12 Legs Travel

Jill and I are not cool enough for the Ace Hotel & Swim Club, and it would be deceitful to pretend otherwise. But we keep coming back anyway.

We were naïve enough to think we “discovered” the Ace last spring during a weekend visit to Palm Springs. Jill got a tip about the place from a Los Angeles-based model she photographed during a fashion shoot. That should have been our first clue we were about to wander too deep into the hip end of the pool, but we were blinded by the promise of $89 rates.

Unlike the Hotel Congress, the subject of an earlier post, the Ace’s coolness is not the product of historical preservation. Rather, it’s the result of a Weird Science-style experiment in hotel design by a group of impossibly young and stylish entrepreneurs from Seattle. The principal visionary behind Ace Hotels, Alex Calderwood, used to throw warehouse parties in that city during the grungy heyday of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, et al. Seattle is also the site of the flagship Ace Hotel, which occupies a former halfway house and features shared bathrooms.

The Ace in Palm Springs used to be a Howard Johnson back in the ’60s, and the hotel’s accompanying restaurant, King’s Highway, was formerly a Denny’s. But the only legacy the Ace preserves from its predecessors is negative space; beyond rooflines and room volumes, the hotel is a wholly new creation.

A stuffed coyote wearing a pearl necklace stalks you at reception. A snow-cone stand sits beside the swimming pool. A record player and stacks of vintage vinyl await you in your room. If W is the Pussycat Doll of hotel brands, Ace is the André 3000.

There are indeed $89 rooms to be had at the Ace, but only nine of them, and none allows pets. The hotel’s dog-friendly rooms are located on the lower level and have enclosed patios with gas fireplaces and L-shaped couches. These rooms, however, are considerably more expensive, especially during Palm Springs’ spring tourist season. And a $350 hotel room is not in our budget.

But one lesson of road travel is that Lady Luck often will smile on you if you simply introduce yourself and exchange a few pleasant words. This is what happened to Jill and me on the night of the Academy Awards, when our heads rested inside a tent at Joshua Tree National Park but our hearts longed to watch the Oscar telecast. With a dark, cold evening ahead of us, we decided to make the half-hour drive to Palm Springs in search of a TV. We thought we might find one at the Ace’s bar. We were right.

That bar, called the Amigo Room, sits atop the desert floor, but it feels like the underground lair of a Mexican outlaw. The brick walls are painted greasy black, and every tabletop is inlaid with old Pesos. The barkeep said the flat-screen TV mounted at the end of the dark room was installed in anticipation of Oscar-night patronage.

During a couple of commercial breaks I went out to the car to rouse our sleeping dogs, and each time I made small talk with the hotel’s friendly front office manager, Sean. Tipped off by our outdoorsy duds and loaded-down vehicle, Sean deduced that we were camping. I told him about our trip and how earlier in the day we saw snow at Joshua Tree. “It’s supposed to get down in the 20s tonight,” I said.

“You guys should stay here,” Sean replied.

“Well, we’d love to. If only those lousy dogs didn’t keep us out of the cheap rooms. The last time we were here, back when y’all first opened, we loved it.”

I wasn’t fishing for a discount, not at all, but Sean lobbed one at me anyway. “We like to take care of our repeat guests. I could probably go 99 dollars for you on one of our patio rooms.”

A $99 hotel room is not in our budget, either, and our sleeping bags were already awaiting us us back at Joshua Tree. But after three days of camping in an icy wind, a gas fireplace and hot shower sounded awfully good. I asked Sean if his offer would stand the following night, and he said it would. Jill, who had been a study in rosy cheeks and clenched shoulders since the Colorado Plateau, was thrilled.

The irony of us taking a hiatus from campgrounds to stay at the Ace is that campground-style living inspired the Ace’s design. “There are elements of camping, elements of communal living, elements of nature,” Roman Alonso of the design firm Commune, which created the Ace’s aesthetic, said of the hotel in an Los Angeles Times article.

The patios certainly reflect that back-to-nature vibe, but the rooms’ décor seems to answer the call of the sea. You can stare at the walls all you want, but you won’t see any; that’s because they’re covered by canvas sailcloth and louvered panels. You don’t feel like you’re staying in a retrofitted Howard Johnson as much you feel you’ve ventured below beck on the yacht of a flamboyant record executive — maybe David Geffen — in the year 1979. Only the faux animal skins on the floor and the Willie Nelson album next to the turntable reel you back into Far West reality.

Jill and I might not be cool enough for the Ace, but we sure dig it. We especially enjoyed sitting in the hot tub and sunbathing next to the pool less than 24 hours after shivering amid snow-dusted Joshua trees. (An aside: The pool towels at the Ace Swim Club are like soft-spun crack. I might pay 99 bucks just to curl up in a warm pile of them.)

The only real complaint I have about the place concerns the restaurant’s breakfast menu. Ricotta hotcakes? Irish porridge? Coconut-bread French toast? Organic or not, such foo-foo fare makes me want to hurl all over David Geffen’s sailcloth. Give me a Denny’s Grand Slam any day.

But, heck, push-button fireplaces on the patio and L.A. models on the pool deck more than offset posh porridge and $8 French toast. All you Phoenix folks out there should definitely deal yourself an Ace weekend sometime. It’s a short drive, and you can stop at Joshua Tree on the way. You’ll know you’ve arrived when you spot a coyote accessorized like Barbara Bush.

If Sean is behind the front desk, tell him the guy from Tennessee who warmed his pizza in the patio fireplace sent you. A poser like me can use all the Ace points he can get.

—Scott