/ef26fda2-f0d7-488c-
9766-5a3491d0a6f7/SurveyLA_KoreanAmericanContextandResources_Aug2018.pdf.
133
Hunt, The Waters of Comfort, p. 249.
Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from Downtown DHS Flickr.

Figure 2.21. Sign from the Sahara Hotel, February 2022. Demolished in April 2023.
Photo by Willa Seidenberg.Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from
Downtown DHS Flickr.

Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from Downtown DHS Flickr.

Figure 2.21. Sign from the Sahara Hotel, February 2022. Demolished in April 2023.
Photo by Willa Seidenberg.Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from
Downtown DHS Flickr.

Figure 2.21. Sign from the Sahara Hotel, February 2022. Demolished in April 2023.
Photo by Willa Seidenberg.Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from
Downtown DHS Flickr.

Figure 2.21. Sign from the Sahara Hotel, February 2022. Demolished in April 2023.
Photo by Willa Seidenberg.Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from
Downtown DHS Flickr.

Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from Downtown DHS Flickr.

Figure 2.21. Sign from the Sahara Hotel, February 2022. Demolished in April 2023.
Photo by Willa Seidenberg.Figure 2:20: Demolition of Jewish Temple. July, 2010. Photo from
Downtown DHS Flickr.
Figure 2.20. Demolition of Jewish Temple. July 2010. Photo from Downtown DHS Flickr.
65
council passed a bill allowing bingo games for “nonprofit, charitable purposes,” which
benefited the churches, the Moose Lodge, and other non-profit organizations in town.
134

But an expansion of gambling never took off in Desert Hot Springs, especially after local
Indigenous tribes began to dominate the gaming world and today visitors traveling on I-
10 from the metro Los Angeles area to the Coachella Valley pass the enormous
Morongo Casino Resort & Spa on the north side of the freeway.
The Korean spa presence in Desert Hot Springs appears to have dwindled. The
city revoked the operating license of Hyundae Resort and Spa on Palm Drive in 2021
because of a variety of violations, including public safety problems, fire hazards, and
substandard conditions. [Figure 2.22] The property was sold, and a receiver was
appointed by the court to manage the oversight and rehabilitation of the property.
135
The

134
Desert Hot Springs Municipal Code, Chapter 9.04.100 “Bingo Games-Licensing Provisions.” Accessed
May 15, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://www.cgcc.ca.gov/documents/enabling/2011/CITY_O
F_DESERT_HOT_SPRINGS.pdf.
135
Gasparyan, “Desert Hot Springs demolishing abandoned Sahara Hotel & Spa and nearby buildings,”
Desert Sun. Updated Mary 3, 2023, accessed July 8, 2023.
Figure 2.21. Sign from the Sahara Hotel, February 2022.
Demolished in April 2023. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
66
Desert Rain Spa Hotel and The Sahara, in its later years, catered to Korean guests and
are now closed and a Korean restaurant in town, Palm Korea, now operates as a sushi
restaurant.

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/desert-hot-springs/2023/03/24/desert-hot-springs-works-to-
demolish-abandoned-and-derelict-properties/70047490007/.
Figure 2.22. Vacant Hyundae Hotel, Palm Drive. May 2023. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
67
Celebrities
When it comes to famous people, Desert Hot Springs cannot compete with Palm
Springs which is often called “Hollywood’s playground.”
136
But Desert Hot Springs
resident Audrey Moe was intrigued when she started noticing celebrities like Barbra
Streisand and Martha Stewart in town. Moe wondered why they would come to a town
with no upscale restaurants or pricey shops, but as she writes in her book Celebrities in
Hiding, “…I realized the attraction is precisely because it ‘is’ an unlikely place for
celebrities and therefore it serves as a hideaway for those seeking privacy.”
137
Many of
those rich and famous paid visits to the town, especially in the early years of Hollywood
when celebrities visited the B-Bar-H, as noted in Chapter 1. In more recent decades,
Two Bunch Palms Resort and Spa (see Chapter 3 for more) was a magnet for famous
people like Ozzy Osborne, Robert Altman, Julia Roberts, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen,
and Meryl Streep.
138

Some well-known people of note had homes and retreats in town, such as silent
film star Janet Gaynor and her second husband, producer Paul Gregory, who
committed suicide in his Desert Hot Springs apartment at the age of 95 in 2015. Poet
Robert McAlmon lived his final days in Desert Hot Springs, and, in 1967, singer/actor
Pat Boone was an investor in the Vista del Valle recreational development on the

136
Visit Palm Springs website, “Hollywood’s Playground,” Accessed May 15, 2023.
https://visitpalmsprings.com/hollywoods-playground/.
137
Moe, Celebrities in Hiding, p. 11.
138
Ibid.; The New York Times, “Winter in the Sun; Unwinding the California Way,” Oct. 31, 1993.
Accessed May 15, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/31/travel/winter-in-the-sun-unwinding-the-
california-
way.html#:~:text=Privacy%20and%20informality%20are%20the,as%20ordinary%20mortals%20show%20
upce.
68
northern edge of town. [Figure 2.23] And, as noted in Chapter 1, Paul Krassner, a
founder of the Yippies, was a Desert Hot Springs resident until he died in 2019.

Figure 2.23. Ad in The Desert Sentinel, February 2, 1967.
69
Less famous, but notable residents have gravitated to Desert Hot Springs,
including entertainers, sports figures, and writers. One of them was editorial cartoonist
George “Buzz” Gambill. During a stint in the Navy during World War II he created a
comic strip called “Salty the Seaman.” He drew illustrations for The Desert Sentinel, and
when it closed in 2000 leaving the town without its own newspaper, he began publishing
The Valley Breeze. Gambil died in 2009 but left behind a trove of drawings.
Another resident who spent his last days in the city was Knute Hill, a former
congressman from Washington, as well as USC football coach Gus Henderson. And
there were a few lesser-known actors who lived in the city, such as Joan Woodbury and
Rick Zumwalt.

70
CHAPTER 3: Significant Property Profiles

This chapter will describe some of the most important properties and motels/spas
in Desert Hot Springs. All of them, except one, are extant. Figure 3.1 below is a Google
Earth map showing the locations of the properties described in this chapter. Though
there are other properties in Desert Hot Springs that date back to the town’s period of
significance, these resources have interesting stories behind them and enough
information to provide a meaningful profile.

Figure 3.1. Google Earth map of properties in Chapter 3.
71
Coffee’s Desert Hot Springs Mineral Baths
The granddaddy of all the spas in Desert Hot Springs was the now-demolished
bathhouse built by L.W. Coffee on the southwest corner of Palm Drive and Eighth
Street, as referenced in Chapter 1. The first Coffee spa was built in 1941 at a time when
it wasn’t easy to travel the dusty roads of the desert. One side of the bathhouse catered
to women and the other was for men, each with four tubs, a swimming room, a
playground, and changing rooms -- but no rooms for lodging.
The original bathhouse burned down on January 20, 1947. Within months Coffee
began construction on a new and improved bathhouse seen in figure 3.2 made from
materials like stucco and clay that were less flammable. By July 1947 the new
facility was opened and ready for business, featuring a 24x78 foot swimming pool (seen
in figure 3.3), children’s pool, men's and women’s bathhouses, massage tables, and a
lounge area.
Figure 3.2. Coffee’s newly constructed bath house.1947. From Images of America.
72

After Coffee died in 1957, the bathhouse was leased and kept operating for a few years.
But for most of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s it was vacant. In 1976, Hollywood
director Robert Altman used Coffee’s to film parts of 3 Women about a woman working
in a health spa for elderly clients in a California desert town. The building was
completely demolished in January 1991 and the location is now an empty lot as seen in
figure 3.4.
139

139
Images of America: Desert Hot Springs, p. 55.
Figure 3.3. Pool at Coffee's Natural Mineral Baths. Photo from Desert Hot Springs Historical
Society.
73

Desert Hot Springs Motel (Lautner Compound)
Well-known architect John Lautner designed a motel for Hollywood director
Lucien Hubbard in 1947. It was originally called “Lautner Living Units for Bubbling Wells
Subdivision” and the master plan called for a compound that would include living
quarters, shops, and pools for Hubbard to entertain his prestigious guests.
140
Only four
rooms were ever constructed on the 600-acre property, and though each unit is
separate, they interlock and feature signature Lautner materials -- concrete-block walls,
steel, redwood, and large plate-glass windows that reveal each unit’s garden.

140
“John Lautner – The Lautner Compound, Desert Hot Springs, CA (1947). Accessed May 15, 2023.
https://midcenturymichigan.com/2020/05/03/john-lautner-the-lautner-compound-desert-hot-springs-ca-
1947/.
Figure 3.4. Vacant lot where Coffee's once stood, Palm Drive and Eighth Street. Photo by Willa
Seidenberg.
74
By the early 1960s, the property was largely vacant, and when Hubbard died in
1972, most of the original six-hundred acres were subdivided and sold off for homes. At
one point, an owner converted the Lautner units into apartments.
141
Hotelier and
Lautner aficionado Steven Lowe bought it in 2000 to restore it and return it to a hotel.
When Lowe died in 2007, designers Tracy Beckmann and Ryan Trowbridge purchased
the property and spent three years on renovations, attempting to stay true to Lautner’s
design aesthetic, and using mid-century styling.
142
[Figure 3.5]

Today it is available for vacation rentals, wedding parties, and other special events, and
it is a big attraction on the annual Modernism Week circuit.

141
Ibid.
142
Ibid.
Figure 3.5. Room at the Lautner Compound. From the Lautner Compound website.
75
The Desert Spa (Two Bunch Palms)
Two Bunch Palms was the spot with mineral waters that led early homesteaders
and founders to locate and dig more wells. Tom Lipps, a hotelier in Palm Springs,
acquired Two Bunch Palms and the surrounding 1,800 acres in 1937, and the resort
opened in 1940, originally called The Desert Spa. Loretta Ayeroff’s mother started going
to Two Bunch Palms in the 1950s and would bring Loretta and her brother along:
I know she loved being in the water, and found it very helpful and soothing… It
was just so much fun. My brother and I roamed all over. It was very beyond
rustic. It was like a ranch kind of, although ranches are much nicer than what
Two Bunch Palms was originally. Mostly it was swimming. And when we were
little, my brother and I were running wild over the desert-scapes and playing
games and pretending we were in Ramar of the Jungle. And we would go to
Cabot's and see the old Indian Pueblo. We knew Cabot when he was alive and
grew up learning about his Alaska connections and how he used to walk three
miles to get water for his donkey and the donkey was there. I mean, it was just
fascinating.
143
[Figure 3.6]

143
Interview with the author April 18, 2023. Edited for clarity; Ramar of the Jungle was an American TV
series that aired from 1952-54.
Figure 3.6. Loretta Ayeroff at Two Bunch Palms, circa
1950s. Photo from Loretta Ayeroff.
76
Two Bunch Palms was a modest property, “almost a bargain, with its cozy, funky
overstuffed rooms furnished in lurid period antiques and cooled with ceiling fans.”
144

But like other properties in Desert Hot Springs, it began to decline. In 1978 it underwent
a multi-million-dollar renovation and “went total Hollywood … and it became
untouchable for the normal human being. It was just a slick place; it had lost all its
magic,” said Ayeroff.
145
It appeared in a Hollywood movie – Robert Altman’s 1992 film
The Player, in which Tim Robbins plays a movie executive hiding out in the resort’s mud
baths.
Two Bunch Palms underwent several more renovations, including one in 2014
that added a yoga dome, a fitness center, and a redone grotto, and another two-million-
dollar update in 2018. [Figure 3.7] The property also has a restaurant, and it attracts
Hollywood celebrities, such as Julia Roberts, Jeff Bridges, Madonna, and Bette Midler.
In fact, it is the one place in Desert Hot Springs that people in Southern California seem
to know of, but at prices from $300-$500 a night, it is “untouchable” for many travelers.

