William Mead built The Willows Historic Palm Springs Inn in the mid 1920s. When he passed away unexpectedly at the end of the 1920s, his wife Nella decided to sell The Willows. The purchaser was Samuel Untermyer, a legendary New York attorney, who had been the first lawyer to ever get a one million dollar fee.
Untermyer was friends with Dr. Albert Einstein, who stayed at The Willows and now has a room named after him. Untermyer owned The Willows until his death in 1940.
This New Yorker article was written in the spring of the year that William Mead died and before Untermyer owned The Willows. The article is a fictitious short story of two men in prison who are contemplating how they can get out. Untermyer’s name is mentioned as the one inmate’s idea of a way to “impress the judge”.
You can read the article by Carroll Carroll here as a PDF.
