Palm Springs Vintage

It was in the early 1900s that Palm Springs began to establish itself as the world-class destination it is today. Many of its first residents came here because the dry, hot climate was beneficial to their health, particularly if the person was infected with tuberculosis (John McCallum relocated his family here for that reason). In the 1930s, Palm Springs became the #1 desert getaway for Hollywood stars (Las Vegas didn’t become a Hollywood destination until the late 1940s). Palm Springs is known today as the Golf Capital of the World, but the initial sport associated with the area was tennis, exemplified by the Palm Springs Racquet Club and the Palm Springs Tennis Club.

There was another reason why Hollywood stars flocked to Palm Springs and it may have been the most important of all. A star’s life in the 1930s could easily be destroyed by gossip or scandal. America was much more puritanical in those days and every star lived under a constant veil of surveillance and paranoia. An extramarital affair or revelation that a star was Gay could take you from riches to rags – literally overnight. Gossip columnists like Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper wielded immense power with an insatiable readership of millions who devoured every one of their salacious stories. But word soon spread that there was a beautiful desert sanctuary where one could be relatively safe from their prying eyes.