Weekend Escape: Palm Springs : Desert Versailles : Let them eat celery flan! at the new Givenchy Spa

The 90-mile drive from Los Angeles to Palm Springs should take less than two hours, but this Friday afternoon in February the journey is unpleasantly extended by dense traffic. I have just recovered from a 2 1/2-month bout with pneumonia, an illness I describe to friends as, “So 19th century, like something out of Thomas Mann.” To prolong the Mann analogy, I’ve decided to visit the new Givenchy Hotel and Spa.

This is not a choice easily made. I come from the longer, harder, faster school of exercise. A massage is a reward for an 85-mile bike ride to Santa Barbara. The European approach trumpets wellness through indolence; relaxing beauty treatments are a right rather than a privilege. So the question of the weekend will be: Can I adapt to a spa where guests don’t earn coddling with sweat equity?

The atmosphere is conducive to relaxation, a 15-acre compound of low, white buildings surrounding a formal rose garden in the style of Versailles. The old Gene Autry resort has been completely renovated by legendary hotelier Rose Narva, who earlier transformed three old Washington hotels including the Jefferson and Hay-Adams. The original Givenchy Spa is at the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles. The designer lends his name to both locations, and Givenchy beauty and treatment products are used and sold here. Mrs. Narva greets me when I arrive, and asks what treatments I’d like to try the following day.

Shortly after 9 on Saturday morning the spa director calls my room with a suggested schedule. A body scrub at 10, massage at noon, facial at 3. I appreciate her assuming the burden of making appointments for me, but I want to save the body scrub for Sunday. I explore the hotel until it’s time for my massage.

Rooms in the Country-French-style Pavilion start at $225. More formal rooms in the Grand Trianon wing (from $275 a night) have direct access to one of the two outdoor swimming pools and hot tub. Junior suites (from $300) and suites (from $350) have two baths and, like most of the hotel, are attractively decorated in a style I think of as Ritz-Carlton traditional. There are private villas from $575. The lobby is a book-lined sitting room; the dining room and breakfast patio overlook the gardens. There are 98 rooms and suites in all, including Le Grand Suite, a four-bedroom, 4,200-square-foot duplex that goes for $2,500 a night. The hotel has only been open a month, and the luxury suite isn’t finished yet. (It is now.)

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An introductory weekend package of $455, including meals and a 30-minute massage, was quoted when I first inquired, but when my travel agent called back, she was told the limited number of rooms at that rate were already spoken for. Although a Pavillion room is the least expensive accommodation, I like it better than some of the bigger, pricier suites. From a lounge chair, I admire the view of palm trees and the necklace of craggy mountains that surrounds Palm Springs.

There is no sound of bouncing balls from one of the six tennis courts nearby to interrupt my solitude. The tennis pro is as lonely as a Maytag repairman, and less cranky. He’ll play with guests, he tells me, or find partners for them. He is not an anomaly. The staff is uniformly friendly and nice. At breakfast, the waiter asks how tight my schedule is, because the fat-free muffins won’t be out of the oven for about 10 minutes.

A gentle, one-hour Swedish massage ($85) had been planned for me, but seconds after the masseuse touches my back she suggests a deep-tissue treatment. “The area between your shoulder blades feels like cement,” she says. “That’s where most people carry their tension.” As I lie on the heated massage table, enjoying the healing hands kneading my stress-ridden flesh, I begin to contemplate a pedicure, like a child at Disneyland emerging from a ride and asking, “Can we do it again?”

After breakfast I’d chatted with the chef, Jean Pierre Lemanissier, who cooked at Antoine’s in Newport Beach and the Four Seasons in L.A. Because it is early in the game, the more calorie-conscious spa menu was not yet available.

“I don’t like spa cuisine,” Lemanissier told me. “I prefer to call it light cuisine.” Before falling into bed the night before I’d had a dinner of two appetizers, lentil soup with celery flan ($9) and vegetable lasagne ($9). Both dishes were too tasty not to be fattening, so I discussed a light lunch with Jean-Pierre. I knew after a massage I’d be oily and not in a mood to put on clothes, so I ordered it delivered to my room.

A vegetable terrine baked with herbs and salmon in a fennel broth arrives hot ($12). The food is not only delicious, but beautifully presented. I’m wearing the terry robe provided, but I could have gone to the dining room in it as one woman did at breakfast. By the time I finish lunch it’s nearly time for my facial, but I have a moment to explore the fitness room. A separate building from the spa, it’s stocked with stationary bikes, stair machines, rowers, treadmills and a cross-country ski machine.

My facial ($95) is not exceptional, but I consider it an excuse to sit still in a quiet room for 80 minutes. New-agey music tinkles softly, but it is only mildly annoying. There are separate areas of the spa for men and women. The treatment rooms are beautiful, pristine, outfitted with state of the art equipment. Cosseted in a padded chair, my mind wanders, considering weighty questions such as, Is it better to be emotionally or physically high maintenance? After a while, I have no mind. I am only sensations.

The last treatment of the day is a manicure ($20) in the beauty salon. Four women occupy chairs nearby, having their hair styled for the evening. It’s impossible to categorize the guests. There are mostly couples, boomers and their parents, but no one under 35. At night, the crowd does dress up, and people not staying at the hotel come just for a meal. The hippest-looking group is a crew from a French women’s magazine photographing a feature on the hotel.

Lunch was late, so I decide to skip dinner, nibble on the fruit basket in my room and meet a friend for a drink in Palm Springs, less than 10 minutes away. While I’m out the chocolate fairy visits my villa. I can’t imagine her leaving gifts on the pillow at the fitness-bootcamp Canyon Ranch in Tucson, but neither would I expect anyone to come here to lose weight.

The next morning, a lovely woman with a lilting Yorkshire accent spreads a grainy exfoliating cleanser on my body, then rubs gently with a rotating brush. I have begun my day with a one-hour body scrub ($85). Facials can be had all over L.A. It is these more esoteric treatments I come to a spa for. After I’ve showered off the exfoliating cream, she comes back in and I remark on how smooth my skin feels.

Although a novitiate in this world of pleasures, I’m advancing quickly, and agree to try the hydrojet treatment ($50) next. Carol slathers my naked body with a rich cream, wraps me in plastic and covers me with a light comforter. I lie on a water-bed-like table as a mechanized roller, driven by jets in the water, travels underneath from toe to neck. The effect is similar to the Magic Finger massages a quarter buys in roadside motels. (Never mind how I know.)

I’m not yet blissed-out, but I could be getting the hang of this pampering thing. A limo ride home would be nice.

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Budget for One

Gas: $15.00

Spa and tax, 2 nights: $240.04

Food: $56.43

Spa treatments: $335.00

Gratuities: $85.00

FINAL TAB: $731.47

Givenchy Hotel & Spa, 4200 E. Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs, CA 92264; tel. (800) 276-5000 or (619) 770-5000, fax (619) 324-6104.