Every now and then, an individual comes along who makes a defining impact on a place and time. One of those was Steven Lowe, an ex-New Yorker who, in recent years, put a stamp on the dusty, down-at-heel town of Desert Hot Springs, with the creation of two unique landmarks: the Beat Hotel and the Lautner Motel. Steve Lowe died unexpectedly on January 20, of cardiac-related natural causes, leaving a void in the place of his engaging personality as well as concerns among many about the future of his two creations.

Lowe, born in Miami in 1947, was a former confidante of the beat writer William Burroughs. In 1999 he found the Desert Hot Springs Motel (aka Lautner Motel, designed by architect John Lautner in 1947). It was then being used as apartments, and he restored it to a liveable perfection, decking out each of the four stunning rooms in post-war furniture (Room 3 had Breuer chairs, for example; Room 2 was entirely furnished in acrylic furniture by Charles Hollis Jones). Next he transformed the roadside Monte Carlo Hotel into an homage to the Beats—a hybrid of the original Beat Hotel in Paris by way of Burroughs’ residence in Tangiers, with bare white walls, old manual typewriters on desks, and walls lined with Beat relics: first edition books, photos of the Beat writers, artworks by Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, and a life-size Mugwump from the movie, Naked Lunch, in the breakfast room. At the time Lowe died, he was in the process of getting the Beat collection moved to Lawrence, Kansas, to be part of an official Burroughs collection.

Not only were the two hotels fantastically stylish and much loved by anyone interested in post-war architecture and culture, but Lowe was himself an attraction: an erudite and reflective person with a wicked wit who offered drinks to guests by the pool at the Beat Hotel and regaled them with stories of his unusual life: his childhood in a Mennonite family with a mortician father, his foray into writing for a pornographic publisher, his chance meeting with Burroughs that led to him becoming his close friend (maybe lover, it was never clear) and researcher on the book, Cities of the Red Night.

He was, says the architect Jennifer Siegal, now building in Desert Hot Springs, “one of the most charming, delightful, wickedly funny and thoughtful people I have ever known in my life. . . .  I bought the property out there because of him. The 'Interzone' as Steve called it.” Lowe was also an avid guide to his two buildings, especially the Lautner Motel. “I met Steve right when he bought the Lautner Hotel and he was very generous about opening it to anyone to see,” says Anthony Merchell, an architectural historian and onetime manager of the Beat Hotel. “It was his mission to help keep alive Lautner’s memory.”

Now both properties are closed and noone is clear what will happen to them. According to Merchell, it is not clear if Steve Lowe left a will. Says Merchell, “He loved real estate contracts, but other than that he hated formal arrangements.” Now all those who knew him and enjoyed his hospitality are reeling from the shock of his sudden passing, as well as pondering what kind of future faces the Beat Hotel and the Lautner Motel without their maverick owner at the helm.

On March 15, 2007, Anne Waldman will give a poetry reading at the Palm Springs Art Museum dedicated to Steve Lowe; a memorial is pending.