Sixty-six rooms in the original 1927 inn plus twenty-two private casitas tucked among the date palms, with a spring-fed swimming pool, a serious dining room, and the most considered desert luxury in the western United States.
"The 1927 mission-style inn sprawled across a low hill at the mouth of Furnace Creek Wash, restored at the end of a 100 million dollar renovation and still the only true full-service luxury address inside the National Park."
The Inn at Death Valley opened in 1927 as the Furnace Creek Inn, commissioned by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and designed by Albert C. Martin in a mission-revival idiom that has weathered the desert better than most of what followed. The building sprawls across a low hill at the mouth of Furnace Creek Wash, with the bedroom wings stepping down the slope toward the salt pan and the public rooms (lobby, lounge, dining room, library) holding the high ground. The structure was reopened in October 2018 at the end of a 100 million dollar restoration that touched every surface and added the 22-casita compound below the gardens. The result is the only Four Diamond property inside any of the southwest's high desert National Parks and, by some margin, the most considered piece of desert architecture in this part of California.
The 66 rooms in the main inn are arranged across four floors of the original building and run from a Standard Hillside at roughly 269 square feet to one-bedroom Inn Suites at 600 square feet, all with private balconies or patios and most with the long view west across the valley floor toward the Panamint Range. The 2018 restoration left the basic room geometry alone (the original casement windows and Spanish tile floors are intact) and reset everything else: heavy linen, oiled leather, brass fittings, restored Pueblo Deco lighting, and bathrooms in honed limestone with deep cast-iron tubs. The 22 casitas added below the gardens are the property's quiet flagship, each over 500 square feet with a king bed, a separate living room with sleeper sofa and wet bar, a private patio, and a complimentary golf cart parked outside the door.
Food at the Inn is a real operation. The Inn Dining Room runs a daily-changing American menu with table service for breakfast, lunch, and a full dinner; the wine list, given the location, is unusually deep on California and the southwest. The Pool Bar handles lighter daytime service and runs into the early evening when the temperature drops, and the Lounge holds a properly stocked cocktail program with one of the few bartenders in eastern California who will mix off-menu without ceremony. Breakfast on the south-facing terrace, with the Panamint Range turning red over coffee, is the trip's quiet signature.
The spring-fed swimming pool is the property's other defining feature: it has run at 87 F since 1927 (no heater, no chiller, just the warm aquifer that feeds the entire Furnace Creek retreat) and is unchlorinated, which is part of why it reads as the cleanest desert swim in the western United States. The Tranquility Spa added in 2018 is a small five-room operation that runs on a date-palm and mineral-clay product line developed for the property. Service across the inn is unfailingly warm rather than formal, the staff-to-room ratio sits at roughly one to one, and the operating signature is that the rangers, the geologists, and the long-stay returning guests know each other by first name and will absorb a first-time visitor into the room.
For an anniversary at the most evocative end of the National Park system, the Inn at Death Valley is the only serious answer west of Phoenix. Book a Casita for a milestone year (the 500 square foot units sit in their own walled garden among the date palms, with a private patio that reads more like a Marrakesh riad than a national park lodge) and reserve the south-facing terrace at the Inn Dining Room for an early-evening table. The view across the floor of Death Valley as the temperature drops and the mountains turn purple is the trip's defining set piece.
The Inn is the rare desert property that delivers on a wellness brief without retrofitting one. The spring-fed pool runs at 87 F year round (no chlorine, no heating element, just the warm aquifer that feeds the entire retreat) and the Tranquility Spa keeps a small treatment team that uses local mineral and date-palm-derived products. Pair morning swims with a guided sunrise walk to Zabriskie Point and the day reads as the cleanest possible desert detox.
The casitas are the case for a solo stay here. Each 500 square foot unit sleeps one comfortably, the wet bar and sleeper sofa give a single traveler a small lounge, and the in-room golf cart removes the only awkward element of being alone at a resort (the walk to dinner). The Inn Dining Room runs a counter that is unusually welcoming to single diners. The best solo retreat at the property is three nights in February when the air is cool, the pool is warm, and the National Park is at peak.
Highway 190
Furnace Creek, CA 92328
United States
Inside Death Valley National Park; 4 hour drive from Las Vegas via NV 160 and CA 190
66 rooms in the original Inn
22 private casitas (500+ sq ft each)
Standard Hillside from USD 250/night
Deluxe King from USD 380/night
Casitas from USD 540/night
Suites to USD 700/night
Check-in: 4:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Opened 1927; reopened October 2018 after USD 100 million restoration
AAA Four Diamond rating
Spring-fed swimming pool kept at 87 F year round
Tranquility Spa, fitness pavilion
Inn Dining Room (fine dining), Lounge and Pool Bar
Private 22-casita compound with complimentary golf cart
Furnace Creek 18-hole golf course adjacent
Complimentary WiFi throughout
From USD 250 / night. Death Valley peak runs late February through mid-April and again in October and November; book three to four months ahead for those weeks and one to two months ahead for the summer shoulder.
Check Availability →The 224-room family resort below the Inn, with horseback riding, the only golf course inside the Park, and the more relaxed of the two retreat at Death Valley properties.
Eighty-four rooms in the original 1926 outpost on the western flank of the dunes, with the best on-property pool for stargazers.
The 1923 Spanish Colonial Revival hotel and opera house in Death Valley Junction, the most unusual stay within an hour of Furnace Creek.
Last updated June 11, 2026
Subscriber only hotel offers, suite upgrade alerts, and one honest review every Sunday. Free, weekly, unsubscribe anytime.