To be honest, I signed up for a tour of Cotino—"A Storyliving by Disney™ Community"—in Rancho Mirage, California during this year's Modernism Week because it was free.
It wasn't until I got to its sales office that I realized they might actually try to sell me one of the homes where "the Disney touch is at the heart of it all."
Visiting that sales office, with its outsized maps and models, felt like I was witnessing the planning of Disneyland or Disney World with Walt himself. (The sales reps are even called "Cast Members," just like at Disney Parks, and the designers are called "Imagineers.")
Since much of Cotino's planned community hadn't actually been built yet, the best view I could get of what it will become was from those models, which showed the manmade lake known as Cotino Bay and the adjacent beach and swimming pool...
...as well as the not-yet-built Parr House, a real-life version of the superheroes' super-sized Midcentury Modern-style home in the Disney-Pixar movie Incredibles 2.
I found the design inspirations particularly fascinating, like how Mickey Mouse could inspire both a color palette and the choice of textiles and surfaces.
More inspiration came from other Walt Disney Pictures classics, like Bambi and 101 Dalmations...
...and even Winnie the Pooh.
It's a surprisingly muted version of the Disney aesthetic, with hues of greys and granites and dusty blues...
...and cutely-coined colors like "ginger spice,""Indiana clay," and "Black Magic."
Next it was time to hop in a golf cart and tool around the desert terrain, where only a few roads are paved and the Parr House was starting to take form.
They'd already started filling the Bay with water. And the Town Center was under construction, too—soon to offer a restaurant and other communal amenities.
Cotino has clearly been imagined with a stroke of optimism, the kind that names the streets "Harmonious Drive" and "Radiance Drive," and creates a grid where "Brilliance Avenue" intersects with "Blue Oasis Drive."
After hopping off the golf cart, I got to poke around in five different model homes with different floor plans and features. The entirety of the Cotino community is being constructed by a coalition of three builders: Shea Homes, Davidson Communities, and Woodbridge Pacific Group.
All the model homes I saw were pretty huge, with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms and gigantic kitchens and outdoor living spaces. They appear to offer a type of desert living that's on a much larger scale than the kind of homes you can tour in Palm Springs during Modernism Week.
The "Cielo II" model home, part of the Coachella design collection, features natural materials to evoke a sense of time and place centered on the local area.
Built by Davidson Communities, it's a whopping 3000+ square feet across two floors, featuring five bedrooms and five bathrooms (hence its inclusion in the "Grand Collection").
As with many homes in the Palm Springs area, a real highlight is the outdoor living area...
...especially for those hot days when you never want to leave the pool.
The "Canvas" home design is part of the "Grand Collection" of single-family homes that supposedly "evoke a sense of casual elegance" with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and two half-baths.
It's also built by Davidson, and features an island-anchored kitchen in the middle of the "Great Room"...
...along with a covered outdoor area.
The model of the "Atelier II" home design was built by Shea Homes and is part of the Cottage Collection—billed as "charming, single-family homes with inviting curb appeal." Homes like this will be built in Cotino's 55+ senior living neighborhood, called Longtable Park.
It's 2275 square feet—and with the open floor plan, I found this particular "Great Room" too overwhelming, on too grand of a scale. But part of me hopes that when I'm ready to live in senior housing, I still have enough friends to host fabulous dinner parties that need to seat so many people!
The patio, however, was another matter entirely. I could learn to get used to spending time out there.
And then I could just skip the big main room and slink right into my bedroom (the "primary suite"), if I lived there.
The "Moderne" model, built by Shea Homes, is also part of the Cottage Collection of homes.
It's a bit smaller in scale than some of the others, with "just" ~2800 square feet across two stories.
As part of the "Agrarian" Design Collection, it supposedly pays homage to the "pastoral setting" and "agricultural origins" of the Coachella Valley, where it's located.
Of its two bedrooms, one is located on the main floor and one upstairs...
...which is like its own private party room, with an extra lofted bed (and a view).
The "Westwind II" home design, built by WPG, is part of the Estate Collection of "premiere" single-family homes.
Despite its ginormous frontage (they range from 90 feet to 135 feet wide in the Estate Collection), this looked to me like the most "modern" of them all, especially with that sweeping roofline. And that may be because of the fact that it's one of the "Aspiron" models that's supposed to exemplify "architectural innovation and creativity."
In addition to its four bedrooms and four full bathrooms (with another two half bathrooms), it's also got an open floor plan with a giant kitchen...
...and a generous (and private) outdoor patio...
...which, like some of the Midcentury homes I've toured, can be accessed directly from one of the bedrooms.
I can't imagine how big your family must be to fill four bedrooms, when one of those bedrooms sleeps three kids (with one in a loft). But I've got to give Cotino credit for creating a staging that rendered this kids' room so magically appointed.
Still, it's not exactly what I would consider "a magical place to call home," as the promo materials claim.
Future plans for Cotino include condos, which hopefully could accommodate single individuals or couples that aren't apt to throw a lavish affair with multiple overnight guests.
But if I were to ever move to the Palm Springs area, even if I had the millions of dollars it would take to get a place at Cotino, I'd rather snap something up at something like Royal Hawaiian Estates.
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