For Work or Play
Whether you want to stay for the nightlife, enjoy the tourism, or you’re in Palm Springs on business, this is the place for you.
What is the Frey?
The architectural historian David Gebhard has called the Kocher-Samson Building “probably the most pure and at the same time workable example of the International style in Southern California.”
This class 1 historic site may be Palm Springs’ most important building today as it was its very first international style building and it is with this building that the legacy of Palm Springs international modernism was born.
It attracts countless students and scholars who make regular pilgrimages to Palm Springs to visit the building that has been written about by more prominent American architectural scholars than possibly any other in early Palm Springs history.
This is the building that brought Frey to Palm Springs for the first time. Subsequently, it became his home and the setting for his career, an event that changed the course of Palm Springs history. Frey’s works are icons of the city and include the aforementioned Kocher–Samson Building, Palm Springs City Hall (1952), the Tramway Valley Station (1963), Frey House II (1964), and the Tramway Gas Station (1965).
According to Brad Dunning in his article in Palm Springs Life, “Albert Frey’s arrival in our desert is one of the most pivotal and important moments in local history. The long wished-for restoration of the building has begun and now you have the rare opportunity to stay at the Frey!
City ID 3373