Old Las Palmas
Walled estates, mature grounds and substantial private properties immediately beside Uptown’s cafés, galleries and design stores. Space and central convenience define its appeal.
Buying or selling
in Palm Springs?
01 / Find your neighborhoodDifferent streets.
Different streets.
Different ways to live.
Start with the setting and the kind of home you want. These featured neighborhoods offer a first orientation, from the estate streets beside Uptown to modernist tracts and the mountain edge.
Vista Las Palmas
Alexander-era modernism, Krisel and DuBois rooflines, pools and mountain views. The route to Uptown leads east through Old Las Palmas.
The Movie Colony
A small central neighborhood of private estates, Spanish-influenced houses and desert modernism, close to the Uptown corridor and Ruth Hardy Park.
Movie Colony East
A larger residential area east of The Movie Colony, with bungalows, ranch houses and modernist homes. Sinatra’s Twin Palms house is here; walking distances vary by address.
Historic Tennis Club
Residential streets meet boutique hotels and the mountain edge, with Downtown’s restaurants, shops and cultural destinations close at hand.
Deepwell Estates
Custom midcentury houses and ranch homes give Deepwell a varied architectural character. Private outdoor spaces and established streets are part of its appeal.
Twin Palms
Palmer & Krisel designs, butterfly roofs, breezeways and paired palms give this early Alexander tract a distinctive street presence. Poolside gardens extend its low-slung houses into the outdoors.
Racquet Club Estates
A major concentration of Alexander houses, with additional Meiselman homes and the Wexler–Harrison steel houses. An important chapter in postwar residential design.
Sunmor
A compact modernist neighborhood combining Alexander-era designs with Wexler & Harrison houses. Its low horizontal architecture gives the streets a clear visual identity.
Indian Canyons
Custom midcentury homes and later residences surround the golf-course landscape, with views toward the southern mountains. Fairway frontage and interior residential streets offer different settings.
Andreas Hills
A southern residential area where the surrounding mountains and canyon landscape are central to the experience. Single-family homes and attached communities offer different ownership choices.
The Mesa
An established hillside and mountain-foot neighborhood with individual houses and varied architectural styles. Terrain, privacy and outlook can change noticeably from one property to another.
Little Tuscany
Rock formations, elevated streets and individually designed homes distinguish this mountain-edge neighborhood. Its architecture extends beyond the Tuscan references in its name.
Araby Cove
A small neighborhood with an informal mix of residences set against the slopes. Buyers are drawn to the landscape and individuality rather than a uniform tract aesthetic.
El Rancho Vista Estates
A distinctive modernist tract associated with developer Roy Fey and architects Donald Wexler and Richard Harrison. Sculptural rooflines and carefully composed façades distinguish its houses.
Sunrise Park
East of Sunrise Way, ranch and midcentury houses share a central location near Sunrise Park’s recreation facilities, library and swim center. Broad streets and private pool gardens shape its residential character.
Tahquitz River Estates
Early Spanish-influenced homes sit alongside postwar modernism and later changes. Its varied streets offer a different view of Palm Springs from the more uniform architectural tracts.
Desert Park Estates
Post-and-beam houses, sloping rooflines and later custom homes sit on the city’s northeastern residential streets. Its mix includes work associated with Hugh Kaptur and the neighborhood’s postwar development.
Escena
Contemporary desert houses and a planned golf-course setting offer another side of Palm Springs. Modern floor plans, community landscaping and mountain outlooks distinguish it from the postwar tracts.
Warm Sands
Residential streets mix with intimate resorts and boutique hotels in a neighborhood with a strong LGBTQ+ hospitality tradition. Bungalows and varied house styles give it a different scale from the large estate districts.
El Mirador
The former El Mirador Hotel gives this neighborhood its name. Ranch houses, modernist homes and Spanish influences share an established setting near the Uptown corridor and Desert Regional Medical Center.
Little Beverly Hills
Alexander and Meiselman development shaped this compact 1950s neighborhood. Low rooflines and post-and-beam houses sit beside the open land of Prescott Preserve.
City neighborhood organizations: all 52
The city’s 52 recognized neighborhood organizations are listed below. The featured profiles above cover 22 of them. Condominium developments and historic tracts may also have their own names.
- Andreas Hills
- Araby Commons
- Araby Cove
- Baristo
- Canyon Corridor
- Canyon Palms
- Deepwell Estates
- Demuth Park
- Desert Highland Gateway Estates
- Desert Park Estates
- El Dorado Palms
- El Mirador
- El Rancho Vista Estates
- Escena
- Four Seasons
- Gateway
- Gene Autry
- Historic Tennis Club
- Indian Canyons
- Lawrence Crossley
- Little Beverly Hills
- Little Tuscany
- Los Compadres
- Melody Ranch
- Midtown
- Mountain Gate
- Movie Colony East
- Oasis del Sol
- Old Las Palmas
- Palm Canyon
- Palm Springs Villas II
- Parkview South Belardo
- Racquet Club Estates
- Racquet Club West
- Ranch Club Estates
- Rimrock
- Rogers Ranch
- Sonora Sunrise
- Sunmor
- Sunrise Park
- Sunrise-Rafael
- Tahquitz Creek Golf
- Tahquitz River Estates
- The Mesa
- The Movie Colony
- Twin Palms
- Upper West Side
- Vista Las Palmas
- Vista Norte
- Warm Sands
- WestGatePS
- Whitewater Club
02 / ArchitectureArchitecture
Architecture
for desert living.
