TIME Magazine
April 29, 2002
Mojave Modern
Sunny, sandy Palm Springs is an oasis of retro-cool Modernist architecture
Excerpt by Bill Barol
Stay in town… at Herbert Burns’ 1957 Orbit In, which has been meticulously restored and impeccably decorated with furnishings by mid-century icons Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and George Nelson. It’s hard to imagine another hotel whose devotion to style is so intense. The guest lounge is named after a local architect (the ubiquitous Frey), sports vintage photographs of his work (by Shulman) and invites visitors to simply look out the window for the best view in town of one of his greatest works – Frey house No. 2 (1965), which perches on the rocky mountainside directly over the hotel’s pool deck. Manager Bruce Abney and assistant manager Patrick Richardson work tirelessly to make guests feel at home, and if you catch them at the right moment, as I did on my last visit, Abney will recount the whole history of the Burgess house, Frey No. 2’s flashier neighbor, right down through its recent sale. An added bonus: the hotel is within walking distance of my new favorite restaurant in Palm Springs, the casually inventive Johannes, where – somewhat paradoxically, considering its location in the desert – my wife and I had the best sea bass of our lives.
All in all, Orbit In is pretty close to Modernist heaven. As you sip you complimentary Orbitini, listen to Mambo with Tjader on the poolside stereo and watch the sun slip behind the mountains, its easy to forget that much of Palm Springs’ architectural heritage is still at risk… California never has had much use for the past. Every time that reality fets too oppressive, I know exactly what to do: I get behind the wheel and drive east, to an oasis of architecture that now and always looks to the future.