As Joshua Tree tourism booms, nearby creatives are looking to serve high desert locals

Kristin Scharkey | Palm Springs Desert Sun

It’s quiet in the early afternoon just outside La Copine, save for the occasional big rig barreling down the highway in the Southern California desert. But come 2 p.m. and cars begin kicking up dust in the dirt lot just outside the restaurant. Within 30 minutes of opening, the tables are full of hungry tourists – locals know to arrive a bit later, about 3:30 p.m., for a seat.

It’s not just because La Copine is one of the few places to eat for miles, let alone the only elevated dining experience – think Hudson Valley duck fat fingerling potatoes drenched in lemon aioli and rosemary, and chile-garlic rock shrimp with Spanish crispy rice – amid miles of dirt roads and RV campers. It’s not just because chef Nikki Hill makes the best fried chicken in the desert.

It’s also because Hill and her wife, Claire Wadsworth, know regulars by their first names. They make celebrities – and wannabes who “know the Kardashians” – wait for a table like everybody else.

The restaurant grew to international acclaim after opening in September 2015, anchoring the commercial corridor of Flamingo Heights that straddles Highway 247. Suddenly, it wasn’t uncommon to arrive at the 42-seat eatery and find a two-hour wait – the impact of an Instagram generation filtering through nearby Joshua Tree. Last year, Hill and Wadsworth doubled their staff, but it pushed the group (and the building) to its limits. So, earlier this year, the couple transitioned from brunch to a 2-to-7 p.m. day.

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Some diners called them “bankers hours.” Others questioned how to describe the meal served at that time. But Hill and Wadsworth didn’t care. They say the timeframe caters to locals.

“What it really boils down to is our own happiness,” Wadsworth explains. “We’re happy if our neighbors are happy.”

As questions about gentrification loom in Joshua Tree, some in Flamingo Heights are finding answers in the opening of small businesses. It’s a roadside renaissance, if you will, within the tension of a profitable explosion and keeping locals’ time and money in the area.

Mushroom Banh Mi at La Copine (Sami Lane/DESERT magazine)

“The Airbnb and VRBO community has taken a lot of the housing that’s available here,” Wadsworth says. “When there’s no houses to rent, we don’t get people in their 20s and 30s who, say, don’t have enough credit to buy a home. We don’t get them coming out here to work. So, if we can start small businesses and give people jobs that young people can rely on, then they could afford to maybe own a home here.”

Locally owned businesses will “pay their taxes,” Wadsworth explains, “hire locals” and “help pave the streets when they get messed up from the winters.” At a time when many high desert residents lament the amount of out-of-town Airbnb owners, it’s a solution from within the community for the community.

Caught in the crosshairs of Joshua Tree National Park and the “significant spike in the Earth’s magnetic field” that lies at the nearby white dome mecca, the Integratron, Flamingo Heights has always existed in its own kind of magic. These days, residents are looking to keep it that way.

Starting Small

Nestled in north Yucca Valley, Flamingo Heights is a thoroughfare town that most travelers didn’t notice until recently, when hipsters started going viral wearing fedoras beside cactuses and Joshua trees. The millions of visitors descending on Joshua Tree National Park – about 20 miles away – is causing ripple effects in bordering towns.

Technically part of the commercial-heavy Town of Yucca Valley but more similar to the rural, northern community of Landers, Flamingo Heights has taken less of a hit when it comes to the transient population. There are only 113 short-term vacation rentals listed in the area on Airbnb as opposed to the more than 400 in Joshua Tree, and over 300 in Twentynine Palms.

What it did attract is a new generation of full-time homesteaders, who headed north when short-term rentals started taking over properties closer to the national park. Since 2014, housing market prices in Flamingo Heights have “probably doubled due to topography and rural feeling,” says local real estate agent and Cherie Miller & Associates owner Madelaine LaVoie, “but [it’s] still less expensive than Joshua Tree.”

Many older residents had already been living here for years. Pam Anderson, a former San Bernardino County Animal Control officer who moved into an arson-burnt cabin in the late ’70s, estimates only one home has changed hands out of family lineage in her neighborhood. Now, together, two different generations are continuing the tradition on what Anderson calls “the last frontier.”

“It’s peaceful,” she says. “It’s [secluded] in its own ways. You have the freedom to ride your horse out your backyard and not be infringing on anybody’s personal space.”

Technically part of the commercial-heavy Town of Yucca Valley, Flamingo Heights is more similar to the rural, northern community of Landers. (Sami Lane/DESERT magazine)

Residents joke they’ll be worried if they start to see hipsters at the local Hero Market, but many welcome this new wave transforming decrepit shacks into studios – and setting up shop along the highway. Then again, Flamingo Heights is drawing a very specific type of newcomer: You won’t see the million dollar homes currently being constructed in nearby Pioneertown.