144
Hubler, “Weekend Escape: Desert Hot Springs: Two Bunch Palms: The Famous Mogul Hideaway
Lives Up to Its Script: Pricey, Private and Profoundly Relaxing,” Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1994.
145
Author’s interview with Loretta Ayeroff, April 18, 2023.
77

Miracle Manor Boutique Hotel & Spa
About a mile northeast of Two Bunch Palms on a quiet corner of Miracle Hill,
across the street from Cabot’s Pueblo Museum, sits the Miracle Manor. The six-unit
Miracle Manor Retreat was built by Jim and Florence Martin of Los Angeles. Most
accounts say that it was built in 1949 and there are references to “Jim Martin, Miracle
Manor” in articles throughout the 1950s. But it wasn’t until December 1955 that the
Certificate of Business appeared in the newspaper and The Desert Sentinel ran an
article seen in figure 3.8 saying it opened for guests.
In 1960, Benjamin and Pauline Hudson bought the motel from the Martins. It was
later sold to Aurelia Krygier and made headlines in 1977 when guests found Krygier
Figure 3.7. Two Bunch Palms pool. Image from Visit Greater Palm Springs website.
78
strangled in her apartment on the property. A young one-time resident of the motel was
arrested for her murder.
146

Like other motels in Desert Hot Springs, Miracle Manor limped along throughout
the 1980s and early 1990s until designer April Greiman took her architect partner
Michael Rotondi there for a romantic getaway. It was Rotondi’s first time in Desert Hot
Springs when he remembers it being known as the “methamphetamine capital of the
United States.”
147
Rotondi says both the town and the motel had seen better days:
It had all 1960s and ‘70s furniture. It had polyester sheets and twin beds
that you roll together, and then in the middle of the night your beds
would be sliding apart, and you’d be lying in a hammock in between the
beds. There were no windows to the outside and the windows were filled
with air conditioners… People were out there for the climate and the

146
Desert Sun, April 7, 1977.
147
Interview with author, March 28, 2023.
Figure 3.8. Miracle Manor article from The Desert
Sentinel, December 1955.
79
water, and all of the motels were trying to look like they were in the
city.
148

Greiman and Rotondi, whom Sunset magazine described as a Buddhist
architect, bought the motel in 1997 from Lois Blackhill and her sister, and the new
owners did a make-over, taking off outer walls to “let sunlight bathe the whole place.”
149

They re-opened it as a boutique hotel with no kids or shoes allowed and no phones,
clocks, or TVs in the units. [Figure 3.9] I stayed at Miracle Manor in April of 1998, not
long after its re-opening. The rooms were minimalist and nicely designed with inviting
light, low platform beds with fluffy duvets, and comfy robes to wear out to the courtyard
where you could dip in 100+-degree pools and enjoy jaw-dropping views of the San
Jacinto Mountains.
150

148
Ibid.
149
Sunset, April 14, 2012. Accessed May 22, 2023. https://www.sunset.com/travel/insider-
guides/miracle-manor-retreat-desert-hot-springs.
150
The author stayed at Miracle Manor in April of 1998.
80
The purchase and renovation of the property by a high-powered Los Angeles
couple in the design and architecture world created a buzz and soon articles were
appearing in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, design and style magazine
Wallpaper, and others. Rotondi said the couple did not do any advertising and relied on
word-of-mouth. But, as he said, “it was hard work keeping the hotel going” and after
twenty-two years, Greiman and Rotondi decided to call it quits and they sold the
property in 2018.
151
It is now owned by an LLC called the Francis Hotel Group.
Bertram’s Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge
Nathaniel and Rose Bertram built the Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge at the top of Hacienda
Boulevard in 1960. The Bertrams’ granddaughter wrote an article in which she describes
the origin of the name: “…as guests lowered themselves into any of the three hot

151
Interview with author. March 28, 2023.
Figure 3.9. Miracle Manor, 2023. Photo by William Short.
81
mineral pools, they would invariably exclaim, ‘Ahhh, it’s a mahayah!’” which means
“blessing” or “joy” in Yiddish.
152
The lodge had three pools which Rose Bertram named
the Pool of Everlasting Love, the Pool of Everlasting Wisdom, and the Pool of Joy and
Laughter.
153
[Figure 3.10]

Rose Bertram, or RGB as she was known, was a dynamic figure. She was born
into a well-off Jewish family in Romania, who despite their wealth experienced
discrimination and antisemitism. When Rose was twelve, her father moved the family to

152
J. Correspondent, The Jewish News of Northern California, May 16, 1997. Accessed March 15, 2023.
https://jweekly.com/1997/05/16/in-first-person-joys-of-ma-ha-yah-lodge-mineral-pools-yiddishkeit/
153
Ibid.
Figure 3.0.10. Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge postcard. Year unknown. Photo from Desert Hot Springs Historical Society.

82
California.
154
She eventually met and married Nathaniel Bertram and they settled their
family of four children in Venice, California. Their daughter Mandy describes her father
as a “shy and private person” who worshipped Rose. Mandy’s memories of her mother
are as a whirlwind of activity -- always entertaining and campaigning for liberal causes.
Rose was involved in the Women’s City Club, the PTA, B’nai B’rith, and City of Hope,
and earned her law degree.
Rose Bertram started volunteering with City of Hope in 1921 and in 1933, the
executive director convinced her to leave her nascent legal career and be hired as a
fundraiser for the organization, which was originally established in 1914 as the Jewish
Consumptive Relief Society.
155
City of Hope ran a tuberculosis sanatorium and wanted
to build a medical center in Duarte where it was based. Bertram became City of Hope’s
National Director of Auxiliaries, a network of local chapters that raised money for the
institution. She reportedly increased the number of auxiliaries from 33 to 300, which
earned her the nickname “Mother of Auxiliaries.”
156
One chapter even named itself
R.G.B. Aides.
157
Rose Bertram retired from City of Hope in 1958, around the time that
she began suffering from painful arthritis.
158

Rose and Nat, now in their sixties, decided to relocate to Desert Hot Springs, first
building a motel with five rentals and an owner’s apartment in 1960, and a year later
building what they called the New Ma-Ha-Yah Lani, with twenty-four units and three

154
Much of the information on Rose Bertram comes from a letter written by her daughter Mandy to her
children in 1987, provided courtesy of Christopher Tandon.
155
The Jewish Consumptive Relief Society was renamed City of Hope – A Jewish National Medical
Center in 1949. Today, City of Hope is a world-famous research and treatment center for cancer and
other life-threatening diseases.
156
Selber, A Tribute: Rose G. Bertram, 1958.
157
Ibid.
158
Letter from Mandy Bertram to her children, 1987.
83
pools. The Lani was designed by Palm Desert-based architect John F. Outcault and
built by the Eliot Construction Company, owned by Zelda and Charles Eliot. [Figure
3.11].
Like Rose Bertram, Charles Eliot was born in Romania and his family moved to
Los Angeles in the 1920s. Zelda and Charles Eliot had a lucrative business in Los
Angeles before moving to Desert Hot Springs in the 1950s.
159
After her husband’s death
in 1964, Zelda Eliot was one of the few women in the desert area to qualify for a general
contractor’s license.
160
Ma-Ha-Yah was often the site of parties, for holidays, birthdays,
anniversaries, weddings, and prominent visitors to Desert Hot Springs. It’s unclear when
the Bertrams sold the property but in 2009 it was pretty much gutted, rebuilt and opened

159
State of California historic nomination application for Maggio/Davis Residence. P. 9. Accessed May
23, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://sandiego.cfwebtools.com/images/files/3757%20Via
%20Flores%20HRRR%20and%20Attachments_01_05_2022_rfs.pdf.
160
“Zelda Eliot Has A License As A Contractor,” Desert Sun, September 8, 1964.
Figure 3.11. Ad from The Desert Sentinel, March 31, 1961. From microfilm.

84
as the Bella Monte Hot Springs Resort Spa.
161
Today it is the Bella Monte Recovery
Center.
Hope Springs (formerly La Bella Sari)
La Bella Sari was built in 1963 and was owned and operated by two women:
Lillian R. Rose and Nettie H. Zide, both of Los Angeles. [Figure 3.12] The motel was
built in an area of Miracle Hill where the streets were laid out in a circular fashion. As
the Desert Sun reported, Rose and Zide were introduced to Desert Hot Springs by It’s
quite possible that the Bertrams met Nettie Zide, and possibly Lillian Rose, through
B’nai B’rith circles in Los Angeles.
162

Unsurprisingly, John F. Outcault and the Charles Eliot Construction Co. also

161
Riverside County Assessor records show that the property was sold in 1982 for $540,000; information
about its sale in 2009 comes from Zillow. Accessed May 23, 2023.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/68111-Calle-Las-Tiendas-Desert-Hot-Springs-CA-
92240/2127904127_zpid/.
162
A November 7, 1948 article in the Los Angeles Times lists Nat Bertram and Nettie Zide among the Los
Angeles residents at a B’nai B’rith event in San Francisco.
Figure 3.12. Article from Desert Sun, May 10, 1963.

85
designed and built La Bella Sari. [Figure 3.13]. Outcault’s involvement is an interesting
side note: he is not mentioned in any newspaper articles or other writings about Ma-Ha-
Yah or La Bella Sari. When Christopher Tandon and four partners bought what is now
Hope Springs in 2005, he was convinced that it had been designed by an architect.
Tandon described the design in an email to a friend:

Terrazzo floor, sunken fire pit with a custom split flue chimney, a dramatic
engineered roof to cover it, all part of a “wing” that is an “s” shape. Clearly,
it was not the work of general contractor. The rooms themselves were
intelligently designed, with large overhangs, shared kitchens, and
bathrooms that had direct access to the pools and courtyard. Very smart
and very modern with a very Wrightian influence that I assumed to be of
the period, but it was the design of the lobby and the attached owner’s
apartment that said “architecture.”
163

163
Letter from Christopher Tandon to Peter.
Figure 3.13. Article about La Bella Sari in Desert Sun, November 1, 1963

86
Tandon combed through county permits and spoke with Nettie Zide’s daughter, then in
her eighties, and former owners Jack and Renate Merzenrich, who bought the motel
from Lillian Rose. He reluctantly concluded no architect was involved, and that Charles
Eliot was the sole designer/builder. When I began my research, an internet search using
the terms “Desert Hot Springs” and “Charles Eliot” yielded one promising clue, as both
were mentioned in archive listings for architect John F. Outcault. I visited his archive
and discovered architectural drawings of Ma-Ha-Yah Lani and La Bella Sari. The
drawing in figure 3.14 shows the signature fireplace in the lobby of La Bella Sari.

