A Palm Springs Getaway at Sparrows Lodge

Sparrows Lodge: A Historic Hotel Tucked Away in Palm Springs

Palm Springs has always known how to keep secret hidden gems, and if you wander far enough down East Palm Canyon Drive, past the mid-century houses that flaunt their glamour in geometric defiance, you’ll find Sparrows Lodge tucked behind bougainvillea bushes.

The hotel was built in 1952, but back then, it was Castle’s Red Barn, a name that told you exactly what it was—simple, unpretentious, utilitarian. It belonged to Don Castle, a man who’s face flickered across MGM Hollywood movies in the 1940s. When he wasn’t in the movies, he came here to this barn in the desert.

After his time it opened as a hotel, but the barn wasn’t for everyone. You needed a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card just to step inside. Stars like Lucille Ball and Clark Gable swirled their drinks here, far from the prying eyes of Hollywood gossip columns.

In 2013, it was renamed Sparrows Lodge. The barn was rebuilt in a way that felt deliberate, as though its weathered beams and stone floors had always known they were destined to hold stories. The new owners leaned into its simplicity. There is no television here. There are no phones. You can hear your thoughts in a place like this, and maybe that’s the point. There is a kind of hush in the desert air, a deliberate quiet that only comes from a place designed to be still.

They left the bones of Don Castle’s dream intact: the barn doors still open wide, the pool still catches the desert light, and the whispers of Hollywood linger in the air if you know how to listen. But now it’s a place for everyone. That’s the magic of this place. It holds the past without clinging to it.