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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."
By time William Burroughs died in 1997, he lived quite a colorful existence for 83 years. His compelling ideas, creative raw power in his writing style and worldly cynicism expressed in numerous poems and in over three dozen books turned him into an underground celebrity and revolutionary literary figure. Another favorite creative outlet, his expressive abstract artwork, often came from whatever materials were at hand for his personal needs: spray paint cans, shotguns, plywood, et cetera and was symbolic of his belief in advancement of total freedom. Many of these original Burroughs works (of art) are on display at Beat Hotel, where life, legend and literature are fused into one.