Seven years of placing guests in this valley, more than 15,000 stays, and the first question has never changed. Not when to come. Where.
Palm Springs is small on a map and not small at all in practice. Downtown wants you on foot, with dinner two blocks from the front door. The north end is a design trip: hedges, folded rooflines, and a coffee worth building the morning around. South of Ramon the streets go quiet, the mountains sit closer, and the pool deck becomes the itinerary. Matching the area to the trip, before anyone unpacks, is most of what we do at Apek Rentals.
What follows is the short version. Five areas, what each one is actually for, and in every one a home we would hand you the keys to ourselves. The rest is in our Palm Springs collection.
Downtown and the Tennis Club, Where Most First Trips Belong
Palm Canyon Drive is the reason people book Palm Springs sight unseen: the restaurants, the galleries, the Art Museum, Forever Marilyn, and VillageFest closing the street to traffic on Thursday evenings. A block west, the Historic Tennis Club district climbs toward the base of San Jacinto, where the noise drops away and the mountain wall takes over the window.
Villa Perdiz sits on a cul-de-sac in that pocket, single level, five bedrooms, ten guests, with a heated saltwater pool and spa in a walled garden and glass doors that open the whole house onto it. There is a chef’s kitchen with an espresso machine, a fireplace indoors and another outside, and bikes in the garage for the ride into town. King beds in every room, smart TVs in every room, and quiet enough at night that guests forget how close the restaurants are. It suits ten who want to walk to dinner and come back to somewhere that feels nothing like downtown. No pets at this one.
Uptown and the North End, a Trip About Architecture
North of Alejo, Palm Canyon turns into the Uptown Design District: midcentury furniture dealers, galleries, vintage shops, and the cafes that fill first on a Saturday. The residential streets behind it are the reason architecture tours exist here, low silhouettes, breeze block, glass held up by almost nothing.
We keep one house that belongs in the tour rather than beside it. The Steel House, a Wexler home on the north end about five minutes from downtown, is two bedrooms and four guests, which makes it the rare Palm Springs stay scaled to a couple or two. Steel frame, glass sliders the width of the living room, a grand piano nobody expects, a pool and hot tub outside with the mountains behind them, and an outdoor shower for after. Dogs are welcome for a $75 fee. It suits four who came for the buildings and want to sleep inside one.
Movie Colony, for the Weekend With a Guest List
East of Indian Canyon, the streets that housed the studios in the thirties and forties are still hedged, still shaded, and still residential, a few minutes on foot from the busiest part of town. It is where we send groups who want an estate rather than a house.
The Mediterranean Racquet Estate runs 4,300 square feet on one level off Tamarisk Road: six bedrooms, six bathrooms, king beds throughout, and twelve guests without anyone drawing the short straw. A private tennis court, a pool heated through winter and cooled through summer, a hot tub, a fire pit, and a kitchen built around a Wolf range and a marble island for the nights you cook instead of book. Cribs, a pack and play, a high chair, and children’s dinnerware are all on hand, which is why it works as well for three generations as for six couples. Trained service animals only.
Twin Palms and the South End, Where the House Is the Plan
South of downtown the grid loosens and the Alexander tracts begin, two palms out front, a pool out back, the San Jacintos filling the end of every street. Nothing is walkable and nothing needs to be, because the point of a south end weekend is that the car stays where you left it.
Our Twin Palms mid-century home is the argument for that. Three bedrooms for eight, post and beam ceilings, a white brick fireplace, and a primary suite set apart from the guest rooms. Behind the fence: a pool, a hot tub with heating included, a two hole putting green, cornhole, a fire pit, a grill, and a full gym in the converted garage. Pool heating runs $149 a night when you want it. Dogs stay for $100. It suits six or eight who would rather the weekend happen at the house than be scheduled around it.
One Address for Twenty Two
Some trips are a guest list before they are a destination: a milestone birthday, a reunion, a company offsite, a wedding party that would rather not scatter across four rentals. The Gated Boho Villa is the answer we give most often, nine bedrooms and nine bathrooms for twenty two guests, gated, walkable to downtown, and staffed by nobody, which is the part groups tell us they appreciate most.
Eight suites have king beds and their own bathrooms, so nobody negotiates a schedule. The shared half is a pool and hot tub, a gym with a Peloton and free weights, a game room with pool tables, ping pong and foosball, and a community room with a gourmet kitchen and a sixty inch screen for whatever the group watches together. Up to three dogs at $75 each. If the number is bigger still, our large stays collection goes further, up to thirty guests.
One Morning in Each
The house is where the trip actually happens, and it is not the whole of it. Four outings worth building a morning around, all a short drive from these homes, all better early.
- Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. Rotating cars up more than 8,000 feet to Mount San Jacinto State Park, where it runs thirty degrees cooler than the desert floor. View on Google Maps
- Indian Canyons. Palm oases, streams, and bighorn sheep at the south end of Palm Canyon Drive. Start at opening, around 8 am, before the trails hold the heat. View on Google Maps
- Uptown Design District. Midcentury dealers, galleries, and coffee along North Palm Canyon between Alejo and Vista Chino. View on Google Maps
- Forever Marilyn. Twenty six feet of her, on Museum Way, steps from the Art Museum and a walk from any downtown stay. View on Google Maps
Tell Us the Trip
Every neighborhood here delivers a slightly different version of the same good desert weekend, so the useful question is not which area is best, it is which house you want to wake up in. Ours come with private pools, mountains in the glass, and room for the whole group, and they are all bookable direct.
Start with the full Palm Springs collection, narrow it by private pool, hot tub, or pet friendly if one of those decides it for you, and tell us the dates and the group. The rest is ours to arrange.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which area should I book for a first trip to Palm Springs?
Downtown and the Historic Tennis Club district, every time. You can walk to dinner, the Art Museum, and VillageFest, and still sleep against the mountains. Villa Perdiz is the home we book most for first visits.
What is the best area to stay in Palm Springs for couples?
The north end, near the Uptown Design District. The Steel House sleeps four, sits minutes from downtown, and is one of the few genuinely architectural stays in town scaled to two.
Which of your Palm Springs homes take dogs?
The Steel House at $75 per pet, our Twin Palms mid-century home at $100, and the Gated Boho Villa for up to three dogs at $75 each. The rest of the list is in our pet friendly collection.
How many guests can your largest Palm Springs home sleep?
Twenty two at the Gated Boho Villa, and up to thirty across the wider large stays collection.
Are the pools heated?
It depends on the home and the season. The Racquet Estate pool is heated in winter and cooled in summer, Villa Perdiz offers heating at $99 a night with 48 hours notice, and the Twin Palms home runs $149 a night with the spa heated at no charge. Ask us when you book and we will set it before you arrive.
Do I need a car in Palm Springs?
For most of the city, yes, though cross town trips run ten to fifteen minutes. Stay downtown or in the Tennis Club district and you can leave it parked for most of the weekend.
Where should I stay for Coachella or Stagecoach?
Anywhere in Palm Springs works, since the festival grounds are a thirty to forty five minute drive. Book early, and book big: festival weekends move first in our large stays collection.
Do you have homes outside Palm Springs?
Yes. We host across Southern California, including Palm Desert, La Quinta, Joshua Tree, Big Bear, and San Diego. Our destinations page has the full map.
