Parker Palm Springs
a boutique desert oasis with luxurious accommodations, an exclusive spa, award-winning dining, and memorable experiences.
Parker History
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✽ 1959 ✽
The first Holiday Inn in California was established on the site that would become The Parker Palm Springs.
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✽ 1961 ✽
Gene Autry purchases the property to house his baseball team, the California Angels, during spring training, changing the name to Melody Ranch (also commonly known as The Autry Hotel).
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✽ 1994 ✽
Autry sells the property to hotel director Rose Narva, who turned the site into French-themed resort in line with designer Hubert de Givenchy renaming it the Givenchy Hotel and Spa. Autry and his wife continued to live at the property in a private home located at the rear of the property.
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✽ 1998 ✽
The hotel is purchased by Merv Griffin and renamed Merv Griffin's Resort Hotel and Givenchy Spa. The resort becomes a site for celebrity visits.
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✽ 2000 ✽
Robert Downey Jr. is arrested for drug possession on the resort after police searched Room 311, where he was staying.
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✽ 2003 ✽
Hotelier Jack Parker purchases the resort and hires designer Jonathan Adler for a $27 million remodel.
“The Autry Hotel”
A-listers love hiding out at Parker Palm Springs, known for its luxury accommodations and oft-photographed modern design by Jonathan Adler. Yet, it all began with Western actor Gene Autry, better known as the Singing Cowboy, who appeared in more than 90 films and starred in his own television series in the 1950s.
A sports enthusiast and a baseball player himself, Autry became a Major League broadcaster and eventually a team owner with the 1961 debut of the Los Angeles Angels (later the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels, and now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). That same year, the entertainer purchased the Palm Springs property where the Parker now sits — originally California’s first Holiday Inn — as a place to house the team during spring training. Autry sold in ’94.
