Swimming Pool, El Mirador,
Palm Springs, California
Story posted from the;
Fire Destroys Palm Springs'
El Mirador
Hotel
July, 27, 1989
JENIFER WARREN and SCOTT HARRIS | Times Staff Writers
PALM SPRINGS — The stately remains of El Mirador Hotel, a desert landmark for
six decades and a one-time winter playground for the rich and famous, was
reduced to rubble Wednesday by an early morning fire.
Although firefighters arrived shortly after flames were spotted at 12:15
a.m., they were unable to prevent the blaze from destroying the historic hotel
and toppling its dramatic bell tower.
Visited through the years by W. C. Fields, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Marlene
Dietrich and countless captains of industry, the El Mirador last received guests
in 1973. It was boarded up and unoccupied at the time of the fire, serving as a
warehouse for the current owner, Desert Hospital. The fire came just hours after
the board of directors at the hospital--located next to the hotel on Indian
Avenue--approved a $2-million renovation plan to reinforce the fragile tower and
reconstruct the hotel's single remaining building in its original style. The
hospital planned to use the new structure as a rehabilitation facility for
cardiac patients.
"It's such a cruel irony," hospital spokeswoman Kay Hazen said. "After
working very hard to save the tower, to integrate it into the plans, we were
finally ready to go ahead. And then this."
As temperatures soared to 113, Palm Springs fire investigators prowled the
charred ruins, looking for clues to what sparked the blaze. Fire Department
spokesman Mark Avner said there were unconfirmed reports that transients--who
had previously been chased from the vacant building by hospital security
guards--were spotted inside the structure late Tuesday night.
Fire officials completed their investigation Wednesday evening and listed the
cause as suspicious since no accidental causes were apparent. The fire started
in a wing having no electrical wiring, ruling out an electric spark as a cause.
However, investigator Duane Sands said damage from flames was so extensive "we
may never know the answer to this one."
Avner said three of the 30 firefighters who battled the blaze suffered minor
injuries. It took three hours to put the fire out.
News of the blaze spread quickly through town and cast a gloom over many Palm
Springs residents, who considered the hotel and 68-foot tower cultural treasures
and a rare remaining symbol of the city's past. Many said its destruction was
like losing an old friend.
"To me, the El Mirador was Palm Springs. It was the heart and soul of the
city," said former Mayor Frank Bogert, who handled promotion for the hotel in
the mid-1930s and lived in a guest room there for four years. "To lose it is
like losing the family crest."
"It's one of those sickening moments when you realize a piece of your history
is gone and there's nothing you can do about it," said Janice Lyle, chairwoman
of the Historic Site Preservation Board, which has fought hard over the past
decade to save the hotel from demolition.
Culver Nichols, whose father-in-law built the El Mirador 62 years ago, called
the hotel "the most splendid work of art in our community. It was an
inspiration, and now it's gone."
Hazen said, however, that the hospital would proceed with the project and
also rebuild the tower. She noted that pieces from the original--including a
steel weather vane that sat atop it--had been salvaged from the fire.
The El Mirador--roughly translated as "The Watchtower"--opened its doors on
New Year's Eve, 1927, and quickly became a mecca for Hollywood stars and the
corporate elite. The 200-room hotel was built by a tubercular Colorado
cattleman-turned-real estate investor named Prescott Thresher Stevens at a cost
of $1 million--a staggering sum in that era--and was designed by Los Angeles
architects Walker & Eisen, who also drew plans for the Beverly Wilshire
Hotel.
The hotel--built in the Spanish-Colonial Revival style popular in Southern
California in the 1920s--featured lavish guest rooms with hand-carved furniture
and sun decks. The signature feature was the bell tower crowned by a cap of
colorful tile in a Moorish mosaic pattern. The tower had an imported Italian
bronze bell later supplemented by electric chimes. The hotel would boast the
Coachella Valley's first golf course as well as tennis courts and stables.
Its Olympic-size pool had three diving boards and lured aquatic stars such as
Esther Williams and Johnny Weismuller. And vast gardens teemed with a rich
diversity of native desert plants.
Escapist Fantasy
During the Depression, El Mirador kept showing up on newsreels as an escapist
fantasy of carefree extravagance. Al Jolson and George Raft had laughs by the
pool, and Weismuller did complimentary Tarzan yells. Guests George Burns and
Gracie Allen went for bicycle rides.
The hotel's fame in the 1930s was such that Freeman Gosden and Charles
Correll--better known as radio's "Amos 'n' Andy"--came out of the winter cold of
Chicago for a visit. They came back for the next several winters to broadcast
the most popular show of its time from what had by then become known as the
"Tower of the Stars."
As temperatures soared to 113
.
"I made the mistake of passing through Palm Springs
in the summer time. It was like being in a convection oven."
Been there...
Done that!
