DEVELOPER
Pearl McCallum McManus
Katherine Ainsworth, Portrait of Pearl McCallum from The McCallum Saga: The Story of the Founding of Palm Springs, 1973, Palm Springs Art Museum, Hoover Library.
Architect Lloyd Wright, Pearl McCallum McManus, Austin McManus, contractor Quinn Spalding, turning the first spade of dirt for the Oasis Hotel, 121 South Palm Canyon Drive, 1924, reproduction, Courtesy Palm Springs Historical Society.
Hacienda / Oasis Hotel. McCallum Adobe, lady at writing desk, second lady reading, ca. 1928, reproduction, Courtesy Palm Springs Historical Society.
Pearl McCallum hired Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) to design the Oasis Hotel in 1925 before launching her first housing development in the 1930s, Palos Verdes Estates.
She went on to develop the famous Tennis Club, which opened in 1937 and became the center of Palm Springs social life for celebrities. Notably, McCallum was at one time the largest landowner in Palm Springs as she gradually bought back land once owned by her father, the first white settler in town.
She belongs to a generation of women who anticipated the growth of Palm Springs as a resort city. This group includes Nellie Norton Coffman, who opened the Desert Inn in 1909 and expanded it as a luxurious resort in 1928, as well as Julia Shaw Patterson Carnell, who commissioned architects Harry Schenck and Harry J. Williams to design La Plaza Shopping Center, complete with a theater and apartments.
It was the first car-accessible, mixed-use complex in California, reflecting the state’s emerging car culture.
