Casa Palma Hotel & Bungalows

Casa Palma Hotel & Bungalows opened in Palm Springs' Movie Colony in spring 2025 on the site of Errol Flynn's members-only Normandy Hotel and, more recently, Desert Sun Resort & Spa. San Clemente entrepreneurs Ryan and Rochelle Jaleh rebuilt the six-acre property into a 33-key resort and social club with two pools, a tennis-and-pickleball court and a Mediterranean-leaning restaurant, reframing a Hollywood-era address as a club open to any guest who books a room.

The place

Casa Palma sits in the Movie Colony neighborhood at 1533 N Chaparral Road, about a mile from both downtown Palm Springs and Palm Springs International Airport. The address puts it within walking distance of the shops and restaurants along Palm Canyon Drive while keeping the six-acre lot large enough for the tennis court, two pools and lawns that anchor the property's social-club framing.

The concept

The site's history reads like a stack of Palm Springs postcards: bandleader Horace Heidt's Lone Palm Hotel, a stop tied to Doris Day, and, most famously, Errol Flynn's members-only Normandy Hotel and his adjoining, clothing-optional Casa del Sol, all folded into the same parcel across several 1940s decades. By the time Ryan and Rochelle Jaleh, a design-focused husband-and-wife team from San Clemente, took over the property, most recently operating as Desert Sun Resort & Spa, the buildings had outlived their glamour. They rebuilt it as Casa Palma: 22 guestrooms and 11 suites and bungalows behind an all-white Mediterranean-inspired shell wrapped in bougainvillea, with turquoise and gold accents outside and seafoam, slate blue and woven natural textures within.

The property is pitched less as a hotel than a resort-and-social-club hybrid built for programmed recreation rather than pass-through stays: a water-volleyball net in the main pool, a second courtyard pool, a full tennis court that doubles for pickleball, and lawns designed for daytime use. The Jalehs preserved a handful of the original lion's-head water features from the Flynn era, the one direct physical link to the site's Hollywood-era past.

Dining & wellness

Chiquita, the on-site restaurant, serves Mediterranean-leaning breakfast, lunch and dinner from a patio that opens onto the pool deck. The two pools carry the hotel's recreation focus (one built for water volleyball and basketball, the other a quieter courtyard option) backed by a hot tub, a fitness center, firepits, a barbecue area, an on-site market and complimentary bicycles for the mile-long ride into downtown.