On New Year’s Eve in 1928, Prescott Thresher Stevens welcomed movie stars and the social elite to his new El Mirador Hotel. The centerpiece of the luxury, 20-acre resort was the 68 foot, Spanish Colonial Revival bell tower. After the high-flying developer went broke when the stock market collapsed in 1929, the hotel exchanged hands until it was converted into a soldiers’ hospital during World War II. Although it reopened after the war as a hotel, it was later purchased by the adjacent Springs Community Hospital. In 1991, the renamed Desert Regional Medical Center incorporated the renovated tower into their Jerry Stergios Building.
