When Donald Trump takes possession of the White House today, his predecessor will be preparing for his first night as a former president in the relaxed seclusion of the California desert.
Barack Obama and his family are to fly west to Palm Springs from Andrews air force base in Maryland straight after attending Mr Trump’s inauguration.
“The president vowed to take his family to a destination that is warmer than Washington DC on Friday and Palm Springs fits the bill,” Josh Earnest, the outgoing White House press secretary, said this week.
“This is a community that [Mr Obama] has visited on a number of occasions as president of the United States. He and his family have enjoyed the time they’ve spent there in the past. And they’re looking forward to travelling there on Friday.”
As is customary, the family will make the journey aboard one of the blue and white presidential airliners, although it will not be designated Air Force One because the serving president will not be present. The choice of destination has stoked speculation that the Obamas plan to establish a permanent home in the area, which has sunshine all year round and a host of golf courses for Mr Obama, a golf fan, to enjoy.
Advertisement
On this trip the Obamas are expected to stay, as they have done before, with their friends Michael Smith and James Costos. Mr Smith is an interior designer who redecorated the White House for them and Mr Costos is his partner and served as ambassador to Spain from 2013, making him one of the administration’s most prominent gay officials.
The couple own an eccentric 1970s glass, stone and stucco bungalow in the Thunderbird Heights neighbourhood of Rancho Mirage, where another former president, Gerald Ford, lived until his death in 2006 and where John F Kennedy was once a house guest of Bing Crosby.
Mr Smith has said that his house, which was built for a golf-loving socialite called Maxine Cook, “reflects a certain type of Hollywood glamour from the lotus-eating period of the late Sixties and early Seventies”. Perched in a notch in the mountains high above the Coachella valley, it features a hand-carved Mayan calendar in its entrance court and a spectacular pool that is overlooked by a huge Mayan-style stone figure holding torches that can be lit on special occasions.
From the pool terrace guests enjoy views over the valley floor and its many golf courses but the property is also helpfully secluded for a former first family hoping to escape the limelight at last.
“From here you can’t see any other houses,” Mr Smith told Architectural Digest. “It’s totally private.”
Advertisement
Locals have long speculated that the Obamas planned to settle in their community. Mr Obama has visited Thunderbird Heights on at least four of his six visits to the desert and Michelle Obama is rumoured to have made a solo visit in September, according to The Desert Sun newspaper.
In November the New York Post and Vogue both reported that the Obamas had either bought or were considering purchasing a home in the Rancho Mirage area.