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In 2001, when Bruce Abney bought the Caravan Inn,
a 1950's motel in Desert Hot Springs, California, it
was, he says, a bona fide flophouse – its 15 rooms
occupied by a dubious lineup of “parolees, n'er-do-wells,
and lost souls.” In those sorry, rough-and-tumble
days, the going rate for a room was $235 per week,
and, one suspects you got what you paid for. Last
year, Abney reopened the motel, and while Midcentury
Modernism may be all the rage in the Coachella Valley,
he eschewed the 1950's – “Palm Springs has done
it” – in favor of a decidedly more exotic aesthetic:
1940's French Morocco. On buying trips to Marrakesh
and Essaouira, Abney filled container after container
with enough furniture, fabric, carpets, lighting, and
accessories to outfit the now-12 room El Morocco
Inn & Spa, which he manages with his partner, John
Aguilar, and brother, Steve Abney.
Fifteen minutes north of Palm Springs, Desert
Hot Springs has a population of some 17,000, and is
famous for mineral springs and its mom-and-pop
“spa-tels,” which at the city's peak in the
1960's numbered somewhere in the neighborhood of
80. The place fell on hard times in the 1970's, 1980's,
and most of the 1990's, when the area was inundated
not by movie stars and film moguls on leave from
Hollywood but by Girls Gone Wild-style spring breakers,
and bronzed men on vacation at frisky “clothing
optional” gay guesthouses. By 1997, when Los
Angeles architect Michael Rotondi and his partner,
graphic designer April Greiman, opened their
much-publicized Miracle Manor Retreat in Desert
Hot Springs, the down-and-out spa-tels were ripe for renovating.
Like a traditional riad, El Morocco is built around
a square courtyard, with a pool at the center and palm
trees in oversize planters. The exterior palette is white
and bleached terra-cotta, punched up with saturated
jewel tones – blues, reds, greens, and golds
– “colors from the Spice Route,”
according to Abney. Everywhere you look, there are
horseshoe arches and billowing fabrics.
There is a social component to El Morocco that
Abney anticipated by transforming one of the original
guest rooms into the Kasbah Lounge & Library, an
open-plan, two-room public suite off the central courtyard.
Just outside, in the courtyard itself, there is a large
U-shaped ebonized-wicker bar where guests gather for
drinks. It is also here, each late afternoon before dinner,
that Abney instructs guests in the subtle art of the
traditional Moroccan hand-washing ceremony, which
entails much splashing water and many ornate silver
vessels. For an extra $10, you are invited to try flavored
tobacco in one of five elaborate glass hookahs, which
Abney will set up and oversee.
The typical El Morocco guest is someone who is looking
for an “experiential” escape, Abney says. “It's
a hip crowd...graphic designers, architects, artists,
movie industry people, stuntmen, and actresses. At the
moment, we're flying under the radar.”
66810 E. Fourth St., Desert Hot Springs, Calif.;
888/288-9905; www.elmoroccoinn.com;
doubles from $199. |
