This sleek, modern Palm Springs oasis was once a Denny’s diner

It is a vibe, executed perfectly, much like everything else at the Ace Hotel.

My room isn’t ready, but the clerk gives me a neon pink wristband to access the pool and then ushers me through a dimly lit bar and then out the back door where once again, I am immersed in an eye-adjusting transition. From darkness to light. Again, my eyes squint as I take in my surroundings. Brisk white buildings. Palm trees sway. And up above, reaching thousands of feet higher than where I stand, the mountains have the faintest sketch of snow. 

If the Ace Hotel was a person, I imagine them to be a Pacific Northwest expat camping out in a desert outpost and hosting grand parties by the pool. And that’s not too far off from the true story. The Ace is a chain of hotels in locations across the globe, but the company got its start in Seattle and Portland. It opened its Palm Springs location in 2009, and as a company spokesperson told the Desert Sun at the hotel’s 10th anniversary, Palm Springs was chosen as to be a sunny escape from the Pacific Northwest’s gray days.

I can relate. I’m here with my husband for a wedding and we arrived from the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains near Tahoe. Winter wasn’t exactly thriving up there, but this is the time of year when so-called snowbirds need to fly south to warm up. There’s something about the dry heat that soothes me. I have a good feeling about the Ace. We’re going to get along. Maybe even become friends. 

My husband really does see his friends, right away. And after a lot of catching up with various people from the wedding, we eventually settle into lounge chairs by the pool and order pink spicy margaritas called “Picante Amante,” which means spicy lover, exactly the vibe I want to embrace at a wedding, and the margaritas are delicious. The sun feels amazing on my skin, which is my cue to dig out a bottle of sunscreen that hasn’t been used since last summer from the depths of my bag. I squeeze out a big glob. I will never stop applying sunscreen for the rest of the weekend.

Back in the days when Palm Springs was a winter retreat for Hollywood, this spot used to be a Westward Ho motel and a Dennys. It’s a history that has enough nostalgia to be a point of pride: “This was a Denny’s!” Now, the Ace Hotel’s restaurant is a sleek, mid-century modern diner. When the Ace bought the property, they worked some magic. Every single detail, down to the fonts that make the fire escape maps look like a vintage circus brochure, is on brand and the sum of its parts feels like a destination. You relax. You go to the pool. You immerse yourself in a culture, a mood. You drink cocktails. You eat at the restaurant. Go to sleep. Repeat. The motel sits square around the pool. On the far end, a vintage bus is a DJ booth for pool parties. At the moment, the hotel’s soundtrack, laid back ’70s jazz appropriate for California desert vibes, plays throughout the grounds. 

There’s a saying in my favorite city of the Pacific Northwest, the city where the Ace opened its second hotel: Keep Portland Weird. What is weird is actually hip. The weirder you are, the cooler you are. It’s a twist that gives Portland its charm, even if it’s a cliche. And what is true in Portland, the Ace also brought to Palm Springs. But the time in the desert has made them rough around the edges. There are no flannels or thick Woodstock beards here. It’s all silk button-ups, tattoos and dirty shaves. Macrame, vintage decor and record players in the rooms. The Ace Hotel is an obvious destination for hipsters, certainly. But staying here feels like an open invitation to cast off our inhibitions and be our truest, fullest self. The weirder, or more ironic, the better. 

I suppose that’s why I brought my wide brim hat, which sometimes makes me feel too hipster-y if I wear it in the wrong places, but sitting at the pool, I felt like the wider my brim the more I’d fit right in. Then I realized that, at the Ace Hotel, all the hip beautiful people wore bucket hats. Just like in Portland, my truest, fullest self just isn’t quite weird enough. 

Our phone buzzed to inform us that our room was ready. The room key is made out of wood, but it unlocks the door to our second-floor standard king arrangements. Inside, the walls are covered in white canvas cloth, and over the window, the canvas is cut to function like curtains. One wall has slats, and a striped bathrobe and matching kaftan hang on hooks. 

On another hook was a wooden walking stick, a display of local art that hung by a braided strap. The Ace is clearly proud of its Pacific Northwest heritage. The coffee is Stumptown. The soap in the shower is from a barber shop in downtown Portland. The wine is Oregon pinot. The mini bar is stocked as full as I’ve ever seen a mini bar stocked. There is craft beer, craft tequila and mezcal and whiskey, Underwood rose, pinot gris and pinot noir. Nearly everything in this room has a price tag. The walking stick, for example, costs $75. Boxes of water go for $7. 

That evening, I watched the sun dip low behind the ridge of the San Jacinto Mountains from a balcony overlooking the pool. The sky is periwinkle blue and dusty purple. I stare at the snow on those rocky cliffs, thousands of feet above me. The climate is so high up there, someone told me, that planes fly below you on their way into Burbank. Down here, in the backyard of the Ace, a nighttime chill swoops in and everyone who traveled here from the East Coast realizes they completely underestimated the desert’s extremes. 

After dark, we all pile into red leather booths at the restaurant, the King’s Highway, the one that used to be a Denny’s. We’re hungry for salty, greasy food, which this place still delivers, even late at night, just like Denny’s. Fried chicken. Burgers. French fries. More of those pink spicy margaritas. I slept the kind of sleep that’s deep but tainted by colorful libations.

The rest of the weekend is mostly spent by the pool. Everyone here has a style. Everyone here also has a tattoo, and that’s again where I miss the mark. The waitress has blue hair. There’s another wedding, in addition to the one I’m attending, here this weekend. A bachelorette party dons silk robes. Another bachelorette party wears matching straw hats. March, apparently, is wedding season at the Ace. 

The morning after the wedding, I emerged from my room dazed, a bit dizzy and also limping because I somehow threw out my hip on the dance floor. I needed sustenance at the diner, and slowly, the rest of our crew drifted in and slid into the booth. We began to piece together the night prior and which articles of clothing left behind at the hot tub belonged to whom.

After a big breakfast at the King’s Highway — another cup of coffee poured into a tall to-go cup by our stellar waiter —  I’m ready for my final lounge by the pool. Except every lounge chair is claimed by various tokens of hotel paraphernalia, white towels, flip-flops, a book, a hat are holding the place for someone else. I scanned the pavilion and saw the last remaining unclaimed lounge chairs in the back row, just in front of the vintage bus-slash-DJ booth, and hobbled over there as fast as my injured hip would let me. 

In recovery from a wild night prior, I feel a bit raw. Eventually, the DJ stepped up to the deck to play a continuous cycle from a downbeat desert play list, drowning out any conversation or thought passing through my brain. I couldn’t shake the rinse-repeat turnover of a “Groundhog Day” vacation. The 500 miles between me and home were beginning to loom. 

And yet, the sun was just cresting to the high point in the sky. What I needed, I realized, was not a ride home, but another one of those Picante Amantes to ground me back into the Ace. We’re all a bit lost out here, I realized as I sipped my pink cocktail, and that’s just fine.