In this area just out of reach of the hustle and bustle of Park Boulevard in downtown Joshua Tree, it’s still quiet in the evening. The night sky remains dark. The hitchhiker, draped in an American flag, isn’t on the side of the road anymore – but mountain lions and bobcats still work the canyon. “It’s not as wild as it once was,” Anderson says, “but it’s one of the last best places if you just want to live in the peace and quiet, and not be part of the scene so much.”

Home Grown

Fashion designer Mieka May and her partner Prescott McCarthy were visiting a local permaculture garden when they stumbled across a vacant building just down the street from La Copine. “It was like we were being called to take this property and do our thing,” explains the soft-spoken yet infectiously determined May, who opened Moon Wind Trading Co. in the space in April 2017.

Now, the trading post hums with local artists and makers, a collection of antique wood shelves and tables displaying their wares. May’s own clothing designs, made out of all-natural and repurposed materials, hang on racks above worn kilim rugs. A tumbleweed chandelier glows in one corner.

“I really am bothered by consumption today, and the way people buy things constantly without much consideration of where it is coming from, where it is ending up,” May explains of her curatorial approach. “The store embodies everything I think we should be thinking about when consuming things … for ourselves and planet.”

There’s Snakeroot Apothecary tinctures from herbalist Rachel Burgos and Aphrodeedee soaps made by DeeDee Tierney. Plus, macramé cuffs from jewelry artist Esther Kim, Urthen pottery by ceramicist Caitlin Deane and sculptures by artist Angel Chen. Amid the New Age crystals and potions, it’s not unusual to find older residents telling stories from back in the day.

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And there’s plenty, like the legend of steel-blue-eyed Eugene Mason, who recently passed away. With his long, white beard, he looked exactly like Santa Claus – a role he played for neighborhood children (who might find candy canes in his car) near and far. “That’s the spirit of Flamingo,” Anderson says.

Moon Wind Trading Co. features handmade items created by numerous local artisans, including all-natural and repurposed clothing designed by owner Mieka May. (Sami Lane/DESERT magazine)

There’s a profound sense of community across the high desert; in Flamingo Heights, especially, it feels distinctly intergenerational. In the same spirit, May and McCarthy – who are also renovating an artist retreat ranch, HiLo Homestead – started hosting Flamingo Heights Movie Nights at the shop last September. More than 50 people showed up to watch films like “Bagdad Café.”

“[Mieka and Prescott] are very conscious,” says Anderson, who owns a wool jacket May made from an old Gateway Motel blanket. “They care.”

Charming Simplicity

In coming months, a new coffee shop will open next door to Moon Wind Trading Co. Giant Rock Meeting Room will bring new life to the building where an old coffee shop used to be a gathering place for neighbors.

Owner Linus Xavior will have a Giant Rock Coffee roast by Los Angeles-based Cafecito Organico. Patrons can sip amid reclaimed wood beams on a couch with an old Jaguar hood for a table.

And that may not be all in Flamingo Heights’ future. Wadsworth says she and Hill had a dream to open a provision store with fresh fruit and vegetables, meats, eggs from a local farm and more.

As a result, they've decided to "expand" on the existing restaurant by building a garden around the La Copine property – they'll plant fruit trees, construct a grow shack with produce and herbs, and create a produce stand where they'll sell fruits and vegetables, bread and cheese, beer and wine, picnic baskets and more. People can take items to-go or enjoy them in the garden.

“We don’t need more wedding venues,” Wadsworth says. “We need little shops that just help. People are out here having children. I think a music store would be amazing. I’m a musician. I would love to have a space where I could sell records [and] used music equipment, and then teach music lessons.”

While Joshua Tree struggles to keep up with tourism due to its limited amount of retail spaces and highway frontage zones, its neighbor to the north is experiencing a modest rebirth on its own time – on its own terms. You need a bit of a pioneering spirit the further out you get into the high desert; luckily, this new generation seems genuinely intent on doing so to serve.

Of course, it’s worth noting that Hill and Wadsworth got lucky when they first dared to dream. On their first visit to the restaurant, they found it equipped with everything they needed to start the business – two hoods, walk-in refrigerator and freezer, vintage Wolf range – and, perhaps most importantly, an active health permit they simply needed to transfer into their name. At a time when many high desert residents complain that a complicated web of San Bernardino County planning processes has stymied growth, the La Copine owners recall it feeling “as if it were meant to be.”

The outside of La Copine restaurant in Flamingo Heights (Sami Lane/DESERT magazine)

Maybe it’s that Flamingo Heights magic – the transcendental pull of the freestanding Giant Rock that hovers just north of this quiet community. “You can’t stop progress, but you can help shape it,” says Dahli Strayer, who owns the Moon Wind and Giant Rock Meeting Room buildings downtown.

In this part of the desert, abandoned homesteads and vacant buildings draw kindred spirits. “Carrying the torch,” Strayer says, of the ones who came before.

Kristin Scharkey is the editor of DESERT magazine and community content editor at The Desert Sun. Reach her at kristin.scharkey@desertsun.com or on Twitter @kscharkey.