Royal Sun Palm Springs

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 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.