Korakia Pensione, Palm Springs, CA

In short… This charming Moroccan-meets-Mediterranean retreat is an outlier in Mid-Mod Palm Springs, with whitewashed villas, bougainvillea-draped archways, antiques-filled rooms and other romantic details, just steps from downtown.

The backstory… Half of Korakia Pensione was originally built by Scottish painter Gordon Coutts in the 1920s as a home and artists’ retreat to recreate his life in Tangier. Formerly called Dar Marroc, the bungalows surrounding a small pool and splashing fountain hosted visiting artists, musicians and actors including Rudolph Valentino and Errol Flynn. It survived a later incarnation as a hotel after that, until “petite resort” hotel brand Auric Road acquired it, along with a 1930s Mediterranean villa and historic adobe home across the street that were once owned by an early silent screen star. Together they comprise the new resort, with guests easily walking back and forth between them. The newest addition to the property is Auric House, a private social club in a 1930s Spanish Revival home nearby.

The surroundings… The property spans a quiet street in Palm Spring’s historic Tennis Club neighborhood, with a backdrop of the San Jacinto Mountains and slender palm trees springing from the peaceful courtyard. It’s hard to believe that it’s just a few minutes’ walk from downtown. The hotel also has a cute Moke to ferry guests in if you prefer not to walk or drive.

The vibe… is refreshingly un PS-like—not a touch of modernism anywhere. Entering through a Moorish arched entrance into a riad-like courtyard with a splashing fountain, you immediately feel ensconced: a small and pretty pool at the center, flanked by low whitewashed villas with a small bar and fireplace to one side. It’s pretty and peaceful and I never saw more than three or four guests lounging here at a time. Completing the enchanting picture are colorful floral and succulent gardens that grow around small seating areas hung with metal lanterns, which twinkle at night. Across the street and through a small gate on the Mediterranean side, the property opens onto a raked sand courtyard connecting a southern-European style villa and the Orchard House, an original 1918 adobe within a citrus grove and outdoor stone fireplace. This side also has a public space with a fire pit and outdoor living room of couches and cushions arranged on a Persian rug, where classic movies are projected onto a wall in the evenings.

The rooms… There are only 28 guest rooms total—16 on the Mediterranean side and 13 on the Moroccan side. We stayed in the Artist Studio, which was Coutt’s own atelier that he built with tall, north-facing atelier windows. All the paintings currently in the room were painted by various guest-artists, including one that sits half-finished on an easel. The room seems to tell a story of its former inhabitant, with a kitchenette, long red velvet couch (you can imagine a model reclining on it) and other eclectic antiques—a carved wooden bed frame and leather armchair, and a turntable (which all of the rooms have) that we used to play Fleetwood Mac Rumors and Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits on repeat. The minibar is stocked with local CA brands of tortilla chips, salsa, energy bites, as well as Ghia, Olipop and a bottle of Joel Gott red wine. The chocolate covered strawberries at turndown were a lovely touch.

The food & drink… With no coffee machines in the rooms, they bring you coffee or tea in a thermos to your door on request, a perfect wake-up call. Breakfast is the only meal cooked here and is served in the courtyard in front of the hotel under a big olive tree, which feels like a Greek taverna with wooden tables covered in striped tablecloths and bowls of oranges. The food leans healthy-California, and the technicolor hues of it all—the “Rawnola with Blue Majic” (oats and almond milk with spirulina and fresh fruit)—eaten under the bluest sky and swaying palms—felt like a mirage. The little pool bar is for guests only (so never crowded) and is a lovely spot in late afternoons to sip the house specialty Dar Marroc, made with a Moroccan fig spirit, pomegranate juice, rosewater, mint and lime. Lunch and dinner can be ordered from local Eight4Nine restaurant, but there are countless restaurants within a close drive or walk. Melvyn’s, the old-school icon, is practically around the corner, and we had a great dinner of Caesar salad, steak, martinis and bananas foster flambéd at the table—a dose of old-Hollywood style.

The wellness… There are a few group activities to join at will—yoga on Saturday mornings, sound meditation baths on Wednesdays (sadly I missed both!), and guided hikes to Tahquitz Canyon. Treatments can be booked in the small spa on the Mediterranean Villa side, which I also missed, though if I come back I’m definitely down for the “vibrational scalp treatment.” They also provide loaner Linus bikes, which are a great way to ride into town for a date shake.

Is it kid-friendly? Nope, adults only.

Be sure to… Stay a few days—there is so much to do in the area and it’s the perfect combination of nature and culture activities. Definitely consult our YOLO Palm Springs List for inspiration! And Korakia has a bound notebook in each room full of suggested activities in the area, from shopping to dining to hikes.

We saw a career-spanning David Hockney exhibit (months before the Paris exhibit opened), at the Palm Springs Art Museum, whose permanent collection of modern art rivals that of many major city museums. Definitely get the double ticket to also enter the Architecture and Design Center, in a glass-and-steel building designed as a bank by E. Stwart Williams in 1961 (the gift shop is in the bank vault). It features rotating design exhibits, but worth it to watch the videos of the Desert Modernists who shaped Palm Springs.I also highly recommend taking a Palm Springs Architecture tour with Michael Stern. The itinerary changes each time based on what houses he can get into, but his deep connections (he wrote the book, Hollywood Modern) open doors—though you do need a car, as you drive in a slow caravan and call into a conference line to hear him narrate local histories and architectural sites. We popped into one of the William Krisel small modernist houses (privately owned), did a drive by of Neutra’s Kaufman House, and got to explore Albert Frey’s stunning 1964 Frey House II, a compact 800-square-foot steel-frame home built so light on the land that a large boulder juts into the center of it.