Architect Lance O’Donnell and Architectural Historian Steven Keylon explore how one of Palm Springs’ oldest continuously operated resorts reinvented itself over the last century to become one of the City’s most storied properties, and its revitalization to come.

The presentation will explore the site’s history, from the 1930s Hotel Cahuilla to the Palm Springs Pueblo, with its, at the time, comforting roadside motel aesthetic, then to its most significant period, starting in 1961, with Los Angeles architects Armét & Davis’s intervention. The duo designed two structures as part of a much larger plan for a hotel and convention center. After those two structures were built, the larger plan was abandoned, leaving a campus with a somewhat disjointed collection of buildings constructed between 1937 and 1961.

The decades to follow were not kind to the site, and its past glory was hidden behind subsequent renovations and additions. Few who frequented a favorite locals coffee shop, Rick's, adjacent to the Day's Inn on North Palm Canyon, had any idea of the location's colorful history. The two Armét & Davis structures represent rare examples of the architects' work in Palm Springs; the only other known extant example is the former Denny’s restaurant, now King’s Highway, at the Ace Hotel.

Today, the entire 4+ acre property is being reimagined and restored as The Verb Hotel by o2 Architecture, Rios Landscape Architects and Beyond the West Interior Designers.