The Palm Springs List
Vintage shopping, Modernist architecture tours, great hikes, old-school steak & martini joints and date shakes—plus bonus Joshua Tree intel
I first started going to Palm Springs in the early ‘90s, because my then-boyfriend’s parents lived in Rancho Mirage. And even though there were a lot of early-bird special dinners at pretty unremarkable places catering to retirees like them, I was always happy to go there for the dry heat, the desert landscape, and our hikes in Mt. San Jacinto State Park. Several years later, I was back for a week as a producer on a fashion shoot in and around some very cool mid-century modern locations. We stayed at L’Horizon, built in 1952 by architect William Cody–and it definitely had cool bones, but also was a little dusty with some salty staff. We had big crew dinners in old-school restaurants, and though I can’t remember any of their names because of course I wasn’t documenting anything on an iPhone, I really fell in love with the place.
So when I took my first weekend away with Matt (more than 25 years ago!), I suggested we go to Palm Springs and stay at L’Horizon, and we duplicated as many things as I could remember, or afford, from the photo shoot. We fell in love with PS, and with each other, and a year later came back to get married there. We kept it a secret—inviting several of our dearest friends in LA to come and spend New Year’s Eve with us there. We stayed at Melvyn’s this time—L’Horizon was probably sold out—and on the night before NYE, we asked our friends if they would wake up early the next day for an 8am appointment at the Indio County Clerk. We all dressed up and brought a magnum of champagne, then drank it in the desert across the street from the government building we’d just gotten married in. We spent the day vintage shopping for clothes, antiques, and cars—back then, vintage cars were a steal. And lots of driving around looking at cool houses we should have bought, because they were also a steal back then.
Our most recent trip was five years ago, and while Palm Springs has changed in that everyone in LA knows/goes, and so do plenty of people from all over—especially since Airbnb has provided so many more places to stay—it is also essentially unchanged. We stayed at our beloved L’Horizon, which had since been lovingly restored and is actually incredible now, and did all the same things we always do there. Since Palm Springs is one of my favorite places to suggest for a winter getaway (yes, even if it’s popular, it’s never as hard to get into as many other warm weather destinations—especially during the week), we asked a few of our friends who know it really well to share some of their favorite places to stay, eat, shop and hike with us, and it completely whets my appetite to get back there as soon as possible.
Jonathan Ducrest is a Zürich-based photographer who lived in LA for seven years until 2021—his love for mid-century architecture took him to Palm Springs countless times. The author of