Shopping: Palm Springs : Vintage Point : Hunting for classic clothes and furniture in an old Hollywood retreat with renewed chic

For me, and for most other people, this sultry setting can be summed up in a few descriptive phrases:

Pools and relaxation. Skies out of Van Gogh. Dramatic terrain. Delicious heat.

But now there’s a new allure, thanks to Walter Pidgeon’s love seat.

“You won’t believe Walter’s couch,” my parents’ friend Debbie Alexander was telling me over the phone. Alexander, a Palm Springs realtor, is one of the world’s great vintage shoppers. “Olive-green. Satin stripes. Rolled arms. It looks like it came out of Lucy and Desi’s living room. And it only cost $300!”

A few weeks ago, a friend and I dropped by Palm Springs to see what all the fuss over vintage shopping was about. Alexander, of course, was right. In the past couple of years, two dozen consignment and antique shops have sprouted up on California 111 (also known as Palm Canyon Drive) in and around Palm Springs, and it’s not unusual to find celebrity fare among the inventory.

At the Estate Sale Co., the largest store of the bunch, I spotted a black onyx-top dresser for $500 that had been put on consignment by singer Vic Damone. (He and Diahann Carroll are redoing their Palm Springs digs and have unloaded a lot of their furnishings. Loretta Young is doing the same thing.) The Estate Sale Co., at 5 years old the granddaddy of the strip, expanded in July to 22,000 feet of floor space. Seventy percent of its inventory--furniture and jewelry, mostly--comes from local sources, and the weekly turnover rate can be as high as 50%.

Next door, at Patsy’s Clothes Closet, owner Frank Fowler swore that the silk Armani boxers hanging on the wall had been worn by Dennis Quaid. Patsy’s has a wonderful collection of Chanel suits priced from $300 to $700, and it also carries barely worn clothes from Donna Karan, Escada and Versace. Celebrities frequently bring their clothes here after only one or two wears. Fowler won’t name names, but he says one celebrity wife regularly dispatches her maid and chauffeur to Patsy’s with her discards.

My personal favorite, the Village Attic specializes in 1950s furniture and accouterments such as pole lamps, three-piece dinette sets for as low as $95, jazz tuxedo chairs and a faux leopard-covered round bed, priced at $389.

I’ve never been much of a shopper, but this is more hunt than shopping expedition, and I’m not the only one on the prowl: Set designers, props and wardrobe specialists and interior decorators are paying increasing attention to the antiques and consignment scene here, according to local vendors. We can only hope that they don’t drive up prices before we’ve bought our fill.

Call me crazy, but I get excited when I see Vic Damone’s name taped onto a dresser or when a storekeeper at La Gallaria Consignments whispers the name of the mega-famous singer who has put on consignment a large advertising icon for Phosferine, “the greatest of all tonics.” I even found myself checking the Saturday classifieds in the Desert Sun for garage sales. (I came up dry at the garage sales, but my father reports buying a golf bag for $10 at a house across the street from Kirk Douglas’ in Las Palmas, a neighborhood in Palm Springs (roughly north of the Palm Springs Desert Museum, on the mountain side of Palm Canyon Drive) that Goldie Hawn, Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes and Liberace have all called home.)

Underneath its veneer, Palm Springs is undergoing a subtle renaissance that caused Conde Nast Traveler, in a recent issue, to extol this desert oasis as a place that’s “fast becoming the hippest destination on the map.”

If there is anyone leading that charge it’s Doug Smith, an architectural designer whose exotic, impossibly romantic 12-room inn, Korakia, has attracted a Hollywood crowd and out-of-towners ranging from the publisher of the New York Times to the concertmaster of the Cincinnati Philharmonic to photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Korakia isn’t just a place, it’s a feeling. Rooms start at $79, and each has its own appeal. A favorite room, the library, was considered the cultural center of old Palm Springs for literary discussions and chamber music after Scottish artist Gordon Coutts built the Moroccan-style villa in 1924. (Stars sighted there recently: Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson.) Upstairs, in a onetime art studio reputed to have been visited by Sir Winston Churchill, I lay in a queen-size feather bed and watched the morning light turn the cream-colored cotton curtains into shadow lands. My suite had a large north-facing mountain overlooking the teardrop pool, a mosaic tile fountain and the San Jacinto mountains. I could have lolled in bed forever, but our congenial innkeeper had breakfast waiting downstairs.

“It’s not the gold-chain, phone-by-the-pool crowd,” Smith said as he sliced just-picked grapefruit. “Something happens here with the warm nights and the stars. The people are one of the aesthetics. It becomes magical. Palm Springs has always drawn rebels. It’s on the edge. There’s an excitement that’s almost palpable. There’s a renaissance going on that’s not chic in the Zsa Zsa way. This is a new generation.”

