The Joshua Tree Inn

About The Joshua Tree Inn

The Joshua Tree Inn was built in 1949 as a Spanish Colonial hacienda on the road that crosses the Mojave Desert between Palm Springs and Twentynine Palms. Its connection to American music history arrived on September 19, 1973, when Gram Parsons, the singer and songwriter who built the architecture of what became country rock, died of a drug overdose in Room 8 at the age of 26. Parsons had been drawn to Joshua Tree for years, returning to the desert and its peculiar silence the way musicians return to particular rooms. After his death, his road manager Phil Kaufman attempted to cremate his body at Cap Rock in the monument. The story has since become one of the most retold endings in American rock and roll. The inn has continued operating for more than seven decades as a characterful desert property. Joshua Tree National Park is five miles east.

What The Joshua Tree Inn Is Known For

Very few places in the American West have the kind of cultural weight the Joshua Tree Inn carries and have managed not to become a museum about it. The inn still operates as a working hotel, Room 8 is still a guest room, the courtyard is still the center of the property, and the desert is still there. The Gram Parsons story is woven into the property's identity without overrunning it, which is the right way to carry it. The hacienda was interesting before Parsons arrived, was the kind of place he was drawn to specifically because it was interesting, and remains so.

Amenities

• WiFi
• 1949 Spanish Colonial hacienda architecture
• Courtyard pool and hot tub
• Room 8 (bookable, Gram Parsons room)
• Thick-walled rooms with natural thermal properties
• Free WiFi
• Established desert courtyard landscaping
• 5 miles from Joshua Tree National Park

The Room

Rooms and bungalows at the inn range from king room and Queen configurations to Double rooms, suites, and the Villa, the largest accommodation on the property with full kitchen and additional living space. Room 8, the room associated with Gram Parsons, is available as a standard booking; it is furnished and maintained as an active guest room rather than a memorial, which means guests who book it sleep in a room that has been in continuous use for more than seventy-five years. All rooms have the hallmarks of the 1949 Spanish Colonial construction: thick walls, low light, and a material solidity that contemporary construction does not produce. The courtyard pool and hot tub are accessible to all guests. Private bathrooms throughout.

The Grounds

The courtyard at the Joshua Tree Inn is the organizing space of the property: a central outdoor room surrounded by the rooms and bungalows, with the pool and hot tub as its functional center. Old-growth Joshua trees and desert landscaping create a layered outdoor environment that looks like it has been in place for decades, because most of it has. The thick stucco walls of the building perimeter create a buffer from the highway, and the courtyard at night takes on the particular quality of a desert sky unobstructed by the light pollution that has since come to the valley. The hacienda's exterior is maintained in the Spanish Colonial idiom: whitewashed walls, wooden gates, arched entries. Parking is on-site.

The Experience

A stay at the Joshua Tree Inn is organized around the park and the desert, with the property as the base camp between them. The national park entrance is five miles east, close enough that guests can be at the Cholla Cactus Garden by sunrise and back at the pool before noon. The afternoon in Joshua Tree is a matter of managing the heat and the light: both change significantly between morning and late afternoon, and the thick-walled rooms are an asset in the middle of the day. For guests whose visit is organized around the Parsons story, Cap Rock in the national park, the site of the improvised cremation ceremony, is a straightforward drive from the inn and one of the quieter corners of a park that can be crowded at the main entrances. The town of Joshua Tree has grown considerably since 1973 and now includes galleries, music venues, vintage shops, and a coffee and food scene that reflects the community of artists and musicians who have continued to arrive in its wake.

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