Tandon also tried to track down the origin of the name “La Bella Sari.” Nettie
Zide’s daughter told him she thought it came from a relative named Sara.
164
But the

164
Sara is a name of Hebrew origin derived from the biblical name Sarah. It means “princess” or
“noblewoman.”; “What Does Sara Mean?” from VeryWell Family website. Accessed July 8, 2023.
https://www.verywellfamily.com/sara-name-meaning-origin-popularity-
Figure 3.14. Architectural drawing of La Bella Sari. From the John F.
Outcault archive, Architecture and Design Collection, University of
California, Santa Barbara.

87
Merzenrichs said “that Lillian Rose told them that it was a reference to/shortening of
Sahara.” Tandon wasn’t convinced by either explanation, but regardless of where the
name came from, the motel featured an outdoor “therapeutic” pool, a swimming pool, an
enclosed hydro-jet pool, and a “sunken wood burning fireplace in the lobby…”
165

[Figure 3.15] Some units had kitchens, and those that did not, had built-in refrigerators
in the bathrooms.
166
One of its most distinctive features was a Googie-like sign in front
of the property.

In 1969, Nettie Zide pulled out of the partnership (she died in 1970) and Lillian
Rose owned it for another two years before selling it. It had a succession of other

5179300#:~:text=The%20name%20Sara%20is%20of,translated%20to%20mean%20%22noblewoman.%
22.
165
“La Bella Sari Lodge Has Formal Opening,” Desert Sun, November 1, 1963.
166
Ibid.
Figure 3.15. Old postcard of La Bella Sari, circa early 1960s. Desert Hot Springs
Historical Society.

88
owners, one of whom changed the name to Cactus Springs Resort sometime in the late
1970s. For a time, the hotel served as low-income housing, until it was purchased in
1999 by Steve Samiof, founder and editor of the alternative magazine Slash, and his
business partner Mick Haggerty, a graphic designer. They undertook what Samiof
called an “arduous and difficult” renovation and reopened it with the name Hope Springs
Resort.
167
Like Miracle Manor, the rooms are sparsely decorated (they even took out the
closets) and the entire property is adorned with mid-century hues. As one travel website
described it “Hope Springs references two aspects of classic Californiana at once — on
the one hand, the mid-century modernist roadside motel (whose resurgence we just
can’t get enough of), and on the other, the natural hot springs that are the hotel’s main
attraction.”
168
[Figure 3.16]

167
Stephen Bridges, “Keeping “Hope” Alive” Palm Springs Life, May 20, 2018. Accessed May 22, 2023.
https://www.palmspringslife.com/hope-springs-resort/.
168
Explorra website. Accessed May 27, 2023. https://www.explorra.com/hotels/hope-springs-
resort_10301.
89

Sagewater Spa
The Sagewater Spa is about a block from Miracle Manor. It began life as the
Mona Lisa Motel when it was built in 1954 perched on Miracle Hill overlooking the valley
below. It was given a makeover and re-opened in 2002 by owners Rhoni Epstein and
Cristina Pestana who kept the renovation looking close to the original. It has seven
rooms that could be described as minimalist: bright white exterior with sharp angles,
and an open courtyard with a pool and grilling space. [Figure 3.17] Reminiscent of the
original mom-and-pop motel owners, Pestana and Epstein would serve their guests
coffee cake in the morning, and drinks in the late afternoon.
169
Scott Harner bought it in
2022 and sold it a year later.

169
Bender, Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2003.
Figure 3.16. Hope Springs exterior with curvilinear lines. Photo by William Short, 2022.
90

Figure 3.17. (L) Mona Lisa, date unknown; (R)
Sagewater, 2022. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.

91
Kismet Lodge
Kismet Lodge, on Mountain View Road, was originally built by Eddie and Rose
Deovlet. The name kismet derives from the Arabic word “qisma.” The English language
adopted the word kismet in the 1800s from Turkish term meaning fate.
170
The Deovlets
named their retirement property after the musical “Kismet,” which was first produced on
Broadway in 1953.
171
[Figure 3.18].

The property, which sports another iconic mid-century sign, was sold a few times, and
by the 1980s, the owners, Lise and Frederick Dellagatta, featured it as a “Health and
Beauty Spa and Art Center.” A 40x8 foot mural called "Seven Steps to The Center of

170
Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. Accessed May 24, 2023. https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/kismet.
171
Broadway Musical Home, Accessed May 24, 2023.
https://broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/kismet.htm#gsc.tab=0; information from Jeff Bowman, former
owner of the Kismet.
Figure 3.18. Kismet Lodge Postcard. Year unknown. Courtesy Desert Hot Springs
Historical Society.

92
the Earth Very Near the Sky" was painted on its parking lot wall by an artist named Sue
Merho.
172

Like other spas, Kismet fell into disrepair and was, for a time, used as
apartments until Jeff and Judy Bowman bought it in 2003, renovated it, and turned it
back into a spa. They added the name Living Waters Spa and offered a “clothing
optional” stay. [Figure 3.19] Jeff Bowman estimates they had 13 ,000 unique guests
during the sixteen years that they owned the spa from all fifty states, Europe, and other
parts of the world, and many were loyal guests who came back multiple times. Bowman
recounted one story about a guest who wrote to him after she had surgery:
She was really nervous about the surgery and the physician was
pretty smart. He said, “well, in your mind, can you go to your happy
place.” And she said, “my happy place was floating in the waters at
Living Waters Spa, looking up at night stars.
173

172
Ibid.; Sue K Murho. Accessed May 24, 2023. https://suemerho.com/about.
173
Interview by author with Jeff and Judy Bowman.
93
The Bowmans sold Living Waters in 2019 and it is now a recovery facility.
Desert Hot Springs Inn
The Desert Hot Springs Inn was opened in 1957 as the Monte Carlo on Hacienda
Avenue, one of the east/west main streets that intersect Palm Drive. [Figure 3.20] It was
owned by Anna and Harry Berkenblitt.

Figure 3.19. Kismet Lodge/Living Waters, February 2022. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.

Figure 3.20. Monte Carlo Motel. Date unknown. Desert Hot Springs Historical Society.

94
During the 1980s and ‘90s when motels were experiencing extreme drop-off, the
property was pretty much closed until 2000 when Steven Lowe, who at the time also
owned the Lautner hotel, refurbished it to its mid-century roots and opened it as the
Beat Hotel. Lowe was a friend and collaborator of William Burroughs, the well-known
Beat Generation author, and the hotel became a memorial to Burroughs and the Beats
by featuring memorabilia, artwork, photographs, and even a draft of a Burroughs’
manuscript.
174
As one guest wrote on Yelp in 2007: “Incredible library of Beat authors
and a real Mugwump from Naked Lunch that you can dine with in [sic] the morning.”
175

Steve Lowe died of a heart attack in January 2007.
John Thatcher bought it in 2017 and it became the first motel in Desert Hot
Springs to offer “cannabis-friendly lodging.”
176
[Figure 3.21] Thatcher says business
improved up to fifty percent and that many of the guests were baby boomers with
money.
177

174
“Good-Bye to Steve Lowe, Cultural Preservationist.” January 24, 2007. Accessed May 27, 2023.
http://palmspringscoralsands.blogspot.com/2007/01/good-bye-to-steven-lowe-cultural.html.
175
Yelp review. Accessed May 28, 2023. https://www.yelp.com/biz/beat-hotel-desert-hot-springs; a
“mugwump” is a creature featured in Burroughs’ most famous novel, Naked Lunch. They are alien-looking
monsters with long black tongues, think purple-blue lips and sharp beaks, who get nourishment from
sweets.
176
“Desert Hot Springs wants to be the Napa Valley of weed” by Matt Guilhern, KCRW, March 23, 2021.
Accessed May 27, 2023. https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/weed-economy-mining-death-
valley-coronavirus-memorabilia/cannabis-tourism-desert-hot-springs.
177
Los Angeles Times, Accessed May 27, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pot-friendly-
hotels-20180622-story.html.
95

Desert Hot Springs Spa Hotel
If you drive north on Palm Drive through Desert Hot Springs, you can’t help but
notice the Desert Hot Springs Spa Hotel. It’s huge compared to the spa-tels on Miracle
Hill. It was initially built in 1963 with only day spa services, an Olympic-size swimming
pool, five therapeutic mineral pools, sauna rooms, and poolside cabanas.
178
The
contractor on the project was Ernest W. Hahn who was one of the inventors of the
modern suburban shopping mall, and who envisioned malls as community centers with
daycare centers, skating rinks, and other activities along with retail business.
179

In 1970, a family of three brothers bought it and added fifty guest rooms that
surround a large courtyard with eight hot mineral water pools. John, Tony, and Kermit

178
“Desert Hot Springs Spa Work Finished,” Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1964.
179
“Ernest Hahn, Pioneer of the Modern Shopping Mall, Dies,” Los Angeles Times. December 29, 1992.
Accessed May 27, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-12-29-mn-2752-story.html.
Figure 3.21. Desert Hot Springs Inn. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.

96
Arnds were the sons of the Sparkletts Water founder. The Arnds were big game
hunters, and they decorated the hotel’s bar with stuffed bears, an elephant head, and
stuffed tigers and lions. [Figure 3.22]

The Arnds sold the hotel to John Jacobs in the late 1970’s, and Mike Bickford bought it
in 1979. Bickford still owns it as well as the Miracle Springs Resort & Spa.
Pil-O-Rox Rock House
This property is not a motel, but rather a single-family residence. This rock house
was built in 1946 in one of the first subdivisions in town, west of Palm Drive, at 66050
Third Street. It was reportedly one of the first homes built in the town, and it is one of
several rock or stone houses built in the Coachella Valley, including the Araby rock
Figure 3.22. International Lounge interior from Desert Hot Springs Spa Hotel. From Facebook page. Date
unknown.
97
houses in Palm Springs and in the nearby Whitewater Preserve.
180
The Third Street
rock house was designed and built by Lee Watkins for his wife Lenora. Watkins was in
his eighties when he and Lenora collected local rocks, and working without a blueprint,
began construction on the house.
181
He had help from others, including Les Morgan
who initiated the establishment of Angel View, and who called the Watkins “very grand
people.”
182
Watkins himself dubbed it Pil-O-Rox in a 1947 postcard of the house.
[Figure 3.23]

180
Desert Sun, April 21, 2023. Accessed May 5, 2023.
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/desert-hot-springs/2023/04/21/historic-home-desert-hot-
springs-museum-city-council/70129063007/.
181
Sidna? Fairweather, “The Rock Castle: A Hand-Wrought Desert Miracle.” Article source unknown;
provided by the Desert Hot Springs Historical Society archives.
182
Ibid.
Figure 3.23. Pil-O-Rox photo from the Steve Lech Collection. On California Desert Art website.
(https://www.californiadesertart.com/lomaland-pil-o-rox-diego-rivera-transcendental-painting-group-and-
more-news/).

