East Beverly Hills

Although there are seven golf courses in Palm Springs, there is only one with a long and storied history that began under the cloud of antisemitism. It’s not talked about in any of the Palm Springs history books or tourism pieces or C of C literature. In fact, it’s seldom discussed in any of the glorified legends of this fabled place.

It’s like that icon called Hollywood back in its heyday where all of our heroes and heroines were white and straight. Everyone pretended as if that sort of thing (discrimination) never happened here or anyplace else for that matter. But it did and as a result a beautiful golf course was built on what was once a large stretch of barren desert. 

Canyon Country Club opened on New Year’s Eve of 1961. Its clubhouse was designed by noted architects Don Wexler and Ric Harrison. It caused an immediate sensation with its eye-catching mid-century architecture situated on a golf course that was surrounded by custom and semi-custom homes. No tract homes were allowed around the course.

When first developed, the area was nick-named ‘East Beverly Hills’ for its show business community of residents. Surrounded by the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains, the area became a cache of Hollywood legend and lore. Some of which continues to this day.

But the origins of the entire area was based less on creating a respite for Hollywood’s elite as it was to satisfy the desires of a certain religious class of resident. Canyon Country Club grew out of the need for middle class and upper class Jews to have their own place in the sun along with other ethnic groups that flocked to this desert playground back in the fifties and sixties.

Today more than 32,000 Jews reside in the Palm Springs area. That wasn’t the case back in the mid-forties right after the war. Rampant antisemitism was a fact of life in Palm Springs as it was in many other parts of the country.

It was Philadelphia publisher Walter Annenberg (TV Guide, etc.) who opened the Tamarisk Country Club down valley in 1946 after being refused membership in the Los Angeles Lakeside Country Club. His connections with Hollywood and corporations alike made Tamarisk Country Club a rousing success. Unfortunately that policy to allow Jews and certain other ethnic group’s access to such facilities didn’t change the social barriers immediately in Palm Springs.

It wasn’t until the late fifties that developers began eying a large stretch of barren desert at the south end of town. In the late fifties, Palm Springs was considered just a winter getaway which turned into a ghost town in the summertime. As they began creating the signature golf course and home builders began building custom and semi-custom homes around it, a huge marketing campaign went into full gear. 

The golf course and its unique one-of-a-kind homes were marketed specifically to middle class and upper class Jewish buyers who might be looking for a second home in the desert. Advertisements were placed in magazines and newspapers in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego markets as well as numerous second-tier markets. It was an overnight success and attracted a large clientele of enthusiastic buyers.

Part of the appeal of the area beyond its acceptance, and in fact, welcoming of Jewish home owners was the club’s membership roster which read like a who’s-who of Hollywood elite. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. Johnny Carson, Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle were all regulars. But it wasn’t just celebrities that frequented the course either. Jack Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Spiro Agnew and Gerald Ford were among the many politicians who conducted business between rounds. Walt Disney donated a copper water fountain (crafted in Germany) to the club that still serves as a major showpiece between the 9^th and 18^th holes.

 

As the years went by, the homes around the golf course changed hands and its predominantly Jewish population gave way to a rich blend of ethnic groups all clamoring for their place along the fairway. Over time, the golf course itself changed ownership and went from the fabled Canyon Country Club to Palm Springs National to its present day title of the Indian Canyon Golf Resort. Despite the name changes, Indian Canyon is still the only golf course in Palm Springs that features single family homes bordering its links. All the other golf courses in town have condo developments surrounding them.

The name has changed but the links remain well-groomed, the grass is cut on a daily basis and golfers still enjoy breath-taking views all around them. After sixty plus years, the legend and lore and exaggeration that defines Palm Springs continues to this day on this blanket of green.

Does Not Play Well with Others

I am an ISTJ…off the charts. ISTJ is an abbreviation used in the publications of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to refer to one of sixteen personality types. ISTJ stands for Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging or put another way (Introverted Sensing with Extraverted Thinking.) So according to the Myers-Briggs, I probably shouldn’t be spending a lot of time around other people. My wife keeps threatening to buy me a t-shirt that says: ‘Does not Play Well with Others.’

If I go to a party with my wife, she leaves the place energized and wanting for more. I just want to run screaming out of the room and seal myself off in an air-tight closet for thirty years just to recover from the traumatic experience. (I exaggerate…but not much!)

Thus said, I’m probably not one to have a lot of visitors…which, of course, only happens when we’re in Palm Springs. Who wants to visit Apple Valley anyway?

I need to put in a disclaimer here…my kids are an exception to the rule. Mind you, the grand-children can still drive me crazy with their early morning shouting: ‘Papa, I’m up’ (at five in the morning). Then there is the occasional temper tantrum, five kids vying for constant attention and other normal coping challenges. But overall, family triumphs personality quirks every time.

