Palm Desert Audio Walking Tour

Highlights

• Faye Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden

  Sculpture stands against open sky at the Faye Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden, the Palm Desert home of the Palm Springs Art Museum, on Highway 111 at the head of El Paseo. The museum was founded in 1938 and has focused on design and contemporary art since 2004; this satellite location puts part of that collection outdoors, where the works stand against open sky and the Santa Rosa Mountains rather than a white wall.

• The Shops at Palm Desert

  Beyond the parking lot rises The Shops at Palm Desert, known over the years as Palm Desert Town Center, Westfield Shoppingtown Palm Desert, and Westfield Palm Desert. The mall serves the Coachella Valley and holds Macy's, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods and Barnes & Noble alongside a hundred and twenty-two inline stores and a food court; the Tristone Palm Desert 10 Cinemas closed in February 2023, and the space has been shopped to other theatre chains since.

• El Paseo at Highway 74

  Where El Paseo leaves Highway 74, you are at the head of a mile-long run east to Portola Avenue. This is the spine of Palm Desert and the reason the city took the shape it did.

• Palm Desert Historical Society

  Fire trucks once rolled out of the doors at 72861 El Paseo, now the Palm Desert Historical Society, a 1949 station raised three years after Cliff Henderson platted this street. The society keeps photographs, maps and documents from the founding years, but the building itself is the most useful exhibit in it: a fire station sitting on the main shopping street tells you how small this place was when El Paseo was laid out, and how recently.

• El Paseo Sculpture Exhibition

  Down the centre of El Paseo runs a planted median that doubles as the city's gallery. The city runs a rotating outdoor sculpture exhibition down the centre of the street: large-scale works installed in the planted median, each on loan for a fixed run of about two years, then taken out and replaced by a new selection chosen from artists who submit to an open call.

All 8 stops

• Faye Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden (Highway 111)

  Sculpture stands against open sky at the Faye Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden, the Palm Desert home of the Palm Springs Art Museum, on Highway 111 at…

• The Shops at Palm Desert (Highway 111)

  Beyond the parking lot rises The Shops at Palm Desert, known over the years as Palm Desert Town Center, Westfield Shoppingtown Palm Desert, and Westfield…

• El Paseo at Highway 74 (El Paseo)

  Where El Paseo leaves Highway 74, you are at the head of a mile-long run east to Portola Avenue.

• Palm Desert Historical Society (El Paseo)

  Fire trucks once rolled out of the doors at 72861 El Paseo, now the Palm Desert Historical Society, a 1949 station raised three years after…

• El Paseo Sculpture Exhibition (El Paseo median)

  Down the centre of El Paseo runs a planted median that doubles as the city's gallery.

• El Paseo Village (El Paseo)

  Arcaded walkways turn inward off the sidewalk at El Paseo Village, 73375 El Paseo, a courtyard shopping centre rebuilt in the 2010s into a Spanish-influenced…

• The Gardens on El Paseo (El Paseo)

  Palms and water fill the courtyard at The Gardens on El Paseo, 73545 El Paseo, the open-air luxury centre anchoring the middle of the street.

• El Paseo at Portola Avenue (El Paseo)

  Ahead of you Portola Avenue crosses El Paseo, a mile from where the street began at Highway 74.

How it works