Part of the new found allure is vintage Palm Springs: Its Mission and Mediterranean-style architecture has a timeless elegance, and now appreciative young audiences are discovering the campy curb appeal of the city’s 1950s- and 1960s-style houses and motor courts.

Some of the world’s best-known fashion magazines--Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Glamour, among others--have staged shoots here in recent months, drawn anew to this desert dateline because of its faultless light and retro-architecture.

The Palm Springs Historical Society offers self-guided walking tours from its Palm Canyon Drive headquarters, where brochures with architectural highlights can be purchased for 75 cents. Regrettably, it fails to spotlight the wondrous works of Modernist architect Albert Frey, responsible for about 200 structures in Palm Springs, including its city hall, the Tramway Gas Station and the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway valley station. Frey’s projects place him in the ranks of other California Modernists such as Richard Neutra, Rudolf Schindler and Kem Weber, and, at 91, Frey still lives in the glass, cement-black and ribbed metal house he built into Tahquitz Canyon 30 years ago.

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The city’s architecture, vintage shops and historical traditions will converge in March when The Downtown Development Center inaugurates the Heritage Galleries and Antique District on Palm Canyon Drive, between Via Lola and Alejo. The northernmost anchor, the former Don the Beachcomber Club, will house a number of antiques and fine-arts shops, and several old hotels--the Olympus, the Friendship Inn and the Villa Hermosa--are being renovated in conjunction with the development. Banners will be erected on Palm Canyon Drive to promote the district, which is being patterned after antiques areas in the East.

“We have a wonderful arts and entertainment district and eclectic architecture,” said Jerry Ogburn, director of the private development group. “We already have what people are trying to create in other cities, and this ‘50s and ‘60s explosion has just kind of fallen into our lap. This isn’t Santa Fe. This isn’t Santa Barbara. This is Palm Springs and we’re one of a kind.”

Of course, I couldn’t leave town without having lunch with Debbie Alexander, who was wearing earrings she had bought for $4 at Desert Friends. But mostly she was excited about the Walter Pidgeon love seat, which had been delivered to her house that morning.

“It was easier a couple of years ago when I knew the value of things and the shopkeepers didn’t,” she said. “It was much more productive shopping. I hate paying full price, and you really can’t dicker at Bullock’s, can you?”

Debbie, Debbie.

It was a nice lunch.

Debbie went back to work.

Me?

I resumed the hunt.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Palm Springs

Oldies

The following are part of the vintage Palm Springs scene.

Where to stay: Casa Cody B&B; Country Inn, 175 S. Cahuilla Road, Palm Springs 92262; rates begin at $69; tel. (619) 320-9346.

Estrella Inn at Palm Springs, 415 S. Belardo Road, Palm Springs 92262; rates begin at $140; (800) 237-3687 or (619) 320-4117.

Ingleside Inn, 200 W. Ramon Road, Palm Springs 92264; rates begin at $95; (619) 325-0046.

Korakia, 257 S. Patencio Road, Palm Springs 92262; rates begin at $79; tel. (619) 864-6411.

Orchid Tree Inn, 261 S. Belardo Road, Palm Springs 92262; rates begin at $80; (619) 325-2791 or (800) 733-3435.

Where to eat:

Blue Coyote Grill, 445 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92262; Southwestern; entrees $6.95-$18.95; (619) 327-1196.

Edgardo’s Cafe Veracruz, 233 S. Indian Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92262; Mexican; entrees $5-$14; (619) 864-1551.

Louise’s Pantry, 124 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92264; home-cooked food; entrees $7-9; (619) 325-5124.

Palmie, 276 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92262; French; entrees $11-$20; (619) 320-3375.

Main Street Cafe, 256 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92264; Middle Eastern and burgers; entrees $7-$12; (619) 778-3727.

Where to shop: Desert Friends Thrift Store (soon to be renamed Revivals), 68929 Perez Road, Suite K, Cathedral City 92234; tel. (619) 328-1330.

Estate Sale Co., 4185 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92264; tel. (619) 321-7628.

La Gallaria Consignments, 71713 California 111, Rancho Mirage 92270; tel. (619) 776-9880.

Patsy’s Clothes Closet, 4121 E. Palm Canyon, Palm Springs 92264; tel. (619) 324-8825.

The Village Attic, 849 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92262; (619) 320-6165.

For more information: Palm Springs Visitor Information Center, 401 S. Pavilion Way, Palm Springs 92262; tel. (800) 347-7746. Palm Springs Historical Society, 221 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs 92262; tel. (619) 323-8297.