SOLANA BEACH – HP Investors is opening a 65-room boutique hotel in Twentynine Palms – RESET – near the north entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.
Developed in partnership with entrepreneur Adam Wininger and designer Benjamin Uyeda, RESET is the first hotel to be built from the ground up in the high desert in more than 15 years, according to Sumeet Parekh, founder of HP Investors.
Built on a 180-acre site, the hotel was developed using modular units about the size of shipping containers.
The modules were manufactured in Canada and trucked to Twentynine Palms, where they were laid out to create the hotel.
“The original concept was to use shipping containers, but it proved not to be practical,” Parekh said, although the modules that make up the hotel resemble shipping containers.
“We thought that the minimalist theme and engaging nature fits the desert motif,” said Shannon Ching, a partner in HP Investors.
Including land, RESET costs about $30 million, Ching said.
Art-Themed Attraction Development
“We’re building on 10 acres. We have another 170 acres to develop,” Ching said, adding that there are plans for a 30-acre outdoor sculpture park as a way to draw tourists.
“The idea is to attract artists and procure five or six large-format art pieces, and hopefully, the art becomes the big attraction,” Ching said.
Depending on the success of RESET, Parekh said that HP Investors may expand the hotel or develop other projects on the rest of the 180-acres.
RESET is meant to fill a missing niche in Joshua Tree.
“It’s the first of its kind, at least out here. We are breaking ground, in a sense” Parekh said. “There’s a lot of Airbnb’s and there’s a handful of motels, but there aren’t really any full-service hotels in the Joshua Tree area.”
Billed as a boutique hotel, RESET has 40 standard rooms of about 160 square feet, with 320 square feet of private outdoor patio space and 25 suites of 320 square feet, with 520 square feet of outdoor space.
The name, RESET, is a new brand established by HP Investors and reflects the philosophy behind the Twentynine Palms hotel as a place for people to get away from their daily grind and reset themselves.
The design of the hotel was led by Uyeda, in collaboration with Gry Space interior designers.
Each room has a private patio and a fire pit, and 15 of the suites have outdoor soaking tubs.
There’s also a 1,000-square-foot saltwater pool with a spa and shaded cabanas and a 3,000-square-foot clubhouse with coworking space, a bistro-style café, retail space and a communal fire pit.
Platform for ‘Travel, Design, Connection’
Building the hotel is a bit of a departure for HP Investors, which tends to buy existing projects.
“We don’t love building stuff, but when we do build stuff, we generally joint venture with another firm that takes the lead on construction,” Parekh said.
HP Investors opened a Los Angeles office in 2021, “looking for areas up in the L.A. area,” Parekh said, and Twentynine Palms was an area that drew Parekh’s interest.
“One of the things that happened post-COVID was that there was a big shift of people from Southern California spending more and more time in the desert region,” Parekh said.
“RESET is more than a hotel, it’s a platform for international travel, design and connection to nature.”
RESET will likely appeal to people in their 20s though 50s, Ching said.
“It’s probably a young couple with maybe one child or maybe an older couple,” Ching said.
HP Investors
FOUNDED: 2010
HEADQUARTERS: Solana Beach
MANAGING PARTNER: Sumeet Parekh
BUSINESS: real estate investment
EMPLOYEES: 20
WEBSITE: www.hpinvestors.com
CONTACT: 858-271-6701; info@hpinvests.com
NOTABLE: HP Investors has a real estate portfolio valued at about $1B