Greg flew up from Austin to Dallas early on Friday morning, and I joined him at DFW in mid-morning, at which time we caught a late morning flight out to Palm Springs. Although I would have done so myself, Greg paid my way (maybe because he thought that left to my own devices I would sit in coach), using some of his accumulated miles to get us two first-class seats out and back.
We arrived in Palm Springs about one o'clock, as I recall, and we were met at the terminal by Greg's Realtor friend, Ralph Laramie. He had met Ralph, I believe, on a cruise some months ago, and they had, apparently, talked about Palm Springs quite a bit, and Greg, not being tied down to any particular place, thought that he should at least investigate living there.
As we came out of the terminal, I got my first view (at least in the last twenty years) of
the San Jacinto Mountains,
which I would learn later are actually west and southwest of downtown Palm Springs. This view looks pretty much due west, towards Los Angeles. I also wanted to take my first short movie while here in Palm Springs, again looking at the San Jacinto Mountains and the area near the airport. You can watch that movie with the player at left.
We piled into Ralph's car, and the first thing on the agenda was to get some lunch, and so he drove us directly into downtown Palm Springs to a local place that he was fond of.
On the aerial view of downtown Palm Springs at the right, I have marked the approximate location of the restaurant where
Greg and Ralph
had lunch. As you can see, the main route through Palm Springs (and most of the desert cities) is California Highway 111. It branches off of Interstate 10 northwest of Palm Springs and then runs south through downtown (where it is also known as Palm Canyon Drive). From there, is stairsteps south and east following the base of the San Jacinto Mountains, going through Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage and the Desert Cities south and east of there- all the way to Indian Wells. I did not carry any of the maps that far, since on this trip we wouldn't get any further south (with one exception) than Rancho Mirage (where Ralph and his partner, Blade, lived).
In downtown Palm Springs, Highway 111 is split into two, one-way streets, and our restaurant was on the west side of
southbound Palm Canyon Drive.
We had a nice lunch and Ralph laid out the plans for the rest of the day, which would include visiting at least three different houses that he had selected that Greg might be interested in. We planned to spend the rest of the day looking at these houses, and then we would go out to Ralph's house in Rancho Mirage, get settled in (Ralph was nice enough to give Greg and I his two guest rooms), and have dinner.
As we came out of the restaurant and went to the parking lot to drive to the first house, I snapped another picture of
the San Jacinto Mountains.
I didn't know it yet, but I was to become quite familiar with the mountains that you see here, both on this trip and on a subsequent trip that Fred and I took in 2005 to come back out to visit Greg.
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Touring House #1
Well, the whole point of the trip out here was so that Greg could look at some houses and see if there was something that he would like. He had given Ralph some general parameters- size, cost and amenities among them- but the rest is just visual; did the house "appeal" to Greg (and would it "appeal" to others). Although Greg did not tell me specifically, I believe, judging from the houses we looked at, that his price range had an upper limit of about $900,000. The first house we saw was relatively inexpensive, but also relatively small. I was out away from the hills a good ways, somewhere east of Palm Canyon and south of the center of town.
Although this is a photo album of pictures taken on various travels of my own, it seems unnecessary to put pictures in that mean little or nothing to me, and it would also seem that these pictures of houses that I had no intention of buying would fall into that category. But, because I took the pictures, and because I was on a trip when I did so, and also because Greg might at some point in the future wish to see them, I am going to include them here. However, I will include them with little or no commentary. For some of them, I may just provide a link (such as this link to the
particularly interesting kitchen
of this first house). For the movies (such as the movie I made of the striking pool area and view at this first house), I will, as I usually do, just tell you that you can watch that movie with the player at left. For the rest, I will provide thumbnails like the ones below, and if you are interested in seeing the full-size pictures, you can click on any or all of them. If you are uninterested in the houses we saw, and I can certainly understand if you are, just scroll on down the particular page until you get to a section that has more appeal.
(Click on Thumbnails to View)
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Touring House #2
The next house we saw was actually west of Palm Canyon Drive and much closer to the the hills. It was a very nice house and quite large, and it had a particularly nice
pool area.
A couple of other striking features worth noting specifically were the
bathtub with a view
(although it made me wonder how secure the fencing was around the property) and also that the house was much closer to the San Jacinto Mountains, with consequently
beautiful mountain views
which, I came to find out, are actually pretty common throughout the Palm Springs Area.
I also took a couple of movies of this house, one of the surrounding neighborhood and one of the inside of the house and you can watch them with the players below:
The Neighborhood Outside
Interior of the House
Mostly because the decorating was so much not his style, I thought that Greg would not consider this house to be high on his list. You can see what I mean about the decorating if you look at some of the other pictures of this house:
(Click on Thumbnails to View)
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Driving Through Some Palm Springs Neighborhoods
After looking at the last house, we drove a couple of miles away towards another house that Ralph was not sure that Greg would like (it being just above Greg's "budget"), and so did not arrange to be able to get into it. But he did want Greg to see the outside of it, and so we drove a couple of miles to get to it.
