By July, most of the seasonal traffic has thinned and the sidewalks of North Palm Canyon belong to the people who live within a few blocks of them. If you own a home in Old Las Palmas, that includes you. The neighborhood sits in an unusual position on the Palm Springs map: roughly 290 homes tucked between the Uptown Design District to the north and downtown to the south, close enough to both that a summer evening rarely requires a car.
That geographic accident is the whole thesis of this guide. Old Las Palmas is not a destination this summer. It is a base camp. Between VillageFest's shift to evening hours, a new citywide arts festival on the June calendar, and a fresh wave of openings on North Palm Canyon, the walking radius from your front gate is doing more work in 2026 than it has in years.
The radius, measured in blocks
The Palm Springs Historical Society's Golden Era Hollywood Homes tour departs at 9:30 a.m. from the corner of Vine Ave and W Alejo Rd, which is essentially the interior of the neighborhood. Treat that corner as your zero point.
From Vine and Alejo, the Uptown Design District begins about four blocks north along Palm Canyon and stretches to Vista Chino, per Visit Palm Springs, which describes the corridor as running along North Palm Canyon Drive from Alejo Road to Vista Chino. Downtown's VillageFest footprint runs the other direction, along Palm Canyon Drive between Baristo and Amado Roads. Both ends are inside a fifteen minute walk for most Old Las Palmas addresses.
That matters more in July than in February. Downtown parking on a summer Thursday is a solvable problem for visitors and a non-problem for anyone walking from Merito Place or Prescott Drive.
Thursday nights, recalibrated for the heat
The single biggest change to the resident's summer calendar this year is the VillageFest schedule. Starting in June, Palm Springs VillageFest shifted to summer hours, 7 to 10 p.m., every Thursday night through September, located along Palm Canyon Drive between Baristo and Amado Roads. NBC Palm Springs reported that pushing the event's start time back by an hour allows vendors, entertainers, and patrons to better handle the triple-digit daytime temperatures, shifting the festivities into the slightly cooler evening hours.
The city's Parks and Recreation team has layered themed nights across the season:
- July 16 — Backyard Fun with Camp Palm Springs, community games and interactive activities inspired by the spirit of Camp Palm Springs
- July 23 — Parks and Recreation Month Celebration, with interactive activities highlighting programs that build healthy and connected communities
- August 20 — Back to School Night, arts and crafts and community activities for families and students
- September 17 — Hispanic Heritage Month, with cultural performances, themed crafts, activities, and snacks
The event footprint is roughly nearly 200 booths of handcrafted goods, art, and food, with downtown shops, restaurants, and galleries staying open late. For an Old Las Palmas resident, the operational upside is simple: you leave the house at 7:15, you are inside the fair by 7:30, and you never engage with the parking situation.
What opened on North Palm Canyon since last summer
If you have not walked north on Palm Canyon in a few months, the corridor between Alejo and Vista Chino has quietly filled in. The Palm Springs dining coverage from Twin Palms Resort catalogs several 2026 arrivals worth putting on a resident's short list:
- Beaton's at Bar Cecil. An expansion of the Michelin-recommended Bar Cecil into the space next door, open Wednesday through Sunday until midnight, with a late-night menu after 9 p.m. that includes a bar burger and filet mignon.
- Bar Issi. Inside the Thompson hotel complex on the north end of downtown, quickly a see-and-be-seen spot for locals and travelers, open daily for dinner with brunch Friday through Sunday. The Thompson itself, per Visit Palm Springs, opened in October 2024 between downtown and the Uptown Design District, with bungalow-style rooms and mountain views.
- Coffeeism Co. A stylish downtown café pulling Intelligentsia espresso, with a single-origin daily drip program and iced drinks featuring passion fruit and prickly pear, open daily 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Ash & Vine. Set in a vine-covered historical building with a hidden courtyard, delivering California cuisine with seasonal ingredients.
- Liv's. Tucked into the lower level of the Palm Springs Art Museum, serving breakfast and lunch, with outdoor tables next to the sculpture garden fountain, operated by Bar Cecil chef Gabriel Woo.
- Wolf. A curated art and design gallery in the Uptown Design District directed by Mark Rose, showing contemporary California artists, rare vintage designer handbags, jewelry, and occasional statement furniture.
