Big Hearts, Small Hotel – Meet Your Inn at Palm Springs Hosts

Paul Kurdian and Samantha McDermott, are the the couple behind the Inn at Palm Springs. If you love small properties with personal touches don’t miss the first hotel past the Tram Entrance as you drive into Palm Springs from the West.

This post was partially hosted by the Inn at Palm Springs and the Palm Springs Small Preferred Hotels.

Paul and Sam, owners of the Inn at Palm Springs, in front of the portrait of the hotel mascot, Gus.

Sam and Paul got married about three years ago and as they began their life together, one of the things they wanted to do was to start a venture together. Taking over the hotel was a surprising opportunity. They acquired the hotel the first week of the Coachella Festival in 2019.

When asked if she ever imagined being involved in hospitality, Sam whispered an emphatic, “No!”

S – We’re people-oriented so it was a natural progression but this wasn’t really in our mindset. A friend of Paul’s called the day after we got married. We’re on our way to my brother’s house for lunch, I kid you not, and she says, “Listen, I want to sell my hotel and by the way, I want to sell it to you.”

One comfy seating area at the Inn.

P – That was a great gift to us. After a few months of negotiating, we ended up being owners of an 18 room boutique hotel in the Palm Springs area.

S – We are the very first hotel you’ll see right after you pass the Palm Springs Tramway and Visitors Center. We like to say, “We’re the gateway to Palm Springs.”

P – We remodeled it adding a lot of color and also wanted to maintain the mid-Modern charm.

S – And we pretty much did it all. We took a look at the property and saw it had really great bones. As Paul was alluding to, it was an opportunity to re-brand and refresh as well.

P – I think we found a nice balance with the colors and the décor. We added a water fountain and a wishing well. When guests come in we limit them to a penny a wish! In the garden next to the water fountain, there’s an archway. It’s the arch we got married under and we decided to bring it to our new garden. People might not know but Sam is a minister as well and she’s performed two weddings here so far.

Mascot pup, Gus, at the Inn at Palm Springs

S – Our guests are active. They love to hike and to bike; to explore. They’re interested in architecture. It’s really a range of people. A lot of them also bring their dogs because we’re a dog-friendly hotel. It’s been fun experience for us because we get the entire family, including the fur babies.

S – We have a mix of rooms – queen, king rooms and doubles. We also have a couple of family rooms that we don’t advertise but often times people will come with their kids. They want to spend time by the pool. We decided to put a couple of big couches in those rooms and make sure there’s enough space for the little ones to run around and make a little noise.

P – Each room is a little different. There are different sizes and configurations and each is unique. They have different color and different furniture. We have repeat guests and they ask for different rooms each time they come in. Each has it’s own color, paint furniture and they love it.

S – We also have an emerging library in our breezeway. We’ve found that our guests who are staying for a week or two at a time love to take a book and give a book back. We’ll continue to build on that program.

Quiet moment poolside at the Inn at Palm Springs

S – We went to the museums here and were inspired by the Palm Springs community. There’s a lot of vibrancy here. It’s always that bright, happy coloration. When we got here the hotel was very vanilla so we added some spice to it. We had fun during the shutdown. We looked at each other and said, we have some time on our hands and a lot of paint because we’d been painting like crazy. The furniture is different colors, the desks, the chairs too. Everything around the property is colorful and we decided to play with our pool deck.

We didn’t realize how much fun people are having with the deck. We’ll have young guests who are social media influencers and they’ll model on the dots. We get such a kick out of that.

Breakfast patio at Rick’s Cafe in Palm Springs

We have a great partnership with Rick’s restaurant. We send our guests there for breakfast. We decided early on that even though we enjoy cooking it’s probably not something we want to integrate into the business. Rick’s does the business of food better than anyone we know in this immediate area. Our guests love going there for breakfast.

P – It’s a family owned diner that’s been in business for about forty years. We decided to collaborate with them based on their history, personalized service and the food’s absolutely fantastic.

S – We feel like the future is really bright here in Palm Springs. One of the things that Paul and I talk about is doing more weddings but to keep it small and intimate. Potentially we’d like to add a deck to our second floor.

Watch this video about the Inn at Palm Springs

P – We’re in the process of applying for a beer and wine license. That’ll help our events and deck activities. We ‘ve had five different groups take over the 18 rooms for yoga retreats, painting, art. They like the privacy of having their whole family or group together without anyone coming in from outside. Our motto continues to be: Own an 18 room hotel for the week.

We continue to look forward to the music festivals returning such as Stage Coach and Coachella; the Tennis and Golf Tournaments too. Once that all opens up and begins to operate, we look forward to continue to hosting our guests and have fun with this place.

Breezeway at the Inn

More about the Inn at Palm Springs

InnatPalmSprings.com

On Instagram @InnatPalmSprings

On Twitter, Trip Advisor, Facebook

Here’s another great mid-century Modern hotel in the Palm Springs area.

This post was partially hosted by the Inn at Palm Springs and Palm Springs Preferred Small Hotels

Palm trees and sign for the Inn at the Palm Springs