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High Design in the Desert

Miracle Manor Retreat

Just two and half hours outside of Los Angeles, on the western edge of Joshua Tree National Park, sits Miracle Manor Retreat. Even before they purchased it in 1997, designer/artist April Greiman, who founded L.A. design firm Made in Space, and renowned architect Michael Rotondi, head of Roto Architecture, frequented the 50s era motel to escape the intensity of their technology-driven city lives. The duo combined their love of the desert and keen aesthetic sensibilities to flip the space into a high design desert retreat. Centered around mineral pools that source from aquifers nestled 400 feet below the earth's surface, Miracle Manor incorporates the textures, colors and feel of the desert, aiming to create as transparent an experience as possible. Find out more and book your getaway on Miracle Manor's site. FYA's Sarah Williams interviewed owner and designer April Greiman about the Miracle Manor Retreat.

How did you and husband, architect Michael Rotondi, come to owning and running the Miracle Manor Retreat?
I feel that I was destined to own Miracle Manor, from my first visit in 1981, the place was instinctively familiar to me, so were the deserts in general – Joshua Tree, Death Valley, Mojave, and Coloradoan deserts. I have been coming out regularly since then and in May 1997, Michael and I became the proprietors of the Miracle Manor retreat restoring it to it’s imagined original state and working to improve it ever since.

How do the design and architectural elements of the retreat enhances visitors' experiences of the desert?
We believed from the beginning that it was possible to create a totally immersive aesthetic, and sustain it. From the beginning, we decided that design would be transparent to the experience – form, space and color would be in service to the natural light of the desert, and the natural hot mineral waters. The place is quiet, architecturally and environmentally. The motel is intended to be a retreat, as in the name. Guests are not distracted from quieter more inward focusing, or a long view across the valley, to see the full 10,000 feet of Mount San Jacinto.

How did you let the natural elements of the desert influence your design choices for the retreat? What are some of your favorite examples?
Every aspect of the desert has influenced us. It’s climate, natural environment, habitat, materials and so on. Long panorama windows were added to the outer walls of all the guests rooms, to give the perception of the desert passing into the space of the rooms. Initially the rooms were the color of the sand surrounding the building. Over time color that is more saturated has been added, all related to the plants that are on the property.

What are a few of the essential stops and activities, for people coming out to the desert from L.A.? Any art and culture must sees?
1,000 Palms, Natural Preserve and Oasis; Palm Springs Museum, there is currently a show of John Lautner's work on view: Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner; The Tram Stop up Mt San Jacinto, designed by architect Albert Frey and Cabot's Pueblo Museum which is right across the street from Miracle Manor.

Enjoy some photos of the retreat here: