Courtesy of the Holiday House.
Afew steps from the bustle of Palm Canyon Drive in downtown Palm Springs is Holiday House, a chic oasis of mid-century design surrounding a lush lawn and turquoise pool ringed with palms, citrus trees and ficus hedges. With the sun-drenched slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains as a backdrop, the 28-room boutique inn manages to preserve its architectural history and showcase the airy, colorful approach of Los Angeles interior designer Mark D. Sikes, who updated the property in 2017.
The inn dates back to Palm Springs’ early days as a winter resort for Southern California’s coastal dwellers and celebrities who escaped cold, foggy weather for dry desert air and sunshine. “Holiday House was created as an apartment hotel in 1951 by architectural designer and builder Herbert Burns,” says Steven Keylon, a Palm Springs-based architectural historian and author of The Design of Herbert W. Burns, a book devoted to the designer’s biography and his projects in the Coachella Valley. “That building style was popular back then for people who spent the season in Palm Springs and wanted more residential accommodations than a hotel.”
Courtesy of the Holiday House.
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According to Keylon, who is also vice president of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation, Burns had a circuitous route to becoming a successful builder and designer, starting in his family’s East Coast lighting business before moving to Los Angeles to become a stockbroker in 1928. With an education in business and engineering, Burns managed to flourish during the Depression, took up flying, trained pilots during World War II, and then relocated with his second wife, Gayle, to Palm Springs in the late 1940s.
Courtesy of the Holiday House.
Seeing potential in the desert city’s growth, Burns hung up his shingle as a residential contractor and designer. “His style is best described as ‘Late Moderne,'” says Keylon. “While many other Palm Springs architects were doing International Style, Burns used a more organic approach, with decorative elements, horizontal lines and walls that jut out.”
Holiday House, another apartment hotel, was created for Long Beach developer Lloyd Whaley and his wife, LaVere, and showcased many of those elements in the single-story compound that wrapped around the lawn and pool. Burns detailed the project with deep roof overhangs, sandstone-clad accent walls and grid-patterned screens and handled the interiors himself, installing all-in-one kitchenette units and opting for corner seating that served as sofas by day and converted to beds at night. He built a larger unit for the Whaleys as their personal residence.
In addition to the pool, the grounds offered guests plenty of fun in the sun with a barbecue area, shuffleboard, putting greens and a spot for badminton. According to Keylon, Burns was also a gifted colorist, choosing hues for his projects that matched local plants, soil and rocks, linking the buildings to the desert site.
“Holiday House was built right in the middle of the Tennis Club neighborhood and around the corner from the new Bullock’s department store that just opened,” says Keylon. “It was the perfect spot where everyone wanted to be.”
After the Whaleys divorced, LaVere kept Holiday House and, in 1962, expanded it by adding a second story to one of the wings, against Burns’ recommendation. She also ran a boutique on the property, Holiday Originals, offering dresses and sportswear for the Palm Springs lifestyle.
Courtesy of the Holiday House.
Burns went on to have a prolific career building more apartment hotels and single-family homes—largely for guests who had stayed at the apartment hotels and wanted something of their own in the desert. He retired in the 1970s and died in 1988 at the age of 90. “There’s no explaining how Burns did what he did,” says Keylon. “When it comes to architecture and construction, he was self-taught, but he was successful.”
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Courtesy of the Holiday House.
After the Whaleys, the property had a long run as the Chase Hotel. Several years ago, the team behind the Sparrows Lodge, also in Palm Springs, acquired the property and launched a major renovation, keeping the original design largely intact. Sikes was called in for a significant refresh, putting into play a vibrant blue and white color palette in the lobby (formerly the owners’ apartment), bar, lounge and rooms. Gio Ponti-inspired tile in the bar and artwork by the likes of David Hockney, Annie Leibovitz, Roy Lichtenstein, George Braque, John Baldessari and Donald Sultan set the tone for the inn, with rooms featuring Waterworks bath fixtures, modern lighting, playful fabrics and walnut and wicker accents. French artist Lucas Beaufort updated the shuffleboard court with his creative spin, and chef Jon Butler now presides over the informal indoor/outdoor restaurant, The Pantry.
Now part of the Common Thread Hotels group—which has not only The Sparrows but properties like Casa Laguna in Laguna Beach and The Prospect Hollywood—Holiday House is a peaceful, laid-back sanctuary, thanks to its 21-and-over guest policy and the absence of TVs in the rooms. The Pantry was recently awarded an Open Table Diner’s Choice Award, and last year, the inn received a Michelin One Key hotel excellence designation.
What would Herbert Burns think of his project more than seven decades later? “His architecture is still there,” says Keylon, “but now it’s infused with color and a new sense of community. I think he would have been impressed with it.”
Sources
Herbert Burns history: Steven Keylon, srk1941@gmail.com
Hotel info: Raluca State, raluca@ralucastate.com
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