Vintage vacation
Once a playground for the rich and famous, Palm Springs has become a retro hot spot of good deals
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – Ruby Montana steers her VW convertible past the former homes of Liberace, Dinah Shore and Sammy Davis Jr., and I start to panic.
The idea of doing California’s Palm Springs on a budget seems a bit like traveling to the French Riviera in search of a Motel 6.
“There’s money here,” she told me earlier as we lunched at Tyler’s, a walk-up burger palace in a converted bus depot. And it’s not all coming from Southern California.
Montana, 62, sold her cowgirl-inspired Pinto Pony boutique in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood nine years ago. She now owns the seven-room Coral Sands Inn in the elegant Las Palmas neighborhood.
The desert city’s appeal can be summed up in three words, she says: “Sun. No bugs.”
Add retro architecture, miles of hiking trails, hot-springs resorts and vintage shopping and it’s easy to see why a new group of 20- and 30-somethings, young families and gay couples have adopted Palm Springs,