Did you know that there is much more than meets the eye at Marrakesh Country Club? Marrakesh has a fascinating history that probably few people know about – mostly what catches one’s eye about Marrakesh is its strikingly pink exterior. Once you learn about its beginnings and how this illustrious country club came to be, the pink makes more sense.
Marrakesh was conceived as a way to attract more movie stars from Palm Springs deeper into the desert. Johnny Dawson, a golf legend from Chicago who had several golf titles under his belt such as the Bing Crosby Pro-Am tourney, the Southern California Amateur title, California State Amateur title, played in the Masters seven times,won the U.S. Amateur Championship 3 years in a row – knew everyone there was to know in golf and was involved in many golf club investments. His research into weather patterns here in the Coachella Valley showed that Palm Desert had even more days of sunshine than Palm Springs did. So on a summer day in 1968, Johnny met with the owner of the 155 acres which is now Marrakesh to lease the property. The owner had plans for building a dude ranch there – as the land was well drained and gently sloped, free of wind and had breathtaking views of the surrounding snowcapped mountains and down valley views as well – but Johnny Dawson must have been most persuasive in securing the property to build his dream of a unique golf club community.
Marrakesh was picked as the name for the new club following an inspired suggestion from Cliff Henderson, the founder of the town of Palm Desert. Henderson had served with General Patton during World War 11 in Morocco and remembered the sandstone walls of the real Marrakesh and how they turned amazingly pink as the sun would set behind the snowcapped Atlas Mountains of Morocco.
Dawson handpicked his design team with care to carry out his ideas for his latest golf development. He hired John Elgin Woolf, a prestigious architect of the time. Woolf’s projects were well known and often published in Vogue, Town and Country and Architectural Digest. His list of clients was stellar – having designed homes for the likes of John Wayne, Rita Hayworth, Mae West, Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo, Ira Gershwin, to name a few. Dawson wanted his Marrakesh to be unlike any other of the then 18 developments in the valley.
Woolf designed Marrakesh in the ‘Hollywood Regency’ style of architecture – theatrical with a restrained opulence, carefully scaled and balanced. The interiors for the model home and clubhouse were designed by Velma Dawson, Johnny Dawson’s wife. She was an accomplished designer in her own right and traveled to Morocco to procure artifacts and inspiration for the project. Her color scheme was of soft desert colors – and obviously included the Moroccan pink that Marrakesh Country Club is identified by.
By 1978, all phases of Marrakesh Country Club were completed, including the Ted Robinson designed par 60 executive golf course. The club consisted of 364 spacious duplex homes divided into 14 neighborhoods – which were all self-governing at that time, but are now governed as a single homeowners community.
The luxurious and highly identifiable homes in Marrakesh remain as a continuing example of Hollywood Regency architecture . . . and to think, the property located just across from the prestigious Vintage Country Club could be a Dude Ranch today !!!
