Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
PALM SPRINGS, California — With sheltering mountains, canyons, underground aquifers of hot mineral water and abundant wildlife, the Coachella Valley is an ideal place for the Cahuilla Band to thrive.
And they have. The Agua Caliente Tribe of Cahuilla Indians already owns real estate, resorts, casinos, restaurants, golf courses and hiking trails, and they’re now opening a major project in the heart of downtown Palm Springs, the Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza.
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The new complex will include a theater and large spa located on the grounds of the original mineral water pool the tribe began using thousands of years ago, with a world-class Agua Caliente Cultural Museum whose design is inspired by Cahuilla baskets, pottery and botanical elements.
The state-of-the-art spa has 40,000 square feet of luxurious hot mineral pools and treatments. Opening April 4 to the public, it is across the street from the tribe’s original entertainment property – Agua Caliente Casino Palm Springs.
The name is derived from the Cahuilla word for boiling water, Séc-he.
“The opening of The Spa at Séc-he is a defining moment for the tribe,” Chairman Reid D. Milanovich said in a statement. “The hot spring water means everything to us. It’s at the heart of tribal life and has been a cultural resource for us and our ancestors for thousands of years.
“It’s not a myth,” Milanovich said. “These waters are truly healing waters.“
Natural resources
The Cahuilla people have lived in the area that is now southern California since time immemorial. They ranged over the entire San Bernardino basin, the San Jacinto Mountains, Coachella Valley, and portions of the southern Mojave Desert.
Formal reservations began to be established in the 1870s for the Cahuilla, whose name means “the master,” “powerful one” or “the one who rules,” according to the tribal website.
The Agua Caliente Band is one of nine bands of Cahuilla Indians living in southern California. The others are the Augustine Band of Cahuilla, Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, Morongo Band of Mission Indians, Cahuilla Band of Mission Indians, Ramona Band of Cahuilla Indians, Santa Rosa Band of Mission Indians, and Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla Indians.
The new center and other properties were displayed for a recent tour sponsored by the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association, the national nonprofit organization representing and expanding tribal tourism in the United States.
The association was founded in 1998 by tribes for tribes to address inequities in the tourism system. Governed by an all-Native board of directors, the organization serves as a united voice for the $14 billion Native hospitality sector.
The Cahuilla Agua Caliente have more than 31,500 acres of reservation lands that include the high-end real estate of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, and portions of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains.
The tour included the vast Indian Canyons with creeks, waterfalls, thousands of native palm trees, mountain lion and bighorn sheep wildlife, historic cabins, and Kish – simple wood-and-palm-frond dwellings.
The park ranger guide pointed out hummingbird nests with tiny eggs the size of Tic Tac mints, and drawings on rock formations hundreds of years old. Rock mortars ground into boulders show how food was processed; the mortars took so long to create they were passed down generation to generation.
Prime location
The tribe broke ground on the Cultural Plaza project in May 2018, and has decided to open in two phases, with the opening of the spa in April followed by the opening of the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, Gathering Plaza and Oasis Trail later this year.
The original pool for the spring was covered over with development, but the tribe is tapping waters from the underground hot spring for use in the spa. Tribal citizens have gotten an early peek inside, officials said.
“We are allowing our tribal members in to see and enjoy the spa before the public opening,” Kate Anderson, the tribe’s director of public relations, told ICT on the tour. ”It is our homelands and the original mineral water pool has a great deal of meaning to us.”
The Spa at Séc-he features 22 private mineral baths, 15 treatment rooms, a cryotherapy chamber, two float pod suites, a boutique fitness area, an acoustic wellness lounge, tranquility garden, menthol dry sauna, eucalyptus steam room, two halotherapy salt caves, a resort-style mineral pool with four Jacuzzis, luxury cabanas, a full-service salon, a café, and a poolside bar with food service. All this in the busiest section of downtown Palm Springs.
The spa will join other successful tribal businesses, including Agua Caliente Resort Rancho Mirage, which has an award winning Sunstone Spa, 24-hour gaming, a 16-story hotel with stunning views of Mount San Jacinto and a 2,000 seat concert Theatre called The Show. The resort’s lobby features original art of birds and rattle shakers by Cahuilla artist Gerald Clarke, who is featured in this year’s Desert X with a giant basket maze design.
Near the canyon trails is Indian Canyons Golf Resort, a mid-century modern design that was frequented by Frank Sinatra in the 1950s and features two courses, surrounded on three sides by mountain vistas.
Agua Caliente Casino Palm Springs features a 24-hour casino, fine dining, and a live music lounge. Agua Caliente Casino Cathedral City is the newest casino in the Coachella Valley, and features restaurants Agave Caliente, Café One Eleven, 360 Sports, and a gaming floor.
But Anderson said the tribe is truly excited about the spa, the first tourist attraction using waters that nourished the tribe from the beginning.
“Our waters have been carbon dated to be 12,000 years old with a unique mineral content,” Anderson said. “It’s exciting that something that has been underneath us for that long is the wellspring of our cultural future.”
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