98
The Desert Hot Springs Historical Society bought the rock house in 2019 and
solicited donations to renovate it. In April 2023, the Desert Hot Springs City Council
approved $25,000 to help the Historical Society finish renovations, especially to make it
compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In addition, it has been listed as a
historic property in Riverside County.
183
It will be used as a visitor center and museum,
and for events, and organizers hope to open it in Fall 2023. [Figure 3.24]

Angel View

Another facility prominent in the history of Desert Hot Springs is the Angel View
Crippled Children’s Foundation, which is still in operation and is now called Angel View.
It was founded in 1954 on a natural hot spring – at the height of the polio epidemic -- by
parents whose children suffered from polio. Angel View is not a spa-tel, but its main

183
Typically, county designations are not used for historic resources in an incorporated city. However,
Riverside County (RIVCO) does designate properties in the un- and incorporated areas of the county.
RIVCO's Office of Preservation says the county is not excluded from listing historic resources, as long as
the city does not have planning and zoning laws that restrict the properties; email to author from Bridget
Lawlor, Riverside County Historic Preservation Officer, August 10, 2023.
Figure 3.22: Pil-O-Rox, Photos from Desert Hot Springs Historical Society

Figure 3.25. Photo of Angel on San Jacinto Mountain. Image
from coachellavalley.com.Figure 3.22: Pil-O-Rox, Photos from Desert
Hot Springs Historical Society

Figure 3.22: Pil-O-Rox, Photos from Desert Hot Springs Historical Society

Figure 3.25. Photo of Angel on San Jacinto Mountain. Image
from coachellavalley.com.Figure 3.22: Pil-O-Rox, Photos from Desert
Hot Springs Historical Society

Figure 3.25. San Jacinto Mountains. Image from
coachellavalley.com.Figure 3.22: Pil-O-Rox, Photos from Desert Hot
Springs Historical Society

Figure 3.25. Photo of Angel on San Jacinto Mountain. Image
from coachellavalley.com.Figure 3.22: Pil-O-Rox, Photos from Desert
Hot Springs Historical Society

Figure 3.24. Rock House. Photos courtesy of the Desert Springs Historical Society.

99
facility was built right in the heart of the spa zone on Miracle Hill Road and was an
outgrowth of the search for healing from the mineral hot springs. The driving force
behind its establishment was Leslie and Ferne Morgan, whose son Michael fully
recovered from the disease by the time he was 15. Morgan came up with the name to
reflect a white granite formation on Mount San Jacinto that some people likened to the
wings of an angel.
184
[Figure 3.25] A groundbreaking was held in 1955 on Miracle Hill
Road on 9.13 acres of land deeded by Aubrey Wardman, the businessman from
Whittier, California who worked with L.W. Coffee to develop subdivisions in Desert Hot
Springs.
Dr. Robert Bingham became the facility’s first medical director. He was an
orthopedic surgeon and a founder of the Sister Kenny Polio Hospital in El Monte,
California.
185
Fundraising and support for Angel View became an important part of the
civic and social life of Desert Hot Springs. There were carnivals, booths at the Riverside
County Fair and the date festival held in Indio, celebrity endorsements, auxiliary groups
that formed to spread the word, and other promotional campaigns to fund the
rehabilitation hospital. [Figure 3.26]

184
Images of America: Desert Hot Springs. p. 67.
185
“Angel View Auxiliary to Hear Dr. Bingham,” The Desert Sentinel. March 3, 1955.
100

After the polio vaccine eradicated the disease, Angel View transitioned to treating
children and adults with intellectual and physical disabilities.
186
Today the facility
operates residential group homes and therapeutic day programs and has a network of
resale stores in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
187

186
From the Angel View website’s “About” page. Accessed March 22, 2023. https://angelview.org/about-
angel-view/.
187
Ibid.
Figure 3.26. Historic photo from the Angel View website, date unknown.
101
CHAPTER 4: Historic Designation Options

This chapter will look at historic designation tools that are available to protect the
historic fabric of Desert Hot Springs and Chapter 5 will present recommendations that
would aid the town and its residents. Generally, there are three options for historic
designation: federal, state, and local (either county or city). Typically, local designation
provides the most protection because it is embedded in local land use codes.
The National Register of Historic Places has recognized the historic and cultural
value of sites associated with hot springs in the United States. The map in figure 4.1
shows the location of hot springs in the United States and there is a notable
concentration in California and other parts of the West. These natural geothermal
waters were significant to Indigenous peoples in ancient times, to settlers and residents
who came in the last three-hundred years, and to health and wellness seekers.
Figure 4.1. Map of hot springs locations. From databayou.com.

102
National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places Criteria
The National Register of Historic Places was established by the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966 to be an official list of “historic places worthy of
preservation.”
188
The program is administered by the National Park Service and uses
criteria established by the Secretary of the Interior, to determine the: a) significance of
historic resources; b) the historic integrity of the resources (location, design, setting,
materials, workmanship, feeling and association); and c) the historic context.
189
The
National Register criteria for listing are used to evaluate the potential significance of
properties:
A. That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to
the broad patterns of our history; or
B. That are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
C. That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of
construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic
values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose
components may lack individual distinction; or
D. That have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory
or history.
Additionally, the criteria mandates that in most cases, properties must be more than fifty
years old to qualify, and must have “integrity,” insofar as they still convey their historic

188
“What is the National Register of Historic Places?” National Park Service website. Accessed July 25,
2023. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/what-is-the-national-register.htm.
189
“How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation,” National Register Bulletin 15, 1990. P. 2.
103
significance as regards to the location, design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling,
and association.
190
Although properties do not need to retain all seven aspects of
integrity to be eligible for listing, they must retain sufficient integrity to convey the
reasons for significance.
Under federal law, privately owned property cannot be listed in the National
Register if an owner objects. However, if the State Historical Resources Commission
(SHRC) formally determines that it is eligible for listing, it will still be listed in the
California Register of Historical Resources and given the same protection as listed
properties in any state or federal environmental review process, though it won’t be
eligible for federal tax benefits.
191

Federal designation does not prevent demolition or in any way limit what can be
done with the historic resources, but it is a mark of distinction that recognizes the
property’s significance and can be useful in promoting heritage tourism (see Chapter 5)
and in the planning process.
192
Additionally, federal designation can provide benefits,
such as a twenty percent federal historic rehabilitation tax credit that can finance the
rehabilitation of historic buildings, and there may be tax deductions for preservation
easements, and federal listing ensures that federal agencies consider how building
federally funded projects impacts the historic site(s).
193

190
Ibid.
191
“How to Support or Object to National Register Listing.” Office of Historic Preservation, California
Department of Parks and Recreation. February 1999.
192
Cassity, “Maintaining Community Character: How to Establish a Local Historic District.” National Trust
Publication. 1992. p. 7.
193
National Register of Historic Places Fact Sheet. March 5, 2019. P. 1.
104
Desert Hot Springs Eligibility
Based on the research provided herein, the period of significance for the spa-tels
in Desert Hot Springs is from 1940 to1965. Its collection of spa-tels appear to meet
Criterion A (associated with events) for its association with mid-century development in
Southern California and the health and wellness trend in the United States.
Additionally, the spa-tels may also meet the requirements of Criterion C (embody the
distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction … or that
represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual
distinction) for embodying the distinctive characteristics of the spa-tel property type of
the 1950s and 1960s.
194

Historic District vs. Multiple Property Submission
The National Register allows for the listing of more than one property
simultaneously under a single historic context, which the National Register classifies as
“multiple property submissions.” The nomination requires, “historic contexts, selection of
related property types, and the identification and documentation of related significant
properties.”
195
The significance is explained in a “historic context statement,” which
documents the “patterns or trends in history” that show whether the properties have
“relevance and importance in illustrating the historic context,” and how they illustrate
that relevance.
196
Historic context standards include three elements: historical theme,
geographical area, and chronological period.

194
Ibid.
195
“Guidelines For Local Surveys: A Basis For Preservation Planning,” National Bulletin Register 24.
1985. p. 2.
196
How to Complete the National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form” National Register
Bulletin 16B. p. 1.
105
Historic District Definition

Historic Districts are a classification on the National Register that apply to areas
that “constitute a unified whole that can be categorized as a district,” and “convey a
visual sense of the overall historic environment or be an arrangement of historically or
functionally related properties.”
197
For instance, a residential neighborhood with a
distinct style of architecture, or a historic ranch or industrial site would be candidates for
a historic district. Most properties within a district must be a contiguous grouping of
buildings or structures, and within the designated area most structures should be
“contributing” properties that retain a historical connection to the development patterns
of the district.
198
However, a district can include some “non-contributing” properties,
such as those that have been altered or built after the period of significance. Riverside
County has eighteen historic districts on the National Register, including the Grand
Boulevard Historic District in Corona. As figure 4.2 shows, it is a circular district with
historic homes, streetlights, pocket parks, and many contributing properties in its three-
mile zone that are connected and in close proximity of each other. The district was
recognized not only for its historic structures, but for its association with early twentieth-
century road races. It has 158 contributing and 89 non-contributing properties.
199

197
Ibid., p. 11; p. 5.
198
About Historic Districts,” Los Angeles Conservancy. Accessed July 29, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.laconservancy.org/sites/default/files/files/resou
rces/About%20Historic%20Districts.pdf.
199
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Grand Boulevard. 2011. Accessed July 29,
2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-
records/rg-079/NPS_CA/11000432.pdf.
106

Multiple Property Submission Definition
Multiple property submission streamlines the process of nominating “groups of
related significant properties.”
200
It uses the same criteria for evaluation as any historic
property, and its “thematically” related properties are arranged by associated historic
contexts and property types. The Virginia Beach Oceanfront Resort Motels and Hotels
(1955-1970) is an example of Multiple Property Listing. Virginia Beach, Virginia had a

200
“How to Complete the National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form,” National Register
Bulletin 16B. 1999.
Figure 4.2. Grand Boulevard Historic District, Corona, California. Map from
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.

107
collection of some seventy motels and hotels on the city’s beach frontage.
201
[Figure
4.3] Many are now owned by national chains, but as of 2021, it was estimated that
twenty motels and hotels are extant in the city’s beach area.
202
Some of its historic
contexts mirror those of Desert Hot Springs, such as “Early Twentieth Century Vacation
Accommodations” and “Emergence of the Postwar Motel.”
203
But unlike Desert Hot
Springs, the area features both vernacular motels and architecturally designed hotel
properties.
The same principles for owner objections apply to historic districts. Each owner
or partial owner has one vote “regardless of what part of the property that person
owns.”
204
However, if an owner objects to a multiple property submission, their property

201
Virginia Beach Oceanfront Resort Motels and Hotels (1955-1970) Multiple Property Nomination Form,
2021. p. 3.
202
Ibid.
203
Ibid., p. 2.
204
“How to Support or Object to National Register Listing.” Office of Historic Preservation, California
Department of Parks and Recreation. February 1999.
Figure 4.3. Oceanfront, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Image from GPSMYCITY.co

108
will not be listed in the National Register but, if determined eligible by the SHRC, will be
listed in the California Register.
The Hotelier’s Association in Desert Hot Springs has unofficially designated
much of Miracle Hill as a “Spa Zone,” however, its boundaries are not contiguous, as
there are numerous non-contributing properties, mostly homes, that have built up
around and in between the spa-tels. There are also relevant properties on the east and
west side of Palm Drive, the town’s main artery, about two miles from the Miracle Hill
concentration. For this reason, the multiple property documentation approach is more
appropriate in terms of National Register designation than nominating the properties as
a historic district. Figure 4.4 is a static Google Earth map that indicates the location of
extant properties in Desert Hot Springs and shows the areas where they are
concentrated.
205
A survey would be needed to identify all of the potentially significant
resources and to assess the integrity of the extant properties.

