Hospitality · Palm Springs, CA · 2009

Ace Hotel & Swim Club

Photo: Tim Hirschmann / Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

A 1965 roadside motel rebuilt into one of Palm Springs' defining design hotels.

The Ace Hotel and Swim Club began in 1965 as a roadside motor hotel, later a Howard Johnson. In 2009 it reopened as an Ace, redesigned by the Los Angeles firm Commune into a 180-room desert design hotel. Turning a tired motel into a destination is exacting work, run on a live site with no room for a loose end. Joseph Gonzalez worked the build. It is the job the Structural Systems standard comes from.

Type: Hospitality / resort
Location: 701 E Palm Canyon Dr, Palm Springs
Rooms: 180 guest rooms
Design: Commune, Los Angeles
Original build: 1965
Role: Joseph Gonzalez, on the build team

A motel reborn around the pool

The plan keeps the old motor-hotel footprint and turns it inward to the Swim Club, the pair of pools that give the hotel its name. Timber pergolas, shade decks and the low stucco room blocks step back toward the San Jacinto mountains.

Ace Hotel & Swim Club at dusk: the San Jacinto mountains glowing warm above the lit room blocks and pool — Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

Masonry in the desert palette

The Ace is built from honest materials worked with care: concrete block, board-formed concrete, plaster and breeze-block screens. A sculpted plaster fireplace and split-face block wall turn a guest patio into an outdoor room. It is the same masonry discipline Structural Systems brings to a wall, a fireplace or a pool surround on a private desert home.

Sculpted plaster fireplace and split-face concrete block wall on a shaded Ace Hotel guest patio — Photo: Tim Hirschmann / Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

Restored to its 1965 bones

Inside the King's Highway diner, the original roadside-motel character is kept and brought back to life: a rough-cut stone feature wall, exposed structure and globe pendants, raked by low desert light. Knowing what to preserve and what to rebuild is the heart of the work.

Rough-cut stone feature wall and globe pendant lights in the King's Highway diner at golden hour — Photo: Lance Gerber / Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

The property

Ace Hotel room block with twin exterior stairs and a stone-clad chimney against the mountains — Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

The weathered ACE letters mounted on a concrete-block screen wall with palms and mountains behind — Photo: Tim Hirschmann / Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

Private outdoor shower enclosed by an offset concrete breeze-block screen wall — Photo: Tim Hirschmann / Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

Ace Hotel guest room with a slatted wood headboard wall, woven textile art and cork floor — Photo: Tim Hirschmann / Ace Hotel & Swim Club (reference)

References

Reference photography from Ace Hotel & Swim Club. The project is shown as Joseph Gonzalez's career experience, not a Structural Systems contract.

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