Palm Springs architecture stretches from Spanish Revival estates and California ranch houses to experimental modernism and contemporary desert homes. The appeal is in the details: a low roof against the mountains, a shaded courtyard, a breeze-block screen, glass opening onto a pool.
Desert modernism
Post-and-beam structures, deep overhangs, clerestory windows and walls of glass connect the house to its setting.
Estate architecture
Spanish and Mediterranean influences, private gardens and individual custom houses form an older layer of the city.
Tract, thoughtfully designed
Alexander and Meiselman developments brought architectural character to repeatable plans, varied rooflines and outdoor living.
The privacy screen
Patterned concrete breeze blocks filter views and light while allowing air through. A familiar part of the city's architectural vocabulary.
Architects associated with Palm SpringsAlbert Frey · E. Stewart Williams · William F. Cody · Donald Wexler · Richard Harrison · William Krisel · Dan Palmer · Charles DuBois · Richard Neutra · John Lautner · John Porter Clark · Hugh Kaptur · A. Quincy Jones · Robson Chambers · Herbert Burns · John Byers
03 / Living hereChoose the setting.
Choose the setting.
Then choose the house.
Get your bearings
Vista Chino and Ramon Road are useful east–west reference points. North of Vista Chino are Racquet Club Estates, Desert Park Estates and Little Tuscany. Between Vista Chino and Ramon are Uptown, Downtown and many of the central neighborhoods. South of Ramon, the city reaches toward Twin Palms, Indian Canyons and Andreas Hills.
Explore the City’s maps and neighborhood boundaries ↗Downtown & Uptown
Restaurants, cafés, galleries, design stores and everyday destinations run along the central Palm Canyon corridor. Historic Tennis Club and parts of the adjoining central neighborhoods put more of that within walking reach. Compare the actual walking route to the places you use most.
The mountain edge
Little Tuscany, The Mesa, Araby Cove and Andreas Hills offer different relationships with the terrain, from rocky slopes to canyon settings. Look at orientation, access, outdoor space and how the surrounding land shapes the view.
Life around the pool
A second home, a full-time residence or a place for longer winter stays can call for different priorities. Consider shade, outdoor privacy, pool equipment, cooling, upkeep and how you will use the property through the year.
Condominiums & communities
Courtyard condos, townhomes and golf communities offer shared pools, maintained grounds and a different approach to upkeep. Compare the floor plan and private outdoor space alongside dues, community facilities and ownership terms.
04 / Ownership essentialsA few details
A few details
make a difference.
Understand the property as well as the neighborhood. These are useful questions to bring to a viewing and to your agent.
Fee-simple or leasehold?
Some properties include ownership of the land; others are held under a ground lease. For a leasehold property, review the actual lease, its remaining term, payments, adjustment provisions and assignment requirements, and discuss financing with your lender. Tribal and allotted trust lands have their own transaction processes.
What comes with the community?
For an HOA property, look beyond the monthly dues. Review the governing documents, financial position, reserves, assessments, maintenance responsibilities and rental restrictions. The same neighborhood can contain very different ownership arrangements.
Can you rent it as intended?
Short-term rental use depends on City requirements and the property's eligibility, as well as any applicable HOA and lease restrictions. Palm Springs operates neighborhood-based certificate caps. An existing owner's vacation-rental certificate does not automatically transfer to a buyer. Check current requirements before relying on rental income.
Original, restored or substantially altered?
Architectural character and condition are separate questions. Look at permitted work, additions, glazing, roofs, mechanical systems and the quality of restoration. If a property is designated historic, establish what that means for proposed alterations.
What is specific to this address?
Review disclosures, inspections and applicable hazard information. Consider drainage and flood exposure, wind, sun and shade, aircraft or road noise, access and insurance availability. A neighborhood description cannot answer every property-level question.
05 / A sense of placeLong before
Long before
the weekend house.
Agua Caliente
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has deep ancestral ties to the canyons, springs and desert landscape. The Tribe remains central to the life and development of Palm Springs. Its history is part of the present city, not simply a prelude to its resort years.
A desert retreat
Early resort development and Hollywood's embrace of the desert helped shape the city's hotels, private estates and social life. Old Las Palmas and The Movie Colony preserve part of that story in their houses, gardens and street patterns.
Modern living
Architects and developers changed the scale and appearance of Palm Springs after World War II. Modernist neighborhoods made the outdoor room and poolside house part of everyday residential design. Preservation and restoration keep that architecture in use today.