205
The map can also be accessed with this link:
https://earth.google.com/earth/d/1Bff40IWzj_SaQ8NfEa1-hzpJT9vrFhVd?usp=sharing.
109

California Register of Historical Resources
The National Historic Preservation Act established the State Preservation Office
program, which is required by law to be consistent with the federal program and the
Secretary of the Interior’s Standards. Resources in California that are listed in or
formally determined eligible for the National Register are automatically listed on the
California Register of Historical Resources.
206
The California Register is administered
by the State Historical Resources Commission within the Office of Historic Preservation
and the Department of Parks and Recreation. It seeks to “identify, evaluate, register,
and protect California’s historical resources.”
207

206
“California Historical Landmarks Registration,” Office of Historic Preservation website.
https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21747.
207
“California Register of Historical Resources,” Office of Historic Preservation website.
https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21238.
Figure 4.4. Google Earth map of historic resources.

110
California Register of Historic Resources Criteria
Properties eligible for listing in the California Register must meet at least one of
the following criteria, which are modeled after those on the National Register:
1. Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad
patterns of local or regional history or the cultural heritage of California or the
United States.
2. Associated with the lives of persons important to local, California or national
history.
3. Embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region, or method of
construction or represents the work of a master or possesses high artistic values.
4. Has yielded, or has the potential to yield, information important to the
prehistory or history of the local area, California, or the nation.
208

State designation offers “limited protection” by requiring environmental review
under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) if a property is threatened by a
discretionary project that is under consideration.
209
Properties might also be eligible for
tax reductions under the Mills Act (see below), and owners of historic properties can use
the more flexible State Historic Building Code rather than the Uniform Building Code.
That might also lead to cost savings. As noted elsewhere, historical designation can
result in higher property values, and as the Office of Historic Preservation writes, “listing
alerts local government officials, property owners, and interested citizens to ‘stop, look,

208
Ibid.
209
Ibid.
111
and listen’ before making decisions that may cause irreparable damage to a non-
renewable and irreplaceable aspect of California’s cultural and historical heritage.”
210

Some properties may be eligible for listing in the California Register even if they
are not eligible for listing in the National Register. The primary differences between the
two programs are the fifty-year age requirement and the integrity thresholds. Properties
that are not yet fifty years of age may be eligible for listing in the California Register
even if they are not eligible for federal listing. Similarly, properties that may not retain
sufficient integrity for listing in the National Register may still be eligible for state listing.
Desert Hot Springs Eligibility
Desert Hot Springs’ spa-tels would be eligible under Criterion 1, and Criterion 3,
both for similar reasons as those mentioned above under National Register criteria. As
with federal nomination, eligible resources in California must also retain enough of their
“historic character or appearance to be recognizable as historical resources and to
convey the reason for their significance.”
211
Sometimes, properties that have not
maintained sufficient integrity under national criteria can still be eligible for listing in the
California Register.
212

210
“Technical Assistance Series #3,” California Office of Historic Preservation, Department of Parks and
Recreation,“ September 4, 2002. p. 4.
211
Ibid., p. 11.
212
Ibid.
112
Local Preservation Ordinances
The California Office of Historic Preservation estimates that more than 250 city
governments in California have enacted historic preservation ordinances.
213
Desert Hot
Springs does not have a local preservation ordinance, and according to City
Councilman Gary Gardner, has never considered one. Local ordinances are often
based on the criteria used by the National and California Registers, but they vary
because they can be tailored to the needs of the community and allow a local
government to decide which types of historical resources it wants to cover.”
214
Usually,
sites deemed historic are placed on a local listing of historic resources and “provide a
level of protection through a design process review.”
215

The important questions for a city to ask itself when considering a historic
preservation ordinance are:
• Purpose (protect historic resources, stabilize troubled neighborhoods, economic
incentives)
• Which resources should be protected.
• What is the best way to protect historic resources.
• How will the city administer and enforce the ordinance.
216

California’s Office of Historic Preservation advises that a local ordinance stands a better
chance of surviving legal challenges if the local government can show that it has made
preservation a part of its “overall effort to foster and promote the general welfare and
well being of the community as a whole…”
217

213
“Drafting Effective Historic Preservation Ordinances” p. 1. Accessed June 8, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1069/files/14_hp_ordinanc
es.pdf.
214
Ibid.
215
“Historic Preservation Ordinance,” Los Angeles Conservancy website. Accessed July 5, 2023.
https://www.laconservancy.org/node/1464.
216
“Drafting Effective Historic Preservation Ordinances,” Office of Historic Preservation, State of
California. p. 2-3.
217
Ibid., p. 7.
113
Advantages of Local Ordinances
Property owners sometimes balk at the idea of historic preservation ordinances,
perceiving them as a threat to their autonomy to make decisions about their property as
they see warranted. Preservation efforts can get caught up in anti-regulation sentiment,
especially in a place like Desert Hot Springs where the mindset can be described as
libertarian. Certainly, ordinances should not be written so restrictively as to infringe on
the rights of property owners, but local governments have been given the responsibility
and power to regulate land use in their jurisdictions, and indeed, the United States
Supreme Court has continually affirmed the constitutionality of historic preservation
ordinances to “enhance the quality of life by preserving the character and desirable
aesthetic features of a city.”
218

One area under local control is what level of protection a city ordinance will
provide against demolition. The National Trust for Historic Preservation (National Trust)
has identified a scenario called “Demolition by Neglect” wherein a property owner
intentionally allows a historic property to suffer such severe decline that it is beyond
repair or rehabilitation.
219
This tactic is sometimes used as a way to get around
preservation laws or by owners and developers who want to replace older, decaying
structures with higher-priced buildings.
220
As the National Trust writes, “The most
important tool for controlling demolition by neglect is a carefully drafted provision in the

218
National Trust for Historic Preservation, “A Citizen’s Guide to Protecting Historic Places: Local
Preservation Ordinances.” 2002. p. 1. Accessed June 13, 2023. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://mrsc.org/getmedia/0E24E2FB-023D-45E0-A611-
96B94FF43F35/toolkit.aspx.
219
“Demolition by Neglect,” National Trust for Historic Preservation. 2009. p. 1. Accessed July 5, 2023.
chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://historicharvard.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/demolit
ion-by-neglect-national-trust-for-historic-preservation.pdf.
220
“Demolition of neglected properties,” Local Housing Solutions website.
114
local preservation ordinance requiring affirmative maintenance and ensuring that the
local commission is equipped with adequate remedies for enforcement authority.”
221

San Francisco and other cities, as well as a few states, have precise and specific
language in their preservation ordinances to address this scenario.
222

Preservation efforts offer a variety of benefits for cities, such as bringing vitality to
downtowns, creating housing, increasing tourism, and promoting and managing
growth.
223
A number of jurisdictions have set up direct grant programs for rehabilitation
or assistance in obtaining private funding for either rehabilitation, finding prospective
buyers for historic properties, or flexible zoning laws.
224
California’s Office of Historic
Preservation recognizes that direct economic assistance may be difficult for smaller
cities, but the “idea is to make preservation easy for owners of historical resources.”
225

Jurisdictions throughout the United States have created historic districts around
resort and motel areas. The Wildwoods Shore Resort Historic District in New Jersey,
popularly known as the Doo Wop Motel District, is listed on the National Register of
Historic Places. It was home to more than three-hundred motels in the 1950s and
1960s, many in Googie style and with flashy neon signs. Listing on the National
Register has not stopped the loss of historic resources in the district and in past years,
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has included the Doo Wop motels on its “11

221
“Demolition by Neglect,” National Trust for Historic Preservation. 2009. p. 1. Accessed July 5, 2023.
chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://historicharvard.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/demolit
ion-by-neglect-national-trust-for-historic-preservation.pdf.
222
Ibid., p. 3-4.
223
California Preservation Foundation Webinar. Megan Brown, CLG Coordinator, National Park Service.
2022. Accessed June 10, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21LYU1xz-3s.
224
“Drafting Effective Historic Preservation Ordinances,” Office of Historic Preservation, State of
California. p. 6-7.
225
Ibid., p. 69.
115
Most Endangered List” as development pressures have resulted in several hundred
motels being demolished.
226
Local preservationists are frustrated that national listing
doesn’t offer properties much protection and they would like to see the City of Wildwood
adopt a historic preservation ordinance to strengthen its protection of these old motels.
Just last year a hotel company announced plans to restore the Ocean View, a property
that was in danger of demolition.
227

Economic Incentives and Historic Preservation
This section will look at the major economic tools and tax incentives at the
federal and state level available to encourage the rehabilitation and re-use of historic
structures owned by homeowners and the private sector.
Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives
The Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit offers a twenty percent tax credit for
expenses associated with substantially rehabilitating buildings used for income-
generation or for business. A tax credit lowers the amount of tax that an owner owes by
one dollar for each dollar of tax credit. The program requires owners to comply with the
Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and credits cannot be used for
properties that are exclusively used as an owner’s private residence.
228
To be eligible
for the credit, the owner must submit a Historic Preservation Certification Application to

226
Tobia, ““Preservationist Hopes Doo Wop Motel Restoration Will Lead to Historic District in the
Wildwoods.” Jersey Digs, September 29, 2022. Accessed June 8, 2023. https://jerseydigs.com/doo-wop-
motel-restoration-wildwood/.
227
Ibid.
228
“Historic Preservation Tax Incentives,” National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. 2012. p.
4.
116
the State Historic Preservation Office which makes its recommendation on whether to
approve the credit to the National Park Service.
An eligible property must also meet basic requirements of the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS), i.e. it must depreciable because it is used for income generation, and the
rehabilitation must be substantial, and it must be put “back in service” at the end of its
reconstruction.
229
In addition, the owner must keep the building for five years after the
improvements are made or they have to pay back the tax credit.
230
A number of
expenses qualify for the tax credit, including architectural and engineering services,
legal fees, and construction-related costs.
231

Over the forty-seven years that the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives
have been in place, there have been more than 48,000 projects completed in all fifty
states, the majority of them in economically disadvantaged areas.
232
The National Park
Service reported in 2021 that it created almost three million jobs since it was
established in 1976 and that it has generated $38.1 billion in federal tax revenue from
$32.9 billion in tax credits.
233

California Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit
The success of the federal tax incentives has prompted 39 states to implement
their own tax credits for preservation and development.
234
In 2019, California passed a

229
Ibid., p. 9,10.
230
Ibid., p.13.
231
Ibid. p. 10.
232
Jay Landers, “California’s new tax credit will boost historic preservation efforts,” Civil Engineering
Source. September 13, 2021.
233
Daniel Thomas Mollenkamp, “Rehabilitation Credit (Historic Preservation). Investopedia, Mary 24,
2023.
234
Landers, “California’s new tax credit will boost historic preservation efforts,” Civil Engineering Source.
September 13, 2021.
117
historic tax credit that provides up to fifty-million dollars in tax credits annually, and fully
funded it through 2025. The program allocates eight million dollars for qualifying
projects that cost less than one million dollars, and two million dollars are available for
the rehabilitation of historic residences.
235
Additionally, California offers a five percent
bonus for the following projects:
236

• Structures on government surplus property or land
• Structures that include affordable housing for low-income households
• Structures in a designated census tract where unemployment and poverty
rates are within the top twenty-five percent in California
• Structures within a military base reuse authority
• Structures that are part of transit-oriented developments
Two of these bonus requirements could apply to Desert Hot Springs, including historic
spa-tels that are now available for low-income housing, and for census tracts with high
rates of unemployment and poverty. Desert Hot Springs is one of the poorest cities in
California. The most recent U.S. Census figures list the poverty rate at 26.3 percent,
though in 2019 it was 31.1 percent.
237

