Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/hotels/calif/psprings/ingleside/ingleside2.html

Gazing out through covered arches to shrubbery and swimming pool beyond, I sipped my iced tea and listened to Mel Haber talk about one of his favorite subjects, Palm Springs' Ingleside Inn.

"When I arrived here there was an ambiance about this place. What I did was, I didn't destroy it. I kept it, maintained it. But it was already here."

The Ingleside Inn has been Haber's life since he discovered place in 1975. He was instantly charmed by history of secluded estate, located just one block from tree-lined avenues of Palm Springs.

"I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I put my foot in my mouth and somehow it works out." Haber adds that he doesn't think he could repeat his success building Ingleside Inn in today's market.

"A Frenchman and his wife who stayed here said they've traveled millions of miles and this was best place they'd ever been," he says with a disarming smile. "I don't have a clue why he would say that."

'Haber's modesty belies his accomplishment. Some of things hes "maintained" over years include orchid trees and 70-year-old vines. The latticed ceiling over our heads is laced with pothos vines.

The tangled trunk of a mesquite tree dominating grassy front yard looks like it could have been planted by Humphrey Birge family, who built original Spanish-style estate at foot of Mt. San Jacinto in 1925. The Birges owned Pierce Arrow Motor Company. Haber says they traveled a lot and lovingly filled their home with antiques and priceless furniture from around world.

Ten years later, at demise of Birge matriarch, property was sold to Ruth Hardy, a lady from Indiana who turned estate into a little hotel just for "invited." Operating it as a private club and closing six months of year, she held high standards for both her establishment and her guests. If you were invited by one of guests, you had to first obtain Mrs. Hardy's approval.

Thus began veritable "Who's Who" of show business, finance, and political guests. Haber says Ruth Hardy also left her mark on Palm Springs as a City Councilwoman, responsible for lighting trees on Palm Canyon Drive, and a park in town was named after her.

"She passed on in 1965. When I discovered it, property was owned by a former guest from a prominent San Francisco banking family." Haber, a New York businessman at time, discovered Inn during a stroll around town.

After purchasing The Ingleside Inn, Haber completely renovated entire property, but not without consulting people who already worked there. "I put great value on objectivity," Haber explains. "I listened to everybody who had anything to say, because I had no knowledge."

Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/hotels/calif/psprings/beat/beat.html

The Beat Hotel —

It was 1957, when an ordinary hotel in Latin Quarter of Paris was dubbed "The Beat Hotel" and then became center of this literary groundbreaking artistic energy.

The three men that christened this hotel were some of core founding fathers of counter cultural Beat Generation: William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Allen Ginsberg. The Beat Hotel at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur on Left Bank was original live-in retreat and study center for ten years until it was torn down in 1967.

Serendipitously, another nondescript mid-century modern hotel was being built same year Beat Hotel was christened. This hotel, practically half way around globe, came to life in Desert Hot Springs, California. The true purpose would, unfortunately, not be known for more than forty years, when it would be resurrected from dead and its name changed from Monte Carlo Resort Motel to The Desert Hot Springs Beat Hotel. This two story, eight unit hotel, after a sad period of dilapidation and resurrection, would become a live in retreat and study center for lovers of arts, and in particular, literary and visual arts of William Seward Burroughs. According to its owner, chief restorer, and curator, Steve Lowe, it is a living museum that caters to writers. On an equally remarkable side note, Steve owns another impressive Lowe Desert motel called The Lautner, which was designed by architect John Lautner.

Steve admits that vision for Desert Hot Springs Beat Hotel came from two places: 1. A similar looking hotel structure, El Muniria Hotel in Tangiers, Morocco, where infamous William Burroughs wrote his most famous book, "The Naked Lunch", and, 2. From "The Last Hotel", a book written in 1986 by a peculiar Burroughs collaborative visual artist and author named Brion Gysin.

Gysin imagined that El Muniria was transported to Southern California, 200 miles from Los Angeles and rebuilt on San Andreas Fault. If you look at any Southern California map, location to prediction is uncanny. The "new" Beat Hotel is a place of rest, rejuvenation, and where a person can recharge his or her mind. Having no telephones or televisions in any of eight rooms, this is clearly a living museum that pays homage to William S. Burroughs. The Beat Hotel is a piece of installation art with a mineral fed swimming pool and spa that must truly be experienced to be fully appreciated.

According to Burroughs, writer and artist, "One of jobs of artist is to fabricate dreams for other people. We dream for these people who have no dreams of their own to keep them alive."