- The Bungalow at The Corridor. An American bistro-style café open weekends 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., inside a restored 1930s building in the courtyard at The Corridor, blending menswear, womenswear, accessories, fragrance, and home décor.
Anchoring the older side of the Uptown roster: Trina Turk's flagship, an original 2002 tenant housed in an Albert Frey-designed building; The Shag Store, the gallery of artist Josh Agle; Just Fabulous for art books, cards, and home décor; and The Shops at Thirteen Forty Five, a collection of vendors inside a historic building designed by E. Stewart Williams. Coffee-first residents already know Ernest Coffee at North Palm Canyon and Via Lola, pouring Stumptown and mixing a cold brew shaken with fig, honey, and almond milk.
A block of your own history
The walk south, toward downtown, has a different character. The Historical Society's tour route reads like a directory of the neighborhood's original residents. Their walking notes trace the house at Vine and Alejo that Alvah Hicks built in 1930, the developer responsible for much of the Las Palmas neighborhood and for Our Lady of Solitude Church across the street, and the same tour later doubles back so you head back to Liberace's house, walk south, turn onto Vine Avenue, pass Welwood Cemetery on the left, continue to W. Alejo Road, and turn left onto Belardo.
Liberace bought that house, then called The Cloisters, in 1967 and lived there until 1987, renaming it Casa De Liberace. His memorial, per the Society, was held at Our Lady of Solitude across the street. If you own a home on Prescott, Merito, or Rose, some version of this street history is a couple of doorways from your own.
The tour begins on your block. That is the part most guidebooks miss.
The Historical Society's Golden Era tour runs on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays, with docents sharing tales of the stars who lived here, in a neighborhood that began developing in the late 1920s and has one of the highest concentrations of celebrity homes anywhere. Summer heat generally pushes the schedule earlier in the day; the 9:30 a.m. departure is the whole reason it works in July.
The June through September playbook
New this year and worth planning around: XOXO Palm Springs, a twelve-day citywide festival of music, film, performance, visual arts, architecture, food, storytelling, and immersive experiences, June 11 through 22, 2026, transforming galleries, theaters, boutique hotels, and outdoor spaces across the city. For Old Las Palmas residents, XOXO's programming density inside the walkable radius is the point. You do not need a car to hit three venues in a night.
The rest of the summer settles into a legible rhythm:
- Thursdays. VillageFest, 7 to 10 p.m., downtown side of the neighborhood.
- Fridays and Saturdays. Uptown dinner rotation. Bar Issi and Beaton's for the later evening, Ash & Vine when you want a courtyard. Reservations at both spots are, per Twin Palms Resort, recommended for Beaton's, which reserves a few tables for walk-ins, and highly recommended for Bar Issi.
- Weekend mornings. Ernest Coffee or Coffeeism first, then The Bungalow at The Corridor if it is a Saturday or Sunday.
- Sunday, Monday, or Thursday morning. The 9:30 Historical Society tour, if you have out-of-town guests you want to impress without driving them anywhere.
- June 11 through 22. XOXO events layered on top of the above.
There is also the food-truck option for a Saturday evening close to Sunrise Park, since Wanderlust Food Truck Fest launched its weekly community food truck festival at the Sunrise Park parking lot off Ramon Road on Saturday, June 20, and hosts family-friendly events focused on small businesses and community gathering. That one is a short drive rather than a walk, but it fills the Saturday evening slot that VillageFest does not touch.
One last thing about the walk home
The reason all of this matters is not the individual openings. Beaton's would be a good bar in any zip code. The point is that Old Las Palmas is one of the few Palm Springs neighborhoods where a resident can eat dinner in the Uptown Design District, walk to VillageFest afterward, and still be home in ten minutes without turning a key. The roughly 290 homes, three apartment communities, five condo complexes, two churches, and a synagogue within the neighborhood boundary, sitting adjacent to the Palm Springs Art Museum and the O'Donnell Golf Club, form a walkable inner ring that most desert neighborhoods simply do not offer.
Summer is when that inner ring gets used most. The seasonal residents are gone, the sidewalks are quieter, and the businesses that stay open are working for the people who stayed with them. If you live here, this is your season.
When you are ready to talk about what your home is worth in the current market, or you are exploring another address on this side of Palm Canyon, Sarah & James Pearce know these blocks by name. Get a Free Home Valuation and start the conversation.
