It was an enterprising woman who started building Casa Cody 100 years ago—and today, it endures as the oldest continuously operating hotel in Palm Springs.
Casa Cody was built and established by Harriet Dowie Cody, a woman who faced difficult choices following the death of her husband in 1924. She was not only able to make a living for herself and her young daughter, but created an enduring contribution to Palm Springs.
Cody was one of many women who played vital roles in the early development of Palm Springs. Others included Nellie “Mother” Coffman, who ran the Desert Inn with resolve and compassion, and Pearl McManus, who built both the Oasis Hotel and the iconic Tennis Club.
A direct descendant of Sir Thomas Moore, Harriet Cody was born into one of the wealthiest families in Philadelphia in 1884. She was a proper, conservative Vassar College graduate who in 1910 married a young architect, Harold William (Bill) Bryant Cody. One of Bill’s cousins was purportedly the famous cowboy-turned-showman Buffalo Bill Cody.
Bill Cody got a job with Bliss and Faville, a San Francisco architectural firm, and the couple moved to California. However, Bill soon contracted a serious lung disease (either pneumonia or tuberculosis), so they left the cooler, damper Bay Area and settled in Hollywood, hoping for a more temperate climate.
In Southern California, Bill was hired by the esteemed Myron Hunt; the firm’s design projects included the Riverside Congregational Church, the Bridges Hall of Music at Pomona College, and a remodel of Riverside’s famous Mission Inn. (Cody is not related to William Francis Cody, who lived from 1916 to 1978 and was an influential Palm Springs architect.)
Bill’s consumptive condition worsened; the couple rented out their Hollywood home and moved to the even warmer and drier climate of Palm Springs. They initially lived in a small cottage next to the Desert Inn, where Harriet was befriended by the inn’s magnanimous founder and owner, Nellie Coffman. Harriet later reminisced, “She is the soul of goodness, a woman who gave help to many, as she did to me, and yet left the recipient still in possession of her self-respect.”
For a while, Bill was able to work and contribute to the couple’s livelihood. He was hired to design an ornate Moroccan-style home for Chicago socialite Lois Kellogg, the wealthy heir to the Charles P. Kellogg manufacturing fortune. Born in 1894, Lois had departed Chicago’s Millionaire Row for adventures in the California desert. Lois became enamored with the area while staying at the Desert Inn, and in 1919, she purchased land just south of Baristo Road, between Indian Canyon and Palm Canyon drives. In 1921, work began on the grandiose project there with Bill as architect and Alvah Hicks as contractor. However, Lois was constantly on the scene and demanded changes on an almost-daily basis. When Bill died in 1924, work stopped, and the home, nicknamed “Fool’s Folly,” was never completed.
As Bill’s condition worsened, he eventually needed 24-hour care—and Harriet had to make ends meet. Trying to live on the Hollywood rent, they bought a tract of land with the last of their money. When their Hollywood tenants started missing payments, they became desperate. Harriet quite literally became a horse trader, and traded for an old gypsy camp wagon and two horses. She also traded the Hollywood house for 80 acres of land in Palm Springs.
The Codys camped out in a tent and started renting out the horses. Harriet Cody established the city’s first riding stable at the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Ramon Road. She bought more horses, including quality ones from Lee Arenas, the popular Cahuilla leader. She rented horses for $5 a day and began boarding horses for visitors, including movie cowboys like Tom Mix and Jack Holt.
By the time her husband passed away in 1924, she had 35 horses. Harriet was an accomplished rider, and wore jodhpurs and monogrammed silk blouses advertising the stable when she went on promotional visits to the Desert Inn.
Harriet realized that real estate was a better way to succeed than horses, and began to engage in several profitable real estate deals. An income was thus secured for her and her daughter. She then dusted off some of her husband’s old plans and, in stages, built the Casa Cody, an intimate inn in the Tennis Club neighborhood, at 175 S. Cahuilla Road.
The hotel opened in the early 1930s and soon became the stomping grounds for many members of the Los Angeles arts community. Charlie Chaplin, opera singer Lawrence Tibbett and novelist Anaïs Nin all spent time at Casa Cody. A stage was built in the hotel’s Adobe House, and Tibbett’s piano was kept on premises for performances and parties. Gen. George Patton stayed at Casa Cody while training troops in the nearby desert.
Harriet’s daughter, Patricia (Patsy), married Bill Rogers, a cousin of humorist Will Rogers, and after her mother’s death in 1954, she ran the Casa Cody. After Patsy died, the property changed hands several times. In 1986, Casa Cody was purchased by Frank Tysen and Therese Hayes, who expanded and remodeled it. They bought property next door, which was part of the Francis Crocker estate.
Casa Cody, as the oldest operating hotel in Palm Springs, has been designated a Class 1 Historic Site by the city. The small boutique hotel still engenders a feeling of history, with charming tile-covered rooms, restful lawns and gardens, and citrus trees, all bordered with bright magenta bougainvillea. Today, Casa Cody is owned by the Caseta Group, which also manages boutique hotels in Big Bear, San Diego, Malibu, Los Angeles and Taos, N.M.
Harriet Dowie Cody (1884-1954) is interred in the Wellwood Murray Cemetery in Palm Springs.
Sources for this article include Palm Springs: First Hundred Years by Mayor Frank Bogert (Palm Springs Heritage Association, 1984), and “Pioneer Harriet Dowie-Cody never gave up” by Renee Brown, The Desert Sun, Aug. 23, 2018.
Wonderful historical article. Factual history is so muh more interesting than most fiction. Thanks for sharing this story.