Mills Act Property Tax Abatement Program
Private property owners in California may also be eligible for tax reductions under
the Mills Act, a tax incentive statute that supports the rehabilitation of qualified historic
property. Cities and counties can enter into ten-year contracts with property owners to
reduce property taxes as long as the owners use the savings for the “rehabilitation,

235
Ibid.
236
Ibid.
237
QuickFacts, Desert Hot Springs, U.S. Census Bureau. July 1, 2022.
118
restoration, and maintenance” of historic resources.
238
The Mills Act is administered and
implemented by local governments. The California Office of Historic Preservation says
the Mills Act is the “single most important economic incentive for the restoration and
preservation” of historic resources, a 2022 assessment of the City of Los Angeles Mills
Act Program found that in California, “administration of Mills Act programs generally
requires more resources than municipalities can typically provide.”
239
Additionally, in
Los Angeles, the study found that commercial properties only accounted for five percent
of the program.
240

City Planning Considerations
As Phillips and Stein point out, there is not necessarily a link between historic
buildings and quality of life, and residents may not be able to “access, enjoy or use
historic resources.”
241
The restored spa-tels in Desert Hot Springs, which now refer to
themselves as boutique hotels, are out of reach financially for most people who reside
in the town. However, the city’s coffers benefit from the Transient Occupancy Tax
(TOT); the more guests the hotels attract, the more taxes they generate.
The intent of preservation efforts is not to prohibit change but to manage it so
cities do not lose their “unique identity.”
242
Local governments are confronting a variety

238
Gallegos, “An Outcome Analysis of the Mills Act in Three Exemplar Cities,” master’s thesis. P. 11-12.
239
“Mills Act Program” Office of Historic Preservation website. https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21412;
“City of Los Angeles Mill Act Program Assessment and Equity Analysis,” City of Los Angeles Department
of City Planning and Office of Historic Resources. June 2022. P. 12.
240
Ibid. p. 5.
241
Phillips and Stein, “An Indicator Framework for Linking Historic Preservation and Community
Economic Development” in Social Indicators Research, p. 4. Accessed June 13, 2023.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/24719399.
242
Oberg, “How Urban Conservation Can Preserve the Heritage of a City.” Urbanplanningdegree.com.
March 23, 2021. Accessed June 13, 2023. https://urbanplanningdegree.com/how-urban-conservation-
can-preserve-the-heritage-of-a-city/.
119
of challenges and preservation may not be considered a high priority, however, when
preservation is incorporated into city planning, it can provide a road map for “directing
future growth and development.”
243
Desert Hot Springs has been steadily gaining
population, unlike many other small cities in America. It was the fastest-growing city in
the Coachella Valley in the 2020 census, with a population gain of 25.3 percent.
244

However, with a median household income of just under $38,000 and a poverty rate of
26.3 percent it is important that the tourism sector benefit residents.
245

Desert Hot Springs Economic Incentives
Desert Hot Springs director of economic development, Sean Smith, says the city
acknowledges the balance it must strike between both constituencies:
It's a fine line between what's going to attract people to come visit and
what the residents want and what they need. So, what's good for
tourism is not always good for residents, but the converse is true.
What's good for residents is almost always good for tourism. If we focus
on what their initial needs are, and I think we will get to the point where
we'll have to go, Okay, let's timeout, let's really think about the next
wave of development and what it looks like because now, we don't want
to be overwhelmed by it.
246

The relationship between the city and the hotels is one that city leaders
recognize as crucial to Desert Hot Springs’ identity and survival.
247
In 2021, the city

243
“An Indicator Framework for Linking Historic Preservation and Community Economic Development” in
Social Indicators Research, p. 1.
244
“Census 2020: Coachella Valley is growing and diversifying – but not as fast as the rest of the
country,” Desert Sun, August 15, 2021. Accessed June 14, 2023.
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2021/08/15/census-2020-coachella-valley-growing-slowly-and-
diversifying/8118911002/.
245
US Census Bureau. Accessed June 15, 2023.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/deserthotspringscitycalifornia.
246
Author interview with Sean Smith, January 31, 2023.
247
Based on conversations with Desert Hot Springs City Manager, City Council member and Economic
Development Director, and the Desert Hot Springs General Plan, May 26, 2020. chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://storage.googleapis.com/proudcity/deserthotspringsc
a/uploads/2021/11/Desert-Hot-Springs-General-Plan-Adopted-07-2020-Small.pdf.
120
council approved an economic incentive agreement to give owners who want to buy a
non-operational hotel and restore it, a one-hundred percent waiver on its transit
occupancy tax for two years. Azure Palms Hot Springs Resort and Day Spa Oasis
(Azure) on Hacienda Boulevard took advantage of the program. Azure had been an
abandoned hotel property when Maria Lease bought it just before the COVID pandemic
shut down travel. She moved forward with renovations and was allowed to keep Azure’s
revenues that otherwise would have gone toward paying the transient occupancy tax for
two years to subsidize the extensive renovation and allow Lease to build an extra day
spa facility. According to city councilman Gary Gardner, the property wasn’t producing
any TOT before Lease bought it, so the city was banking on the hope that the
agreement would ultimately increase future transit occupancy taxes, property taxes, and
sales revenues, and lead to more jobs for residents.
248
Day spa passes are between
$56 and $72, and overnight stays can be well upwards of $300/night. [Figure 4.5] Azure
Palms is now a rival to the more well-known Two Bunch Palms as a luxury, all-
encompassing facility, each offering dining, massage, and spa treatments, gift shops,
yoga, and other classes. treatments, gift shops, yoga, and other classes.

248
Rode, “Desert Hot Springs TOT agreement with local resort could be model for wider program.” Desert
Sun, July 7, 2021. Accessed June 15, 2023. https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/desert-hot-
springs/2021/07/07/desert-hot-springs-oks-tot-revenue-sharing-agreement-azure-palm/7884484002/.

Figure 4.4: (Left) Azure Palms. Photo by William Short.
(Right) Restaurant at Azure Palms. Photo by Willa
Seidenberg

Figure 4.4: (Left) Azure Palms. Photo by William Short.
(Right) Restaurant at Azure Palms. Photo by Willa
Seidenberg

Figure 4.4: (Left) Azure Palms. Photo by William Short.
(Right) Restaurant at Azure Palms. Photo by Willa
Seidenberg

Figure 4.4: (Left) Azure Palms. Photo by William Short.
(Right) Restaurant at Azure Palms. Photo by Willa
Seidenberg

Figure 4.6. Desert Hot Springs Spa, Palm
Drive. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.Figure 4.4: (Left)
Azure Palms. Photo by William Short.
(Right) Restaurant at Azure Palms. Photo by Willa
121

Two Bunch Palms and Azure are on Miracle Hill. Two counterparts on Palm
Drive, near the original Coffee’s Bathhouse, are Desert Hot Springs Spa Hotel and
Miracle Springs Resort and Spa, both owned by Mike Bickford. They are also large, all-
encompassing properties but far more modest in their accommodations and less
expensive; you can find a room for under $100. [Figure 4.6] Those large properties
bring visitors and tourist dollars to Desert Hot Springs, but they are not representative of
the mom-and-pop ventures – like Miracle Manor, Hope Springs, and Sagewater – that
marked the unique mid-century character of the town during the 1950s and 1960s.
The town has unofficially practiced adaptive reuse since the late 1970s, when
many of the spa-tels were repurposed as apartment complexes as seen in figure 4.7.
Figure 4.5.. Azure Palms Hot Springs Resort, Hacienda
Boulevard. Photos by Willa Seidenberg.

122
However, other properties are in danger of disappearing. In March of 2023, the city
demolished an entire block that included four motels: the Sahara Hotel & Spa, The
White House, the Stardust, and Las Primaveras. Figure. 4.8 shows some of the area as

it was being demolished, and figure 4.9 shows the large empty lot that was left after
Figure 4.6. Desert Hot Springs Spa, Palm Drive. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
Figure 4.7. Former Smile Inn. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.

123
demolition. The city took action after a fire left a woman dead at the abandoned
property. City officials say unhoused people had been squatting at the property and
posed a “public safety concern. In addition, another abandoned property on Club Circle
Drive (seen on page 31) was also demolished.

Figure 4.8. Sahara and other spa-tels being demolished March 28, 2023. Photo from The Desert Sun.
124

Figure 4.9. Site of former Sahara, White House, Primavera, and Star Dust motels. June 21, 2023.
Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
125
CHAPTER 5: Recommendations
The community of Desert Hot Springs has grown and changed in the decades
since it was incorporated in 1963. It has now been a city long enough to have historic
properties that need to be factored into its planning efforts. This chapter will look at six
recommendations for the preservation of the spa-tels in Desert Hot Springs:
1. Conduct a historic resource survey.
2. Apply for a National Register designation using the Multiple Property
Submission form.
3. Enact a historic preservation ordinance.
4. Become a Certified Local Government.
5. Enact a Business Legacy program.
6. Take advantage of Heritage Tourism.
Historic Resources Survey
A historic resources survey is a critical effort for the city to undertake as it plans
for the management and protection of its historic resources. Also, because it will identify
eligible historic resources, it is an important first step in the process of nominating
properties to federal and state registers. Surveys documenting the archaeological,
architectural, and historical significance and their condition “enable planning decisions
to be made against a preservation background.”
249
In addition, they give town leaders
concrete information to provide a rationale and structure for important land-use and
preservation decisions.

249
Ibid., p.24.
126
Surveys systematically document historic properties in a defined geographic
area, such as a city or neighborhood, or a thematic one, such as sites along the
Underground Railroad. The National Register lists three considerations that should be
kept in mind while conducting a local survey:
1. Stages and patterns of area settlement and development, important
events, and significant persons.

2. Aesthetic and artistic values embodied in architecture, art,
craftsmanship, construction technology, or the style and work of a master.

3. Research values or problems related to the area's prehistory and
history, social and physical sciences and humanities, and local cultural
interests.
250

A survey would fully document significant historic contexts and themes, properties that
relate to those themes, and whether those properties meet eligibility criteria and retain
sufficient integrity to convey significance. Surveys often include a community outreach
component, which can be an important engagement tool for residents, or even high
school classes, to learn about the town’s history, and become involved in the civic life of
their community. The town of Alexandria, Virginia was able to get funding through the
Certified Local Government program (see below) for a Digital Collection app for its
architectural survey of four-thousand buildings.
251
One benefit of surveys is they can
provide an endangered properties list to guide the city’s work in preventing the
demolition of cherished properties and be useful after a disaster to direct funds and
effort to important damaged properties.

