The Joshua Tree Retreat Center Is a Mecca for Meditation and Modernism

In case you haven’t heard, Modernism Week is almost upon us. Now in its 19th year, the annual festival celebrating midcentury architecture, art and design kicks off in Palm Springs this Thursday. In honor of the occasion, over the next couple of weeks, Dirt will also be shining a spotlight on the ever-popular design movement, with extra focus to be directed at less well-known projects and practitioners.

One of the highlights of this year’s festival schedule is a walking tour of the historic Institute of Mentalphysics, also known as the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. Located about a mile from the entrance of Joshua Tree National Park, the Institute was established in the mid-1940s by Edwin Dingle, an English expatriate and spiritual seeker, as the headquarters for the yoga-based self-realization movement he founded two decades earlier.

To design the Institute, Dingle — or Ding Le Mei, as he rechristened himself — approached Frank Lloyd Wright, who passed the assignment off to his oldest son, Lloyd Wright. Recently added to the National Register of Historic Places, the collection of eleven organic modern buildings produced by the younger Wright between 1946 and 1956 were designed to complement and mirror the natural forms and colors of their surrounding landscape.

The one-hour tour will promenade participants down the campus’ main walking path, with stops at six Wright structures, including, per the event description, “the most intact coffee shop style building in all of Southern California” and “prime examples of desert masonry.” Attendees will also have the option to view “Edwin + Lloyd,” an exhibit detailing the behind-the-scenes story of Dingle, Wright and the retreat center’s conception.

Not included in the tour but certainly of interest is a section of the institute originally designed not by Lloyd Wright, but by architect Harold Zook. Also the son of a famous architect with the same name, Zook, who had worked in the Palm Springs office of Albert Frey, was commissioned to design housing for the site’s on-campus teachers in 1960. However, after many years of non-use, the Zook-designed structures, located in the 140-acre retreat center’s northwest corner, had themselves become prime candidates for physical and spiritual uplifting and renewal.

Recognizing their potential, the operators of Homestead Modern, a high-end vacation rental and hospitality company, stepped in and brokered a deal with the Institute to lease and restore the buildings for use as short-term rentals. To oversee their restoration, Homestead Modern brought in the big guns — Brad Dunning, acclaimed architectural designer and restorer of a slew of significant properties by the likes of Richard Neutra, John Lautner, A. Quincy Jones, Wallace Neff, and Paul R. Williams.

Now known as The Bungalows, the three structures, which contain a total of 14 studio and one-bedroom suites, were treated to a sophisticated makeover deploying natural wood, organic textiles, and a palette of desert pastels. Each unit features polished concrete floors, wood-beamed ceilings, sliding glass doors, private patio areas, and “curated offerings of books, games, and art” — but no TVs. The suites are equipped with kitchenettes, but guests can also cook on the site’s communal grills or tuck into a vegetarian meal at Food For Thought, the retreat center’s cafe (between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, that is). Guests of the boutique hotel get access to the retreat’s hot and cold plunge pools and can also partake in the myriad wellness and spirit-enhancing activities on offer, which include yoga classes, meditation sessions, sound baths, dance performances, and plein air painting workshops. Room rates start at $250.