El Mirador Tower
The plans produced by the L.A. architectural firm of Walker and Eisen for the 165-room El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs included a signature 68-foot-tall Spanish Revival-style bell tower crowned by a pyramidal cap of tile in a zig-zag pattern. In 1942, the hotel was purchased by the federal government and turned it into a military hospital. After the war, the property was sold to a group of investors who restored the structure and re-opened it as a hotel. In 1972, Desert Hospital, located adjacent to the hotel, purchased the property and transformed it, again, into a hospital. In 1989, just hours after the hospital’s board of directors voted to reinforce the bell tower and reconstruct its one remaining building, a fire destroyed them both. The hospital moved quickly to rebuild the tower from the original Walker and Eisen plans, and it reopened in 1991.
Palm Springs, Riverside County
Photographer: Andrew Schmidt