250
Ibid., p. 7.
251
City of Alexandria, Virginia website. Accessed June 13, 2023. https://www.alexandriava.gov/historic-
preservation/digital-architectural-survey-of-the-old-and-historic-alexandria-district.
127
The work of the Desert Hot Springs Historical Society and the spreadsheet of
historic motel/spas in the appendix of this thesis could provide an initial roadmap for
such a survey.
National Register Designation
Designation on the National Register of Historic Places provides tangible and
intangible benefits, including access to funding, government tax relief, and other
economic incentives, as well as technical expertise, greater visibility, and new
opportunities for promoting the town to outsiders. As noted in Chapter 4, the Multiple
Property Submission would allow properties within the city to be included in the
designation. The submission could be organized as following:
Name: Desert Hot Springs Historic Spa-Tels
Associated Historic Contexts: Development of mid-twentieth century motel spas,
historical uses of natural hot mineral water, development of post-World War II motel and
health and wellness leisure travel, development of Southern California desert areas,
Jewish immigration and leisure in post-war Coachella Valley.
Associated Property Types: Vernacular small motel construction, relationship to hot
water aquifers.
Geographical Data: City of Desert Hot Springs, Riverside County.
If a National Register designation is obtained, the spa-tels would automatically
result in a listing on the California Register, thereby making more tax credits available to
owners.
128
Historic Preservation Ordinance
Enacting a historic preservation ordinance is the best way to protect the town’s
character and give it the ability to integrate preservation into its long-range economic
planning. The loss of five spa-tels demolished in March 2023 is a devastating erosion of
properties that are important to the fabric of Desert Hot Springs. There is no time to
waste in saving the remaining resources. The city council is already grappling with how
to protect its signature spa-tels while promoting growth and development. The
advantage of an ordinance would be to systematically consider how these two paths
intersect and diverge and allow city planners to chart a long-range plan to pursue both
tracks. This is especially important in the Miracle Hill section of town where the iconic
spa-tels still retain their allure.
City Councilman Gary Gardner says the city values its history.
252
He doesn’t think
the council would oppose the concept of an ordinance, but he points out that it depends
how an ordinance is written and framed as to whether it would be approved. The city
has a core group of actively engaged residents who are part of the Desert Springs
Historical Society, and some are also part of the broader Coachella Valley Preservation
Society. These groups could be instrumental in crafting a local ordinance.
Certified Local Government
The Certified Local Government (CLG) program was established as part of the
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. It facilitates cooperation between State and
local governments and federal partners, such as the National Park Service, to promote

252
Email to Willa Seidenberg from Gary Gardner, July 29, 2023.
129
preservation initiatives.
253
Certification provides legal protection, funding from the
Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) for technical help, and other benefits to local
communities working to preserve their historic resources. Cities must first create an
ordinance and a historic preservation commission.
There are sixty-six CLGs in the state of California, including Palm Springs. No
city is too small to be a CLG, and it can provide sources of funding to help with activities
such as funding a survey, creating design guidelines, conducting feasibility studies, or
establishing preservation plans. National Park Service CLG Coordinator Megan Brown
says cities can be innovative in what they ask for. Some cities have created heritage
tourism plans or produced walking tour maps and brochures.
254
As a CLG, cities have
more access to technical help from state and federal historic preservation offices.
Legacy Business Program
Legacy Business Programs are a relatively new tool that is used to help support
and sustain beloved independent businesses which are increasingly facing pressures
from high rents, development, and competition from chain stores. These programs are
“designed to preserve longtime businesses that contribute to a neighborhood’s history,
identity, and character.”
255
The first legacy business program in the United States was
established in San Francisco in 2015 with the passage of Proposition J by voters. The
City of Los Angeles is currently implementing a new program. Legacy business

253
National Park Service website. Accessed June 12, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/clg/index.htm.
254
California Preservation Foundation Webinar. Accessed June 10, 2023.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21LYU1xz-3s.
255
“Legacy Business Programs,” Small Business Anti-Displacement Network website. Accessed July 8,
2023. https://antidisplacement.org/tool/legacy-business-
programs/#:~:text=Legacy%20business%20programs%20are%20designed,%2C%20or%20community%
2Dbased%20organizations.
130
programs vary, but common to most of them are financial grants, technical assistance,
and marketing and promotional guidance.
Each program sets its own criteria; the minimum age of qualifying businesses
varies from ten years (Seattle, Washington) to fifty years (San Francisco, California).
Usually, they are small operations of less than ten all the way up to one-hundred
employees. The central idea is that the business makes some kind of contribution to the
historic fabric of the city or neighborhood, that the business is a longstanding service,
and that it risks displacement or closure. Some programs require that the business be
owned by the same family or have operated under the same name for its period of
eligibility.
Existing historic preservation ordinances haven’t always provided the help that
small businesses need. As part of her thesis research, USC student Xiaoling Fang
found that the legacy businesses in immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles that she
studied needed economic development tools, including marketing assistance and help
with business operations provided by a legacy business program.
256
Owners told her
they had explored historic preservation tools, but they had problems documenting the
historic aspects of their businesses.
257
Legacy business program could be established
in conjunction with a historic ordinance and landmarking efforts.
Beck’s Motor Lodge in the Castro section of San Francisco was awarded legacy
business status in 2017. It is a family-owned motel that has operated since 1958, and it

256
Xiaoling Fang, “Legacy Businesses in Immigrant Neighborhoods,” interview by Willa Seidenberg,
SaveAs: NextGen Heritage Conservation podcast, March 9, 2023. Audio, 24:41,
https://sites.usc.edu/saveas/2023/03/08/season-3-episode-9/
257
Ibid.
131
is now woman-owned.
258
It is unlikely that there are any family-owned historic spa-tels
in Desert Hot Springs. In the 1950s and 1960s, they were mom-and-pop operations, run
by owners who lived on the property or in the town. The properties were often sold and
resold as owners aged or burned out. Today’s owners are often investors from out of
town who form LLCs. However, the businesses still exist and could be protected under
a Legacy Business program that doesn’t restrict ownership to the same family. The spa-
tels on Miracle Hill that are still operating as hotels include:
Hope Springs
Kismet Lodge (now operating as a recovery center)
Lido Palms
Miracle Manor,
Nuturing Nest
Onsen
O Spa
Sagewater Resort,
Sandpiper Inn
The Spring Resort
Tuscan Springs Hotel

Many of the properties need significant diligence to maintain the units and the
mineral water pools. Scott Harner was part of a partnership that bought, and recently
sold, Sagewater Resort on Club Circle Drive on Miracle Hill. He had to delay our first
conversation to take care of a problem in the motel’s pool. Maintenance to keep the
swimming and mineral pools in working condition is a constant task, in addition to other
maintenance needs. Additionally, Harner found that Sagewater’s bookings were
seasonal because the summer months are too hot to attract visitors. Harner says he

258
“Beck’s Motor Lodge,” Legacy Business Registry Staff Report, San Francisco Office of Small
Business. Hearing Date December 11, 2017.
132
had trouble getting any private financing, and there wasn’t enough help from the city in
terms of meaningful tax breaks or grants.
259

Couples like Jeff and Judy Bowman, who formerly owned the Kismet Lodge, or
Michael Rotondi and April Greiman who owned Miracle Manor, are representative of the
type of owners that harken back to the glory days of the spa-tels when they tended to
be mom-and-pop ventures. The Bowmans described how they put their hearts and
souls into running their business, creating a relaxing sanctuary (clothing optional!)
where visitors could unwind by soaking in the hot water, getting a therapeutic massage,
and joining the Bowmans and other visitors for wine and cheese in the late afternoon.
Jeff Bowman says that during the sixteen years they owned Kismet/Living Waters, they
had loyal customers -- a seventy percent repeat rate:
We created what we wanted to have for ourselves… Because of the
location with the mineral water, it provided a context for us to have
something very unique. Our water was 105 degrees. We pumped it up
from the earth eighteen hours a day, twenty gallons a minute. You might
say, how come only eighteen hours a day, and that’s because it could
come in faster than it could leave. So, the water level of our pool would
rise up and then it would go off for an hour. And it kept both pools
pristine, clear, beautiful, amazing water.
260

That doesn’t mean investors aren’t committed to preserving the character and
historic representation of the spa-tels. The group of investors who owned Hope
Springs until 2022 wholeheartedly embraced the values and associations of the
Desert Hot Springs spa-tel character, though it was not a big money-making
venture.
261
Economic incentive programs and historic designation might also
provide an opportunity to diversify ownership of the motels. The city already

259
Interview with author. January 24, 2023.
260
Interview with author. Edited for clarity.
261
Based on conversation with former Hope Springs owner Christopher Tandon, August 6, 2023.
133
has a large Latino population and a growing percentage of Black residents.
Opening investment opportunities and job creation to these populations would
benefit everyone in the town.
Heritage Tourism
Heritage is considered “one of the most significant and fastest growing
components of tourism” overall.
262
The National Trust for Historic Preservation defines
heritage tourism as “traveling to experience the places, artifacts, and activities that
authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present” and it asserts
that a “high percentage of domestic and international travelers participate in cultural
and/or heritage activities while traveling, and those that do stay longer, spend more, and
travel more often,” creating jobs and improving the quality of life for local residents.
263
It
is also found to play a “positive role in shaping community identities.”
264

Desert Hot Springs is perfectly poised to take advantage of the interest in
heritage tourism across all age groups. The so-called Baby Boomer generation, those
born between 1946 and 1964, are a natural target audience. It is estimated that by
2050, sixteen percent of the world’s population will be age 65 and older.
265
Studies
show that this age group, particularly those living in Western countries, have
discretionary money and time, and, unlike previous generations, are more inclined to

262
Ariana Çela, Sam Lankford & Jill Knowles-Lankford (2009) ”Visitor spending and economic impacts of
heritage tourism: a case study of the Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area,” Journal of Heritage
Tourism, 4:3, 245-256, DOI: 10.1080/17438730802139269.
263
“Heritage Tourism.” Advisory Council on Historic Preservation website. Accessed June 25, 2023.
https://www.achp.gov/heritage_tourism.
264
Ariana Çela, Sam Lankford & Jill Knowles-Lankford (2009) Visitor spending and economic impacts of
heritage tourism: a case study of the Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area, Journal of Heritage
Tourism, 4:3, 245-256, DOI: 10.1080/17438730802139269.
265
“Tourism preferences of seniors and their impact on healthy ageing,” Anatolia. P. 553.
134
participate in overseas travel.
266
In fact, Desert Hot Springs already attracts a number of
foreign visitors, but being on the heritage radar could bring in more. Boomers are also
interested in non-traditional forms of treatments to keep them healthy, and senior
travelers are looking for educational, light adventure, heritage, and wellness tourism.
267

Desert Hot Springs offers opportunities for older travelers to engage in all types
of tourism. It could attract twenty-first century snowbirds by promoting short-term
residency during the winter months when travelers would have access to nearby hiking
in Joshua Tree National Park and other natural protected areas, in addition to cultural,
artistic, and educational opportunities throughout the Coachella Valley, all while being
able to soak their weary joints in hot mineral water at the end of the day.
Millennials are another generation of opportunity for Desert Hot Springs. A 2017 study
of the Millennial Generation by the National Trust for Historic Preservation found that 97
percent of that generation “appreciate the value of historic preservation,” and 54 percent
say historic preservation can “save the places that define us as Americans.”
268

Millennials, who constitute those born between 1981 and 1996, are a group that value
health and wellness, and work-life balance.
269
Additionally, Millennials take more
advantage of leisure time than previous generations at their age.
270

266
Ibid., p. 554.
267
“Baby Boomers and their growing interest in spa and wellness tourism,” International Journal of Spa
and Wellness. P. 238; “Tourism preferences of seniors and their impact on healthy ageing,” Anatolia. P.
554.
268
“Millennials and Historic Preservation: A Deep Dive Into Attitudes and Values,” Online survey for the
National Trust for Historic Preservation. The survey sample was 636 U.S.-based respondents and study
authors say the sample was balanced to be representative of gender, age, and race.
269
Ibid.
270
“Leisure, and Family: From the Silent Generation to Millennials.” George-Levi Gayle, Mariana Odio-
Zuniga, and Prasanthi Ramakrishnan. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, Fourth Quarter 2021,
103(4), pp. 385-424. Accessed June 5, 2023. https://doi.org/10.20955/r.103.385-424.
135
City leaders and motel owners have told me that their visitors represent all age
ranges and geographic areas, including foreign tourists. Heritage tourists have a better
chance of discovering the town’s benefits if it was associated with heritage and
preservation efforts. Desert Hot Springs has a colorful story to tell as a town – from its
Indigenous roots to the founding leaders and business owners, as a haven for
snowbirds escaping the harsh winters back east, and as a refuge for quirky, talented,
and publicity-averse visitors and residents.
Finally, the annual Palm Springs Modernism Week is an ongoing opportunity to
increase familiarity with the spa-tels in Desert Hot Springs. The eleven-day festival held
in February attracts more than 100,000 thousand people and features some 350 events,
including walking, biking and bus tours of iconic modernism architecture, educational
talks, parties, and displays of products.
271
As mentioned earlier, the Lautner Compound
is a popular stop on the tour circuit, and some attendees stay in Desert Hot Springs
spa-tels while participating in Modernism Week.
272
Desert Hot Springs could capitalize
more on this economically successful event, perhaps adding Hope Springs on the tour.
The Desert Hot Springs Historical Society could host a gathering at its historic rock
house as a way to inform attendees of the existence and importance of the spa-tels.
The city could promote its motels as lodging for guests attending the festival and
provide shuttles from Desert Hot Springs to Palm Springs.
Using heritage tourism to attract visitors would necessitate that the city deploys
new tools to give visitors easy access to information. The city could produce a physical

271
“About Us,” Modernism Week. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://modernismweek.com/pages/about-
us.
272
While the author was staying in Hope Springs during Modernism Week 2022, she met several guests
from elsewhere in the country who were attending Modernism Week.
136
map marking the location of the spa-tels in the early 1960s and which ones are still
operating as resorts, plus other significant points of interest, such as Cabot’s and the
Rock House. Digital, interactive maps could also appeal to younger visitors. Cannabis-
related sites could also be added to such a map. For the boutique spas still operating,
owners could be encouraged to have a short history of their propriety and any
interesting stories and quotes that go along with their spa. Studies show that our brains
are wired for stories, and Desert Hot Springs can take advantage of its colorful past to
engage visitors.
273

QR codes are a good way to reach visitors. QR codes are designed to be
scanned using the camera on a smartphone, which can then open a webpage that
could lead to short descriptions of notable places or stories of the town and its
properties. QR codes could even be printed on restaurant menus in town, and on
stickers placed on telephone poles or in store windows.

273
Paul J. Zak, “Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling.” Harvard Business Review, October 28, 2014.
https://hbr.org/2014/10/why-your-brain-loves-good-storytelling.
137
Conclusion
Summary of Findings
Desert Hot Springs is like many small cities in America, yet also distinctive in how
the hot mineral water and the subsequent spa-tels overcame a hot, windy, and
punishing landscape and spawned a spirited town that conveyed the optimism of the
post-World War II era in America. The spa-tels are key to that distinctive identity and
without them, Desert Hot Springs could become a run-of-the-mill desert town with some
big resort hotels.
Desert Hot Springs’ civic leaders recognize that the beneficial mineral water and
its ubiquitous spa-tels are key to the town’s economic growth and the city’s rhetoric and
planning documents reflect that commitment. However, the city has also approved plans
for a mixed-use project to be built near Interstate 10 that would include a big hotel, retail
shops and a one-million-square-foot warehouse and distribution center owned by
Amazon.
274
The city has isolated its industrial cannabis operations to acres of open land
on the periphery of the town. These moves will bring in more revenue that will benefit
the city, but as housing pressures mount with the increase in population, there is a real
danger that the city could get swept up in development fervor and lose its historic
character. Additionally, it is no guarantee that businesses like Amazon or cannabis
manufacturing will always be viable businesses in Desert Hot Springs. But, as long as
the water is there, people will come.

274
Ani Gasparyan, “Desert Hot Springs Oks plan for hotels and warehouse off Interstate 10.” Desert Sun,
December 9, 2022. Accessed June 19, 2023. https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/desert-hot-
springs/2022/12/09/desert-hot-springs-oks-hotels-warehouse-logistics-off-interstate-10/69703565007/.
138
By adopting a preservation mindset, the city of Desert Hot Springs would have a
better chance of balancing the needed development with smart growth principles that
protect the small desert town ambiance and ensure that the needs of tourists and
residents alike are met.
Future Research
This thesis is a first step in identifying programs that could help Desert Hot
Springs, and small towns that have a paucity of notable architecture but a rich history, in
managing growth in a sustainable way to protect its historic resources. But much more
study, including a full-blown historic resource survey, is needed. It also needs to explore
new avenues for promotion. If Desert Hot Springs passed a preservation ordinance and
became a Certified Local Government, it could apply for funding to create signage and
interpretive panels that mark the cultural history of the town. The Hotelier’s Association
has erected signs on Miracle Hill proclaiming it a “Spa Zone” as seen in figure 6.1 and
Figure 6.1. Spa Zone sign on Miracle Hill. Photo
by William Short.

139
the Cabot Pueblo Museum promotes Cabot Yerxa and his role as the father of the town.
Yet there are no markers to indicate where the original Coffee’s Bathhouse stood and
L.W. Coffee’s role in establishing the town as a place of health and wellness. Nor is
there an indication of where the Jewish Temple or other demolished properties were
located. Markers, such as the one in figure 6.2, or interpretive panels could be placed
around town to educate visitors about key locations and how they relate to the area’s
history.

Additionally, there is a wealth of visual documentation about Desert Hot Springs’
early years in the form of old postcards, many of which are readily available on the
internet, and have been collected by the Desert Hot Springs Historical Society. Using
the postcards to create signs, interpretive panels, billboards, or even digital signs could
Figure 6.2. Historic marker in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of Los
Angeles. Photo by Willa Seidenberg.
140
entice visitors and potential motel owners alike. Another rich avenue would be the
collection of oral histories of residents, visitors, and owners. The people who visited the
town in its formative days are aging and many have already passed away. Collecting
those stories and others from the intervening years would be a valuable contribution to
documenting the spirit of the town.
Additionally, little is known about Coachella Valley architect John F. Outcault and
scholarship is needed on his work. [Figure 6.3]. He was born in Chicago in 1927, and

his grandfather was the well-known cartoonist R.F. Outcault. John and his family moved
to Palm Springs in 1936 to start a hotel business, and after a stint in the Navy, he
attended the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture from 1946 to
Figure 6.3. John F. Outcault and family, circa 1960. Courtesy M.J.
Outcault.
141
1952. He was an apprentice in the office of John Porter Clark and Albert Frey, two
prolific Palm Springs architects, and in 1956, he opened his own architecture firm in
Palm Desert where he was active in the development of the town. Outcault left his mark
on the Coachella Valley with original designs, as well as additions and remodels. He
worked on some six-hundred commercial, public, and residential buildings, including the
Palm Desert Library, structures at the Living Desert Museum, and the College of the
Desert, Copper Mountain Center. He designed about a dozen projects in Desert Hot
Springs, including Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge, La Bella Sari Resort, the Biehgler Apartments,
and First Trust Bank. He died in 1998 and aside from his architectural drawings which
are housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, there is practically no
information about his work and influence on the built environment of the Coachella
Valley.
This thesis is an attempt to start a conversation in the Desert Hot Springs
community about using available mechanism to protect the character of the mid-century
spa-tels, especially the eleven intact properties on Miracle Hill which still operate as
motels (except Kismet which is a recovery facility). If city council members are not
inclined to pass a local ordinance, residents should pursue other historic preservation
tools, such as listing on the National and/or California Register. At minimum, efforts
should be made to conduct a historic resources survey. The spa-tel owners need help
to keep their properties producing revenue and providing key tax revenue to the city that
will ultimately help its low-income residents and preserve the unique character of the
city by allowing it to make sustainable decisions about its development and growth in
the years to come.
142
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158
Appendix
Below is a listing of properties that I was able to identify using a variety of methods:
1. Spreadsheet developed by Judy and Jeff Bowman of the Desert Hot Springs Historical
Society.
2. Material in the archives of the Desert Hot Springs Historical Society.
3. My own observations, viewing microfilm of The Desert Sentinel, property permits, and online
research, including real estate websites, many of which listed the year built.

Many of the photographs are original taken by Willa Seidenberg and William Short. Some were
taken from real estate websites, and many of the old photographs are taken from the archives of
the Desert Hot Springs Historical Society.

159

160

161

162

163

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Desert Hot Springs is a town of almost 33,000 people in the Coachella Valley, surrounded by two mountain ranges. The town is situated atop two aquifers: one cold, the other hot. The hot mineral waters have been enjoyed for centuries, first by the Cahuilla Indians who occupied the area, then by homesteaders who arrived in the early twentieth century, and later by tourists, beginning in the mid-twentieth century. In the 1950s, Desert Hot Springs became a spa destination for middle and working-class families with more than one hundred simple mid-century motel spas (spa-tels) that featured hot mineral water pools. By the 1980s, the number of lodgings had dwindled, and many had seen better days. The city went through a period of high crime, bankruptcy, and blight. By the mid to late 1990s, the rundown. motel/hotels became attractive to architects and developers as an alternative to the trendy and more expensive Palm Springs areas. A handful of the surviving 1950s-era motels were given makeovers and re-opened as expensive boutique resorts. As the spas began attracting visitors, the town leadership concentrated on restoring its financial health, bringing down crime, and attempting to develop the downtown area. Yet, the median household income in 2021 was just under $38,000, and spa owners struggled to stay solvent. This thesis documents the history of Desert Hot Springs and the factors that led to the development of motel/spa in the 1950s, known as spa-tels, that served a modest class of health and wellness tourists and seasonal visitors. Additionally, the thesis explores the current status of the town and its surviving collection of mid-century spa-tels, and looks at possible preservation tools to help the spa-tels and the city survive and thrive.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Seidenberg, Willa (author)

Core Title Spa City: the midcentury spa-tels of Desert Hot Springs

School School of Architecture

Degree Master of Heritage Conservation

Degree Program Heritage Conservation

Degree Conferral Date 2023-12

Publication Date 09/11/2023

Defense Date 09/08/2023

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag aquifers,Christopher Tandon,Coachella Valley,Desert Hot Springs,Hope Springs,Jeff Bowman,John F. Outcault,Judy Bowman,Korean spas,L.W. Coffee,La Bella Sari,Loretta Ayeroff,Ma-Ha-Yah Lodge,Michael Rotondi,Mid-century motels,Mike Bickford,Motels,Nathaniel Bertram,OAI-PMH Harvest,Rose Bertram,spas,spa-tels,Temple Nove Sholom,Yerxa Cabot

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sandmeier, Trudi (committee chair), Horak, Katie (committee member), Ringhoff, Mary (committee member)

Creator Email seidenbe@usc.edu,wseidenberg@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113305042

Unique identifier UC113305042

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Legacy Identifier etd-Seidenberg-12355.pdf

Document Type Thesis

Format theses (aat)

Rights Seidenberg, Willa

Internet Media Type application/pdf

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Source 20230911-usctheses-batch-1095 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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