Ace Hotel and Swim Club Palm Springs

From Roadside Motel to Desert Commune

In 1965, this stretch of East Palm Canyon Drive held a Howard Johnson, later a Westward Ho motel, the kind of roadside property Palm Springs had hundreds of by the 1960s. By the time Ace took it over, the building was painted an ugly yellow-and-green, the carpets were worn through, and squatters had moved in. Los Angeles design firm Commune, working with Ace's in-house studio Atelier Ace, rebuilt it as a curatorial project rather than a conventional renovation, commissioning artists and artisans from across the Southwest instead of ordering from a hospitality catalog. The roadside motel layout stayed, the central common space the rooms face is a direct descendant of the old motor-court plan, but everything inside it changed.

Why It Works

We chose the Ace for committing fully to an aesthetic most hotels only gesture at. Commune and Atelier Ace bought more than a thousand vintage and found furniture pieces, largely sourced locally, so no two rooms read quite the same, army-green palettes and handmade touches standing in for the generic consistency a chain hotel promises instead. The result reads as Bedouin tent meets skater chic, a description that sounds like a joke until you are standing in a room built around it. It is a hotel built by people with a specific taste, for guests who share it, and that specificity is rare at this scale.

Why This Location

East Palm Canyon Drive sits a short drive from downtown Palm Springs, close enough for dinner elsewhere but far enough to feel like its own address. The mountains frame the property directly, visible from most rooms without a lobby or parking lot in between. Golf courses sit within a few minutes' drive, and the airport is roughly ten minutes away, making the Ace a reasonable first or last stop on a desert trip rather than a destination requiring a special detour of its own.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: desert-commune, design-forward, unapologetically lived-in

• Rooms: 176, no two decorated quite alike, built around vintage and found furniture

• Best For: design-minded travelers and groups who want a social pool scene over a quiet retreat

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the mismatched, locally sourced furniture, more than a thousand pieces across the property

• Dining: King's Highway, in the former Denny's, organic-leaning plates; The Amigo Room for cocktails

• Amenities: two pools, wellness center, central event hall and courtyard, mountain views, dogs welcome

• Attractions: East Palm Canyon golf courses, downtown Palm Springs, Palm Springs International Airport

A Diner Reborn as King's Highway

The building's old Denny's now operates as King's Highway, a restaurant built to honor the diner's heritage without staying beholden to it: the shape of the room is familiar, the food is not, leaning toward organic, produce-driven plates rather than diner standards. The Amigo Room sits alongside it as the property's bar, carrying the same handmade, collected-over-time sensibility as the rooms upstairs. Together they turn what could have been an afterthought amenity into one of the reasons regulars keep coming back, pool day or not.

Two Pools, One Very Social Courtyard

The Ace's two pools sit inside a central courtyard that the rooms face directly, the same roadside-motel geometry that made this property a Howard Johnson in the first place, now rebuilt around a crowd rather than a parking lot. It is not a quiet pool: expect music, a mixed guest list, and an atmosphere that leans more toward a desert gathering than a private retreat. Travelers chasing solitude should look elsewhere on this list; travelers chasing a scene, and a hotel that still feels like a living project rather than a finished product, will find their spot here.