Amidst the ramshackle resorts and chockablock houses in the “Spa Zone” of Desert Hot Springs sits a curious building with clean, midcentury lines. The signpost out front still stands, but there’s no sign — it acts more as a totem pole marking the spot, letting you know that you’ve arrived at Hope Springs Resort.
“Once you walk in that lobby door, you feel like you’re in a different world,” says Christopher Tandon, one of four owners. “It’s this little enclave of solitude and peace.”
Hope Springs is also an enclave of great architecture: large overhangs, zigzag roof lines, and a sunken conversation pit in the lobby surrounding a fountain that was once a large Scandinavian-style fireplace.
Tandon and his partners moonlight as hoteliers while working in the film industry, but Hope Springs’ Hollywood connections go back almost two decades. Built in 1962 by two women from Los Angeles, the 10-room motel was originally called La Bella Sari and catered to a clientele of mostly Jewish snowbirds and weekenders.
The resort sign is blank now, standing as a totem to design-loving visitors.
Many came for extended stays to “take to the waters” for health reasons and enjoy the camaraderie of fellow guests. When not enjoying the 104-degree mineral hot springs that bubble up from the ground, they would play shuffle-board or bridge around the pool. La Bella Sari prospered for years before falling on hard times as changing tastes drew vacationers to newer resorts Down Valley.
Bits of kitsch still abound. This flamingo has been here since the 1960s.
By 1999, the hotel was functioning as low-income apartments when it was purchased by Steve Samiof. As founder and editor of the alternative magazine Slash, Samiof was a legend in the L.A. punk scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s, chronicling the rise of SoCal acts like The Dead Kennedy’s, X, and The Go-Go’s. When he bought the hotel, he was leading a quiet existence in Palm Springs (in the original Wexler house) and looking for a new project.
Samiof and his business partner Nick Haggerty stripped away the layers of “Santa Fe style” left over from an ill-conceived update in the 1980s. “We spent weeks chipping up Spanish pavers that they had laid down over the original terrazzo floors,” says Samiof, who now resides in Costa Rica after renovating and selling a hotel there.
A pioneering graphic designer, Samiof and his partner painted everything canvas white, adding pops of midcentury color, minimalist abstract art, and black-and-white photography to the rooms and lobby. In honor of their new venture, they renamed the resort “Hope Springs” but kept the Googie-esque sign out front that reads “Cactus Springs” (a mysterious moniker acquired in the late 1970s).
It was an “arduous and difficult” renovation, Samiof recalls, with a crew of three working nonstop until the opening on New Year’s Eve 2000. The hotel’s laid-back vibe, striking visuals, and out-of-the-way location made it an instant hit with celebrities and design aficionados. David Hockney, Matthew McConaughey, and Rick Owens were just a few of the boldfaced names who came to stay in the early days.
A former fireplace and conversation pit transformed into a fountain.
Curvilinear forms greet guests at the lobby entrance.
“Steve was really the one who brought the artists out, because of his connections with the music industry,” says owner/partner Tandon. The small resort built of loyal following of creative types that continues to this day.
Tandon himself was a frequent guest at the hotel and remembers a sense of panic when he heard Samiof planned to sell the property. “My first thought was, ‘Someone is going to buy this place and change it.’ To me, it was perfect just the way it was,” he says. So he rallied a few close friends to purchase the resort and run it as a partnership. They have made major improvements over the years, updating the guest rooms and the three hot springs pools, as well as adding a treatment room. But much of Hope Springs remains the same as when Samiof first opened it.
Guests no longer play bridge by the pool, but the camaraderie that attracted patrons to La Bella Sari still exists with a communal kitchen and barbecue grills. Many come and don’t leave the property all weekend, enjoying the peace and solitude of this hidden gem in Desert Hot Springs.
Hope Springs, hopespringsresort.com
An old postcard reveals the former La Bella Sari Lodge.