On the way, I took a couple of movies of these fairly typical upscale neighborhoods of Palm Springs, and you can watch those movies with the players below:
As we drove up to this house, I made a movie of the outside of it, one that you can watch with the player at left. As it turned out, the house WAS of interest to Greg, and so Ralph made arrangements for us to see it the next day. For some reason, though, I did not bring my camera along (perhaps because I didn't think Greg would finally choose something so big (and expensive), so I have no inside pictures. It certainly WAS a nice house. The oddest feature was a huge, long, thin room built as a basement (very unusual in Palm Springs) yet underneath the side yard- not the house. You could have put a couple of bowling lanes in it, and we had no idea what it was for.
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Touring House #3
I don't have many pictures of the next house we saw, mostly because it was pretty obvious that Greg didn't like it. To see this house, we had to meet another Realtor there. It was located north of downtown just off Highway 111. It didn't have much curb appeal, nor any of the lush plantings that we gotten quickly accustomed to. Add to that the fact that it was not well-laid-out, dated and looked like something from Moorish Spain, and it was easy to see why it was not high on anyone's list. I just have a couple of additional pictures that you can look at by clicking on the thumbnails below:
(Click on Thumbnails to View)
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Touring House #4
The last house we looked at today we toured more as a curiosity than anything else. It was so far outside Greg's budget (Ralph said it was on the market for about $1.5 million) that none of us thought we'd be doing anything more than taking a look at what that much money could buy. Actually, Ralph had heard about this house somewhere, and had been wanting to see it; who knows, he told us, when someone might want something really dramatic? He called the listing agent and found that he was already at the house which was only about a mile away and so off we went.
The house was located again north of downtown Palm Springs, but actually within walking distance of it (maybe a mile or mile and a half). It was on a quiet, dead-end street that backed up against the San Jacinto Mountains; it looked as if you could walk right to the end of the street and then right up into the hills. (I might mention that in most places, areas like the San Jacinto Mountains would be fenced off- either privately-owned or government-owned. But here in the Coachella Valley, these lands are owned by Indian tribes, and they consider it an affront to the spirits to enclose the lands that have been provided to them, and so there are no fences at all to keep people from hiking right up into the hills from any public street or highway.)
At left is a plan of the house, so you can follow along as we tour it.
The house itself was enclosed, though, with lush plantings inside the front courtyard. You can see the type of enclosure and some of these plantings if you watch the movie I made while entering the house (player at right) The house itself was very, very nice inside; a house for entertaining if there ever was one. The shape of the house was like a huge "H," but without the lower left pedestal and the upper right riser- down, across and down again- with the bottom of the "H" being the front of the house. It was actually a little different than that, since the garage area was tacked onto the left side of the house (and it also wrapped around a bit at the front of the house. To a large extent, the house "wrapped around" the pool area. The two guest rooms (actually "casitas") had entrances right to the pool area rather than through the house. There was a formal dining room and large kitchen, and an entrance to the pool area right at that corner.
Just inside the entrance was a nice foyer, with a small formal living room beyond that with French doors out to the pool. To the left of the foyer was an enclosed library. To the left of the living room, beyond a see-through fireplace, was the informal family/TV room (not marked). To the right of the living room was the large master and its huge bathroom; it, too, had doors directly out to the pool. Finally, towards the front of the house there was a second master suite that the current owner had set up as an office. All around the outside of the house no expense had been spared in the landscaping.
Here are some thumbnails for the pictures I took inside and outside the house; I've added little labels so you'll know what room or area you are looking at. Pay special attention to the pool area; it was by far the most amazing such space the I have ever seen in a private home:
(Click on Thumbnails to View)
I also took a number of movies in and around the house, and you can watch those movies by using the players below:
The Master Bedroom and Bath
Library, Informal Living Room and Kitchen
Patio Seating area and Casitas
Incredible Pool Area
Side and Back Corner Gardens
Hot Tub and Waterfall
We spent quite some time at this house on Santa Elena; it was certainly dramatic, and Greg loves dramatic things. When we were talking about that aspect of the house, the listing agent told us that, even if we weren't seriously considering the house, we just had to return in the evening and see the
waterfalls and firepits
all turned on. Ralph did make arrangements to borrow a set of keys, and we did return the next evening to take a look. Even though those pictures belong chronologically with a different day, I am going to include them here. Watch the two movies with the players below:
Firepit, Hot Tub and Waterfall
Incredible Pool Area
Really a wonderful house, and with drama to spare, but it was half again as much as Greg was planning to spend, so I assumed it had been marked off the list, now that our curiosity was satisfied.
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Dinner With Ralph and Blade
After looking through the house on Santa Elena, we drove out to Rancho Mirage and the house shared by Ralph and his partner Blade. I'll postpone much more description of their house until tomorrow. We sat by the pool waiting for Blade to get home and after we got acquainted (Greg had already met both
Blade and Ralph
on one of his cruises) we went over to Palm Canyon Drive and to a very nice Mexican Restaurant. I was happy to pick up the check in return for their hospitality in allowing me to stay with them (and to Greg for bringing me with him in the first place).
When we returned to the house, Ralph and Greg discussed what we might see tomorrow, and then we all headed off to bed.
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