Morongo Valley Inn

Please click on "albums" to see individual portions of this Inn. There is an album dedicated to rooms and areas on the property. We will be scanning historical documents and photos to share on this Facebook page, so keep checking.

This Inn truly is a "western" style Territorial Craftsman building. The upstairs porch wraps completely around both wings, a visitor can walk all the way around the top floor of the Inn and enjoy 360 degree views of the mountains that rim this little valley. Two sides will give you the San Gorgonio Mountains, and Mount San Jacinto that looms over Palms Springs (in winter, these are trimmed in white snow), the other four sides show off the Pinto and Turtle Mountains to the North and the South, as well as the ascending 29 Palms Hwy going into Yucca Valley and beyond. All rooms upstairs are accessed by exterior doors from the porch.

Please click on "Albums" to see group photos of the Historic Morongo Valley Inn. So many of you have visited or passed through over the years that our family enjoyed it as our ranch headquarters. All those years you could see the work in progress, now it's a finished canvas. Ready for another century of service for some lucky person. Please click on "like" and "share".

Here are some photos of some of the views

Well, almost finished with the Morongo Valley Inn Facebook page. Please open the "Albums" to see more photos. Many of you may remember being here at one time or another over the past 4 decades, and it has been an ongoing project for us all these years. We feel our efforts helped to preserve this Historic Inn for another century ahead.

This kitchen was built by a Master Carpenter and Master Kitchen Builder, Daniel Haro. Wealthy clients used to wait up to a year for his well built cabinets. These cabinets were not built of oak and fashioned in early Craftsman style because it was popular, they were built to be "period" correct to the time that the Inn was remodeled, the early 1912 to 1918 time period. In the spirit of being historically correct in renovating, we both chose the craftsman style and used whi...te oak, a wood that would have been available in California in that time frame. Granite was a popular choice back then, and so was black glazed Tile so both were chosen as was a porcelain covered cast iron sink. The pantry was the California Ice Cabinet, so we kept the integrity but brought it up to a new job. The root and ice cellar is still there, and the ironing board closet it still there, but it too has a new job....... a spice cabinet....original wood ironing board is in th old school house, for history sake. Oak bead board was chosen as it was popular in the early 1900s, as were the myriad of wood moulding and trims. The kitchen isn't big enough.....every body comes and visits and joins in cooking in this kitchen, we have bar stools tucked everywhere so they can sit while we cook. This kitchen housed a lot of love, it too is a happy room! And check out the mountain view from those windows. See more

Many a happy day was spent in this great room. Meals were originally cooked in the cooking fireplace on a Swedish cast iron cook stove, and when we moved in, we kept the fire ablaze to keep us warm in winter. Later we added the old wood parlor stove, and I designed and built the stone hearth and fire wall to be up to code with that. That was our heat for a long time, and many a rocking chair was pulled up to it with a good book and a warm cup of java made for happy time. ...We stood in front of that fireplace visiting with friends many a day, first warming one side then the other, hands clasped to catch the warmth. Christmas dinners, potlucks for horse back rides, little girls giggling while waiting for a colt to be born, little boys playing board games to while away the weekends, and those two crazy artists that lived there had their families too. Come to think of it, I'd love to talk to these old floors and ask them about all the interesting characters that spent time on them. If only those floors could talk! These andirons are the original ones to the house, I have old 1912 pictures with these very andirons in the fireplace. The horse and mule shoes were found deep in the soil, unearthed by a barn building project. Each one tells a story of it's own. The hearth tile was repaired by me, spares found in the crawl space decades before, so it's an old part of the Lobby, too. See more

This is the Bird Room. I used it as an art studio later on, but before that it was a guest room. All the guests enjoyed it due to the big Canary Island Date Palms that afforded housing for the Bird families and their young. No one ever slept in late in this room, for the joyful singing of the birds in those trees woke you up, and you just had to wake up happy with all that singing going on outside! Never was there a crabby person from that room descending the stairs. In fact, they did all wear smiles if we think about it......I loved painting and sculpting in this room, it is indeed a happy place.

None of the bedrooms had any eastern windows when we moved in. I love mornings, so I had a master carpenter install an eastern window to this room. He matched the woodwork, window frames, and hardware so well, it looks original. This room became a famous artist's studio while he resided here because it had a north and east exposure. (Carlo Whalbeck) Daniel added his master carpentry skills and added this beadboard closet to the room. This room not only looks out onto the sunrise magenta painted mountains, but it looks to the old School House below, and from the bed, you look out to the San Gorgonio snow capped mountains.

This room was indeed totally sealed shut when we took over the Inn around 1976. The doors and windows in this room were there but were behind boards and plastered over. there was no way to enter each room from the other rooms, as the doors between the rooms today were actually doors to a "water closet" back then, (a small closet that had a shelf for water and bowl, and a few hooks for clothing and towels). This room was the "Card Room" while Al and his vigilant body guard,... One Arm, stayed here during the construction of Two Bunch Palms during the youth of the 1900s. We refinished the original floors, and kept the wood and beamed ceiling. Daniel used his master carpenter expertise and both our knowledge of period woodsmithing and hardware, and the cupboard closet was born. Some claim strongly that this room is haunted. One good spirited tenant and his wife gave the ghost his own room and assigned it a name while they spent a few years of their life enjoying this old Inn. See more

This bathroom boasts a ball and claw cast iron tub, period sink and original wall hung porcelain toilet. With it's original doors, oak floors, and wall cabinet with deep beveled mirrors, it's a small room with a lot of period detail. Oh look, the second door leads to a walk through with built in closets and it leads us to another bedroom, OR office?