By Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Instances
Wearing torn cargo pants and beat up Vans, architectural designer and DIY influencer Ben Uyeda was stretched out poolside in a uncommon second of repose on a current Tuesday night at Reset, his new resort in 29 Palms.
“That is the perfect time to observe the mountains,” he mentioned, trying south towards the path of Joshua Tree Nationwide Park. “Proper now they appear actually jagged, however they’ll flip tender and orange because the solar units.”
Sitting subsequent to him have been his collaborators Emi Kitawaki and Jen Whitaker of the design agency Gry Area who created the look and tone of Reset’s spare, earthy interiors. Sharing a chilly cucumber salad from the resort’s in-house restaurant, they gazed throughout the spacious pool space with its broad platform loungers and stucco partitions that completely matched the colour of the dusty panorama past.
“The sky is the present,” Kitawaki mentioned, trying up.
Reset, which opened to the general public this summer time, is a brand new form of resort for the excessive desert: Trendy. Minimal. Modular. Whereas the pool space with its scorching tub, sauna and considerate landscaping is pure desert luxurious, the remainder of the resort consists of 65 rectangular-shaped, free-standing rooms specified by neat rows. Every sparsely furnished room is outfitted with fastidiously chosen facilities that counsel a extremely curated tenting journey — a trendy photo voltaic lantern, in-room pour-over espresso, an outside fireplace pit and, most significantly, a sturdy cushion on the non-public outside patio for stargazing.
“The most effective view right here is all the time up,” Uyeda mentioned.
-
The Reset Lodge is a brand new form of resort for the excessive desert: Trendy. Minimal. Modular. (Reset Lodge/TNS)
1 of 5
The Reset Lodge is a brand new form of resort for the excessive desert: Trendy. Minimal. Modular. (Reset Lodge/TNS)
The rooms usually are not technically constructed from transport containers, however with their boxy form, corrugated silver sides and slender dimensions, they positive appear to be it. Strolling alongside the resort’s concrete paths, the general impact is much extra sci-fi than Previous West. As one visitor put it, “It appears like a check case for Elon Musk’s first colony on Mars.”
The resort’s designers say the evocation of area journey was deliberate.
“After we got here onto the venture, the very first thing Ben talked about was what would people do if we constructed a group on Mars,” Kitawaki mentioned. “Every little thing is designed from a extra mission, utilitarian standpoint: What is definitely wanted?”
A DIY resort
A handful of recent inns opened within the Joshua Tree space as tourism to the park has soared during the last a number of years. The newest additions embody the bare-bones Area Station, which took over the previous Journey Lodge in Yucca Valley in 2024 and Lodge Wren, a revamped Nineteen Forties roadside motel in 29 Palms that opened this yr. However Reset is the primary resort to be constructed from the bottom up within the space in 15 years.
Uyeda, who has greater than 1.6 million subscribers on his YouTube channel HomeMade Trendy, bought concerned with the venture after constructing a transport container home in Joshua Tree and releasing a docuseries detailing the method in 2020. A former professor of structure at Northeastern and Cornell universities, he’d observed that as residence costs skyrocketed there was a corresponding enhance of curiosity in probably extra reasonably priced development like tiny properties, earthships and container properties. “Folks say it’s a pattern, however in truth solely about 100 of those have been constructed,” he mentioned. “I don’t have a adverse tackle transport container homes, but when one thing was actually transferring the needle then extra folks could be doing it.”
Quickly after finishing his transport container home, Uyeda started having conversations together with his now enterprise associate Adam Wininger about how the rise of Airbnb was changing desperately wanted housing within the desert to trip leases. They questioned if constructing modular buildings on land that was already zoned for business use could be one answer to growing lodging models with out impacting native housing provide. Whereas the method of constructing modular shouldn’t be cheaper than an everyday construct, it’s sooner, particularly in a distant desert location.
“We’re each native Californians,” he mentioned. “There’s a actual demand for this sort of hospitality.”
The seeds of the Reset have been planted.
The workforce acquired 180 acres of property in 2020 and commenced development in 2023.
Room modules have been made in a manufacturing facility outdoors of Ontario, Canada, on the similar time that basis work was occurring in 29 Palms. All through the method Uyeda promoted the resort on his social media feeds by releasing DIY movies demonstrating how he and his small workforce hand-built 500 items of furnishings for Reset together with fold-out desks, couches, daybeds and a vase made out of rock whereas additionally providing his followers a sneak peek at Reset’s development course of.
“So usually you don’t know what’s actual and what’s not,” Kitawaki mentioned. “However while you come right here, it feels private. You’re linked to the objects you see within the resort since you noticed how they have been made.”
Waking up on Mars
So, what’s it like to remain in a futuristic, DIY desert resort?
“The phrase ‘Mars’ has come up quite a bit,” mentioned a younger man from San Francisco who was visiting together with his girlfriend. “The identify Reset feels apt. We positively really feel like we’re taking a break from civilization.”
The resort has 4 kinds of rooms — two provide desert views, two don’t. I booked the Mountain View Suite, which has essentially the most bells and whistles. Within the context of Reset this implies it had a big window at one finish of the unit that regarded out towards the park, a sofa within the room and a soaking tub on the non-public outside patio. Like all of the rooms, it was additionally geared up with an outside fireplace pit and a cushty cushion for stargazing.
The room itself was neatly ordered with walnut and cement accents. Nothing felt extraneous. Every little thing felt natural, a alternative the designers mentioned was deliberate.
“It was all about how can we get the within to appear to be the skin,” mentioned Whitaker who, together with her associate Kitawaki selected all of the furnishings and finishes right down to the natural bathtub merchandise from Flamingo Property. “It’s why we used so many supplies from the land itself.”
Reset is simply 6 minutes from the 29 Palms entrance to Joshua Tree Nationwide Park, making the resort a simple residence base for exploring the park. It additionally gives quick access to the rising group of artistic companies within the city of 29 Palms.
After I first arrived at Reset, I used to be shocked by the starkness of the area, however it didn’t take lengthy for the resort’s minimalism and clear traces to develop on me. Whether or not I used to be in mattress, on the pool, or mendacity on my non-public patio, the thoughtfully designed areas all the time inspired me to look out and up.
I’ve spent plenty of time within the Mojave, and every time I go to I’m struck once more by its otherworldliness. Sitting in my modular room at Reset, cozy in my little pod, I felt I might stare out at all of it day.
©2025 Los Angeles Instances. Go to at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company, LLC.