Review — Seattle Times...
Perfect for relaxing!
Life at the Coral Sands
by Terry Tazioli
Seattle Times Travel Editor
July 2004 PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - Louis B. "Guard Dog" L'Amour, maybe 10 inches tall at the ears, was pointing dead-on toward the entrance to the Coral Sands Inn. Every time he barked, he shot skyward, each leg a little synchronized rocket.
Outside, some guy Louis the Chihuahua didn't know was ringing the bell next to the motel's locked gate, jumping up and down, trying to see in. Wouldn't ya know it. Louis's mama was out running errands, one guest was asleep in her room, another was sitting alone, poolside. Everything had been calm in Louis' capable paws - until now. Then comes this guy, acting like some kind of nut.
What's to see, Buster?
It's a motel. A six-unit, pink motel. It was here in Palm Springs before you were a bullet in somebody's six-shooter. Why don't 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.
Life's just like that at Ruby Montana's Coral Sands Inn.
Spam-carving queen Ruby Montana, inaugurator of Seattle's 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 Maupin's "Tales of the City?" It's 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 at the Coral Sands, because 28 Barbary Lane, the residence for Maupin's 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.
Elvis was just up the road
And, lest you think Montana jests when she speaks of her famous surroundings, Elvis, among many others, really did live just up the road. A former home of Liberace sits right around the corner - its baby-grand-piano mailbox still in place. A shrine to the guy who really could play the instrument is right inside the gated front door. You can even see inside on a tour.
Back when Montana worked in downtown Seattle - up until two years ago - she sat behind the counter at the Pinto Pony, ringing up sales, chatting with customers, making deals, passing out advice, presiding over her kitschy empire. She looked then like many of the rest of us do now: pale, a little sodden sometimes, cap pulled over the head, moss-threatened. And that was during a good year.
Now? Well! She has a deep tan, and long, straight and streaky blondish hair. She doesn't have - yet - the dark-brown-lizard look of too many of the Springs' longtime residents. Course, she hasn't been there long enough. Keeping the place up and the rooms clean and taking long walks around the neighborhood have put her in better shape. She looks good.
"I feel good, darlin'."
Darlin'. Just about every time anyone walked into the Pinto Pony and struck up a conversation, she called them darlin'. One of her trademarks.
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. You've arrived at the Coral Sands.
Sharing a
lounge chair
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 they're attracted to all this ... " says Montana, sitting on a lounge chair with a couple of the guests. You'll 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 it's not. (If that's what you're 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). It's all Ruby.
Eggs poolside
It's Jan. 8, Elvis Presley's birthday. A chronology of his hits - brought along by Mr. and Mrs. H, as they quickly come to be called - is playing from the outdoor speakers. It's late morning. Mr. H is cooking poached eggs in his unit for anybody poolside who wants them.
"We need more plates," says Mrs. H, as she alternates between reading "Valley of the Dolls" and searching a cookbook of the King's favorite recipes. She's looking for a cocktail that might have been the King's favorite, to go with the burgers agreed on for lunch - another of his favorite foods. All she can find is punch.
"Want some coffee, darlin'?" Montana asks a sleepy arrival, blinking in the morning sun. "There's some in my kitchen."
"Yeah."
"Go get it."
She's found her sun spot. She's not moving. It hasn't been the greatest couple of years for Montana. Her mom died in November. She and Dougherty ended their 19-year relationship before that; they still maintain the business together, Dougherty in Seattle, Montana in Palm Springs. And nailing down the deal for the motel turned out to be a longer and more tangled affair than either had anticipated. But things seem to be settling down. And after nearly 20 years in retail, Montana says she's found her place.
"I think I have my own little bit of Tonga. I can sit here in the valley, out there by that pool, and look up at all the things God created."
God may have had lots to do with the mountains and valley floor of the Coachella Valley where Palm Springs sits with its sister cities - Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage. But He must, at various times, marvel, laugh and put a bag over His head so He can't see what woman and man have wrought in this vast desert.
There are more than 100 golf courses (including a practice green at the airport; 40 percent of the valley's visitors come to play golf), something like 15,000 rooms for rent, 700 restaurants, several large, fake dinosaurs - one with a gift shop in its belly, at least a couple places to get date shakes (including one that will show you the film "Sex Life of a Date"), 30,000 swimming pools, 600 tennis courts, Roy Rogers' bowling alley, lots more bars outside all those restaurants, perhaps the most famous dry-out clinic in the world (Betty Ford's), 33 spas, eight casinos, more than 30 churches (that's one for His side), about 10,000 palm trees (He only gets partial credit on this one; many were trucked in) and enough midcentury furniture shops to send into conniptions anyone with a longing for ceramic leopard lampshades.
Among all of these are some of Montana's favorite attractions. She'll tell you more about them, once you're there. Of course, you can always just lie by the pool at the Coral Sands. There are roughly 350 days of sun in the valley - 5.5 inches of rain a year. Montana says, "You can plan something outdoors on a Saturday here, and you can count on it."
Tom Jones rendezvous
It's the next night, a Sunday night. Around 11 p.m. Dinner's finished, the detritus of pasta and salad and red wine are sprawled across Montana's dining table.
Several guests are outside around a fireplace next to the pool. It's stoked with scraps of wood from a construction site nearby. The stars are brilliant, Louis the Chihuahua is wrapped in his trademark maroon turtleneck sweater. The conversation is - well, who can remember.
A couple of Montana's friends had made the three-hour drive from L.A. for the weekend. One of them, Diana Phillips, indulged in her favorite pastime - cooking. She collected the bucks from guests who were interested (and who weren't budging from poolside) and then cooked up a storm - nightly cocktails and hors d'oeuvres before dinner, lots of other dishes and wine after that. Who can remember anything?
Except this: Tom Jones plays Las Vegas in June. Meet in Palm Springs, drive up for the show, stay overnight, come back for a couple of days in the sun. Then home. Perfect. Just another day at the Coral Sands.
