Palm Springs, California
Royal Sun Palm Springs
Springboard Hospitality rebuilds a 1960s Palm Springs motor court into a 66-room hotel anchored by a restaurant that runs breakfast as Sunrise and dinner as Afterglow.
Open · February 2025
Royal Sun Palm Springs opened on February 19, 2025, at the south end of downtown, replacing the short-lived Life House Palm Springs on a property whose bones date to the 1960s. Owner Suncroft Capital brought in Springboard Hospitality to manage the 66-room relaunch, built around a new restaurant and bar concept, High Moon, and a pool deck positioned as the hotel's main gathering space.
The essentials
- Group
- Springboard Hospitality (for owner Suncroft Capital)
- Opening
- February 2025
- Rooms & suites
- 66 rooms, including 4 suites
- Segment
- Boutique lifestyle hotel
- Designer
- NC
- Entry rate
- From $180
The place
The hotel sits at the south end of downtown Palm Springs, where Palm Canyon Drive meets the base of the San Jacinto Mountains, a short walk from Moorten Botanical Garden. The location keeps it close to the restaurants and galleries of the downtown core while sitting in a quieter residential stretch than the hotels clustered right on Palm Canyon Drive itself.
The concept
The building's low-slung blocks around a central pool date to the 1960s, long predating its most recent identities as the Royal Sun Inn and, briefly, Life House Palm Springs. Owner Suncroft Capital handed the property to Springboard Hospitality, the management company formerly known as OLS Hotels & Resorts, for a ground-up relaunch as a 66-room independent hotel, including four suites.
The design mixes desert modernism with Japanese minimalism and touches of Old Hollywood glamour: geometric flooring, layered textures and lobby artwork that nod to all three without settling fully into any one. Springboard positions Royal Sun as event-capable as much as stay-worthy: its outdoor spaces, including a lounge with a fire pit, a gazebo and a cactus garden, scale from small gatherings up to 295 guests, a capacity aimed at the wedding and group business that keeps Palm Springs hotels busy outside peak leisure season.
Dining & wellness
High Moon, the hotel's restaurant and bar, splits into two service identities built around Californian cooking: Sunrise for breakfast and brunch, Afterglow for dinner. A separate pool bar serves brick-oven pizza, tacos and desert-forward cocktails, and the pool deck itself is programmed as the hotel's social center rather than a quiet add-on.
Are you the manager of this hotel? Click here to get in touch.
Other hotels in Palm Springs
Palm Springs, California
Terra Palm Springs
A 13-room wellness hotel opened in January 2025 on Indian Canyon Drive, with a salt sauna, cold plunge and rain room.
From $400
Open · 2025
Palm Springs, California
Casa Palma Hotel & Bungalows
Errol Flynn's private 1940s desert retreat reopens to the public as a 33-key resort and social club rebuilt from the ground up.
From $170
Open · April 2025
Palm Springs, California
El Noa Noa
Seven suites in a walled Warm Sands compound, reportedly once owned by Mexican singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel, relaunched as an adults-only couples' retreat.
From $100
Open · Early 2025
Palm Springs, California
Thompson Palm Springs
Thompson Palm Springs occupies two and a half blocks of North Palm Canyon Drive, with 168 bungalow-style rooms, an adults-only tower and a Levantine restaurant.
From $350
Open · October 2024
Palm Springs, California
The Cactai
Three friends strip a 1948 motor court down to its mid-century bones and add heated bidet toilets and an AI concierge.
From $140
Open · 2024
Palm Springs, California
The Velvet Rope
A 1951 hideaway built for visiting Hollywood stars, left vacant for years, reopens as nine suites named for the icons who once used it.
From $200
Open · December 2023
Palm Springs, California
Lucille Palm Springs
A 1921 Spanish Revival compound once favored by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, rebuilt into nine self-catered bungalows under new ownership.
From $330
Open · 2023