Palm Springs / California / United States
Its a motel. A six-unit, pink motel. It was here in Palm Springs before you were a bullet in somebodys six-shooter. Why dont you just high-tail it to some other place to bed down. Rawf! Wait a minute! The guest by the pool is going over to let the nut case in - the guy says he has a reservation. Why does this always happen? Why do so many guests figure they run the place? Louis glowers and turns away. Spam-carving queen Ruby Montana, inaugurator of Seattles Fat Tuesday Spam-Carving Contest, one-time Kowboy Kitsch Kween of the now-gone Pinto Pony on Second Avenue, today is the purveyor of a little bit of Palm Springs pleasure, along with business partner Calyn Dougherty. Call this place Barbary Lane south. Ever read Armistead Maupins "Tales of the City?" Its a San Francisco newspaper column-turned-books and TV series. You might want to read it or see it before you sign up for a stay the Coral Sands because 28 Barbary Lane, the residence for Maupins characters, has nothing on this L-shaped pink motel and its guests. And here they all are, at the 1950s vintage hideaway, painted prom-dress pink and white, replete with a kidney-shaped pool and enough just-right, mismatched outdoor furniture to seat every potential guest at least three times. The motel, in its neighborhood of Las Palmas, sits at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains. The craggy, arid peaks remind you of the incongruity of all the palm trees and bougainvillea planted below - in a desert. It seems at times as if the mountains could simply lean over and step on the lush greenery and the low-slung, star-studded homes and take it all back. Montana still lives with some of her other trademarks - the salt-and-pepper shakers, the cowboy art, the collection of ashtray dolls. She still sells things, still wheels and deals. She still has warehouses full of the stuff. Motel guests will live with similar collections. Roy Rogers and Trigger peer down at them from the walls when they try to get some shuteye. Imagine the Pinto Pony having guest rooms. Youve arrived at the Coral Sands. The guests on this particular weekend are Anne and Steve Haertle of San Carlos, Calif., and Linda Farris and John Kucher of Seattle. It is not uncommon to find Seattle people staying in one or more of the units. In fact, it is uncommon not to find a Seattle connection. So - the Haertles have relatives in Seattle. And Linda Farris is the Linda Farris of the former Linda Farris Gallery in Pioneer Square, and her husband, John, is executive director of Threshold Housing, a nonprofit development company in Seattle. "Some of my guests just come and sit and read. One came down here to paint. They want quiet. Others come down because theyre attracted to all this... " says Montana, sitting on a lounge chair with a couple of the guests. Youll often find her on one of the lounge chairs with a couple of the guests, or sitting alone all the way across the poolside patio, depending on where the sun is and which room needs to be cleaned, and whether she just wants to be by herself. It is, after all, her place. And it very much belongs to her guests, too. A Westin its not. ( If thats what youre looking for, continue down the road to The Westin Mission Hills Resort in Rancho Mirage. ) The Coral Sands is a comfortable home-away-from-home, with things left just where you put them ( including your sheets, towels and dirty dishes ). Its all Ruby.
