Mr & Mrs Smith

Mr Smith and I make our way into the lobby, slipping off our sunglasses and wiping our brows before taking a peek into the California-cool diner. I can’t help but singing to myself, ‘You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.’ It’s like we’ve walked into our favourite dive bar – outfitted even with a vintage photo booth – only here, ‘last call’ means a short walk to your hotel room rather than a cold and cruel search for a taxi. We exchange knowing looks – this isn’t the hotel of relaxing days and calm, quiet nights. The Ace Hotel and Swim Club, as the many full-sized bottles of liquor in our room attest, is for the young at heart with thriving livers, constant hunger pangs, and a propensity for surviving in intense heat.

Spread out and sleek in neutral colors, the Ace feels less like a desert mirage and more like the most desirable roadside motel since Thelma and Louise (or maybe that was just thanks to Brad Pitt’s cameo). Our room – in which the most popular gadget is surely the air-conditioning – has an old-fashioned record player with musical choices like Patsy Cline and Led Zeppelin, a minibar with rebelliously large snacks and drinks, walls lined with beige canvas enhancing its image as a cool desert hideaway, and a courtyard with a fireplace. Bordering-on-cheeky frankness in the hotel’s details inject a little wit. For example, next to the fireplace, just outside our room, is a box marked ‘make fire’, which we would have done had it not been 110 degrees outside.

A posher pair of Smiths who demand five stars as the bare minimum might find the coin-op laundry and glamour-less spa too devoid of diamond-encrusted luxury. These Smiths, though, appreciate the commune-style pools, the low-key but upgraded diner fare, and unabashedly spirit-heavy cocktails like the Figa (fig-infused vodka, Earl Grey tea, and tangerine honey for the uninitiated).

Motley and tattooed, the crowd is peppered with Brits overwhelmed by the heat, out-of-place frat boys, and bohemian girls well-practised at the straight-from-music-festival look. Even the kids behind the front desk, who mercifully provide this Mrs Smith with a Blackberry charger in a pinch, inspire memories of those cool counsellors at camp we admired during hot summers filled with archery lessons and swimming. From our room, we hear the soundtrack coming from the pool. The aural mix of indie rock, 70s and 80s hits, and top 40 numbers have us hoping the matching vision will be of a wild, beatnik scene straight out of Peter Sellers’ The Party.

On our first night, Mr Smith and I venture into the Ace’s eatery, the King’s Highway, for dinner. From the first bite of his mezze plate to the last crumb of our ‘pot brownie’, it is clear that what looks like a diner is in fact much more. At the end of our meal we savour, awe-struck yet with a dash of sympathy, a truly Palm Springs moment. The restaurant’s hostess – a former actress stuck in the 70s with a pouffe of red hair and coke-bottle glasses – croons her version of happy birthday to two unsuspecting and blushing twins, newly 16.

Now, I have a confession. While we are on reviewing duty, I admit we’re not taking advantage of the many touristy opportunities available to guests of the Ace Hotel. Before your finger starts wagging, keep in mind that the heat only allows for activities limited to sunbathing, swimming, and anything air-conditioned. So instead of renting the candy-colored Vespas parked in the driveway, we take to the Living Desert (verdict: hot, but a quick and worthwhile excursion). And instead of booking horseback riding lessons, we go shopping on El Paseo (plush with all the retail a shopaholic Smith could ask for). Tennis, golf, and hiking are also forfeited – for an all-important trial of the bar’s cocktail menu both in the dark Amigo Room and out by the pool. What kind of review would this be if I couldn’t tell you that the Caipirinha should be sidestepped in favour of the French 75?

On Sunday, before we take to the cool comfort of our car for the drive back to LA, we book a couple of spa appointments. All in the name of research, you understand. The masseur kneads away at the stress in my shoulders, no doubt accumulated as a result of my arduous weekend spent observing hotel details. I risk more hunching by tasking myself with noting that the spa soundtrack is Bob Dylan – far more Ace than the usual Enya-like offerings. That’s the Ace all over. Hot on the heels of its sister outpost in New York, with the original over in Portland, this Californian edition was wise to come with its own swim club and spa. But the really smart thing about this hot Palm Springs hotel? Lacing everything with such straight-from-the-fridge cool.