THIS DESERT HOTEL FEELS LIKE YOU'RE SLEEPING ON MARS

MODERN, MINIMAL AND MODULAR, RESET IS THE FIRST NEW HOTEL TO BE BUILT FROM THE GROUND UP IN THE JOSHUA TREE AREA IN 15 YEARS.

- BY DEBORAH NETBURN

DRESSED IN TORN cargo pants and beat-up Vans, architectural designer and DIY influencer Ben Uyeda was stretched out poolside in a rare moment of repose on a recent Tuesday evening at Reset, his new hotel in 29 Palms. “This is the best time to watch the mountains,” he said, looking south toward the direction of Joshua Tree National Park. “Right now they look really jagged, but they’ll turn soft and orange as the sun sets.” Sitting next to him were his collaborators Emi Kitawaki and Jen Whitaker of the design firm Gry Space who created the look and tone of Reset’s spare, earthy interiors. Sharing a cold cucumber salad from the hotel’s in-house restaurant, they gazed across the spacious pool area with its wide platform loungers and stucco walls that perfectly matched the color of the dusty landscape beyond. “The sky is the show,” Kitawaki said, looking up. Reset, which opened to the public this summer, is a new kind of hotel for the high desert: Modern. Minimal. Modular. While the pool area with its hot tub, sauna and thoughtful landscaping is pure desert luxury, the rest of the hotel consists of 65 rectangular-shaped, freestanding rooms laid out in neat rows. Each sparsely furnished room is outfitted with carefully selected amenities that suggest a highly curated camping trip — a stylish solar lantern, in-room pour-over coffee, an outdoor firepit and, most importantly, a sturdy cushion on the private outdoor patio for stargazing.

“The best view here is always up,” Uyeda said.

The rooms are not technically built from shipping containers, but with their boxy shape, corrugated silver sides and narrow dimensions, they sure look like it. Walking along the hotel’s concrete paths, the overall effect is far more sci-fi than Old West. As one guest put it, “It feels like a test case for Elon Musk’s first colony on Mars.”

The hotel’s designers say the evocation of space travel was deliberate.