The Valley’s Original Luxury Hideaway Marks 100 Years The Delicious Way
The desert’s oldest resort turns 100 this year, and it’s marking the occasion deliciously. La Quinta Resort has spent a century being the Coachella Valley’s best-kept secret. Now, for its centennial, the secret’s out and you need to book a casita immediately.
La Quinta Resort opened Dec. 29, 1926, when Walter H. Morgan purchased 1,400 acres of desert and built what began as a secluded retreat: 20 handmade Spanish Colonial casitas beneath the Santa Rosa Mountains.
According to Chris George, Executive Director of Marketing, “There are very few resorts in this country that get to mark a hundred years. It’s a small group, and we don’t take being part of it lightly.”
One hundred years later, that quiet escape has grown into a 45-acre resort with 42 climate-controlled pools, 53 hot spas, 21 tennis courts, 8 pickleball courts and a 23,000-square-foot destination spa, its original architecture still intact. It’s where Clark Gable and Shirley Temple came to disappear for a while, and where President Eisenhower spent his first vacation after leaving office in a suite that still bears his name.
“La Quinta opened in December 1926 as the Original Desert Hideaway,” George continues, “and it’s the longest-running resort in Greater Palm Springs. But the milestone isn’t only ours.”
“The city of La Quinta took its name from this resort, so 2026 belongs to the residents here as much as it does to us. And it belongs to our team. We have people who have worked on this property for more than forty years, and that’s the part of this year I think about most.”
That’s the thing about La Quinta. It’s always known how to keep a secret, and a century later, the bones are the same. Whitewashed Spanish Colonial casitas. Citrus trees lining every path. Those same Santa Rosa Mountains keeping watch. But the reasons to visit right now are new and entirely worth the trip.
The Pools Do the Talking
Forty-two of them, to be exact, tucked between courtyards and framed by mountains that turn pink at sunset. There’s a 21-and-up adults-only oasis for anyone who wants a cocktail and zero children within earshot, and a main pool built for the opposite crowd. Either way, you’re floating in the same water that cooled off celebrities and presidents for a century.
“You feel it coming down the front drive,” George says. “Your shoulders drop just a bit and you know you’ve arrived somewhere special. There’s a spirit to this place, and it reaches you before anyone hands you a key.”
And once you check in, there’s a lot waiting. You get to all of it on pathways, not hallways. “You walk outside to go anywhere, past red clay tile roofs and blue shutters, and the walk becomes part of the day. There’s space to yourself, and you experience La Quinta the way you want to.”
Centennial Dining, Done Right
This is where the birthday party really gets good. La Quinta Resort’s centennial menus debut across four dining venues: Morgan’s in the desert, Twenty6, Adobe Grill and The Marketplace. Each offering leans into its golden-era roots without feeling like a museum piece.
“We didn’t want the same centennial menu showing up at all four restaurants, so each one took a different piece of the era.”
Morgan’s in the desert, the resort’s signature dining room and the descendant of the original 1927 Dining Room, built its centennial section around old-school classics done with a very modern hand. “Morgan’s went to the continental side of the same period, with Oysters Rockefeller, Salad Lyonnaise, Filet Oscar and Baba au Rhum.” Order the Filet Oscar (pomme purée, grilled asparagus, Dungeness crab, tarragon béarnaise) if you want the full old-Hollywood moment, or start with Oysters Rockefeller and a Lyonnaise salad before finishing with Baba au Rhum, a warm sponge cake soaked in aged Caribbean rum syrup. It’s dinner theater in the best sense, no jazz hands required.
Over at Twenty6, the resort’s modern American bistro, the centennial menu gets a little cheekier. “Twenty6 pulled from the resort’s own culinary archive. Shrimp Cocktail, Waldorf Salad, Chicken à la King. That’s what resort menus in this country actually looked like in 1926.” And then there’s the Peanut Butter Pie: a chocolate cookie crust, creamy peanut butter filling, whipped cream and peanuts on top.
“It’s something of an open secret here during the Golden Age, the dessert Hollywood guests kept coming back for, and we’ve never been able to take it off a menu without hearing about it.”
The pie runs at both Twenty6 and The Marketplace, the only item appearing across two menus.
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Adobe Grill brought its own centennial spirit to the party with the Centennial Margarita, made with Volcán X.A. tequila, Grand Marnier and fresh-squeezed lime and lemon juice. Sip one on the patio near the double-sided fireplace while a bartender walks you through a tequila list that features more than 100 bottles. The Oaxacan-motif dining room alone is worth the reservation, but the birthday cocktail seals the deal.
For more casual cravings between pool sessions, The Marketplace has you covered from sunrise through a late summer evening, coffee, pastries, ice cream and wood-fired pizza included.
The Spa Leans Into the Milestone
Spa La Quinta offers three centennial treatments in 2026. The Centennial Garden Bath is a private citrus blossom garden soak priced at $100 for 100 years, intentional in its simplicity. The 100-minute Centennial Journey combines a 50-minute tailor-made massage and 50-minute clarifying facial with a Signature Citrus Blossom candle so the resort’s signature scent follows you back to real life. Prefer water to hands-on treatment? The Legacy of Serenity Ritual includes a 20-minute citrus blossom garden bath and 80-minute body therapy with a scalp massage and Vichy shower. Either way, that citrus blossom scent, the same one woven through several of the spa’s treatments, is doing a lot of the emotional work here. It’s the scent of the resort distilled into a single candle, carrying a hundred years of unhurried desert afternoons with it.
Book the Casita
“Historic hotels feel different. It comes from the years, the stories, the patina of age. It’s something true, something that can’t be manufactured or architected.” A hundred years is a long time to keep a secret, and La Quinta Resort clearly isn’t interested in keeping it much longer. Between the centennial menus, the citrus-scented spa rituals and 42 pools’ worth of desert sunshine, this is the year to finally see what Garbo, Capra and Eisenhower already knew. The century is calling. Answer it with a reservation.
Win Your Own Century
And if you’d rather not wait to book that casita yourself, Locale has a way to get you there for free. We’re giving one lucky winner and a guest a chance to experience the history firsthand: a two-night stay at La Quinta Resort, dinner for two at Morgan’s in the desert, dinner for two at Adobe Grill and a spa treatment for two at Spa La Quinta. That’s a century of Hollywood glamour, a Centennial Margarita and a couples massage, all in one weekend. Enter now, because a hundred years only comes around once.
La Quinta Resort & Club
49-499 Eisenhower Dr
La Quinta, CA 92253
760.564.4111
Morgan’s in the desert: T–Sa, 5:30–9:30 p.m.
Twenty6: Daily, 7 a.m.–10 p.m.
Adobe Grill: W–M, 5–10 p.m.
The Marketplace: Su–Th, 6 a.m.–6 p.m.; F–Sa, 6 a.m.–8 p.m.
Spa La Quinta: Su–W, 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m.; Th–Sa, 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m.