Out of town visitors are another story.

Stay-over roomies tend to screw up my quiet time, disrupt my writing, keep me away from the gym, sit in my favorite chair, watch mindless TV early in the morning and generally cause me to wish I were in Siberia. 

Fortunately, I have a counter-balance who prevents me from becoming ‘hermit of the year.’ My wife considers entertaining an art form and one that she has a Master’s degree in it. Therefore, I am forced to confront my own shortcomings as a proper host and play the role numerous times each year.

But there are a few good things that have come from the experiences. Having guests forces me out of my daily routine and comfort level. They’ve take you to places I normally wouldn’t visit or have put on a ‘to do’ list years ago. 

Brian took me to the painted canyons in Mecca. Despite the forced march he and seven-year-old Maya forced me on, it was a fabulous exploration of a slot canyon that I can’t wait to return to.

I’ve trudged to an oasis in the Coachella Valley Preserve and through the marsh area of the Big Morongo Valley. I’ve hiked up to Keys View in Joshua Tree and watched Pelicans in the Salton Sea. 

 I’ve rubbed shoulders with elite theater folks at the Pantages at Hollywood and Vine and toed the sand in Laguna Beach. I’ve stared in wonder at art in the Getty and chaperoned garage-sales for treasures in West Hollywood. I’ve over-eaten all the lobster you can eat at a casino and looked up Marilyn’s dress in downtown Palm Springs.

It’s been a soul-searching, mind-cleansing experience and forced me to become aware of the wondrous environment all within hours of my home here.

I was once told that the best way to really get to know someone is to go camping with them. Forget about a rendezvous at Starbucks or an evening out, sharing your intimate space with someone else tops them all.

I guess as long as we’re living here in the desert, I’ll have to confront my fear of intimate-sharing and accept the fact that visitors can bring a change of pace I normally wouldn’t experience otherwise. 

In the meantime, maybe I can work on my I or S or T or J.

The Girl with No Pulse

I met a woman recently at a gallery opening in the Uptown Design District of Palm Springs. She was beautiful, smart and charming. Yet I know absolutely nothing about her … just the way she wanted it.

You’ve probably seen women like her in social gatherings and not been able to distinguish her from any of the other guests around. She’s probably beautiful, stylish and very engaging. Women like that are often moneyed, elite and privileged. They can also be eye-candy, attention-getting and spontaneous. But unless you’re really observant, you’d never know what they are really like because you could never get an honest emotion out of them even if their life depended on it.

They’ll make you a master of the monologue and pretend to care because that way they don’t have to talk about themselves. It’s the perfect protective diversion away from anything that even remotely resembles an honest probe into their lives, their feelings, their emotions and their opinions.

These women have mastered the art of the façade and mixed signals. Whether it’s in films, the arts, politics or business, these women have an image to uphold and a façade to hide behind. They’re in your church, your school and at work. They may have even ‘friended’ you on Facebook. But they collect friends like trophies and don’t know the true meaning of the word. 

Women fascinate me. Always have…probably always will. As a writer, it’s great fun to create a new female character especially if she is a protagonist in one of my novels. They can cover a gantlet of emotions and, Myers-Briggs aside; provide a rich tapestry on which to paint my story.

But one kind of woman, more than any other, has always mystified and confused me. It’s the woman with no pulse. I can never tell what brings on this fear of self-disclosure. Is it low self-esteem or are they just ‘emotionally unavailable?’

It’s quite a feat for these women to do that for most of their lives. Yet I know several folks, especially women who have, for the most part, succeeded quite admirably in doing just that. For them, sharing emotions and true feelings is far too dangerous a thing to do.  Their conversations always remain superficial and always directed toward the other person.

With that in mind, I broached the subject of communication in my novel “Love in the A Shau” when the dorm mother is talking to my protagonist, Colleen, about her relationship with Daniel. Colleen is fearful of opening herself up to Daniel for fear of rejection or judgment on his part. The dorm mother reminds Colleen:

“Remember that the only way to achieve true intimacy with another person is to be open and vulnerable.” Then she goes on to explain that without intimacy, their relationship is all very surface and safe and really just a façade to hide behind.

Of course, to research this mysterious phenomena between the sexes I simply googled it. Not surprisingly there was a plethora of articles covering many different aspects of communication between men and women. One of the more poignant was from John M. Grohol, Psy.D. who wrote an article entitled: “Ten Reasons Why You Can’t Say How you Feel.”

In a way, I feel sorry for those folks with ice in their veins and an empty stove for a heart.

If I thought it would matter, I’d like to tell them: “Oh, come on, have a heart.”

Life is so much nicer that way.