Living Out Palm Springs retirement community gears up for grand opening
LGBTQ+ trailblazing activists Carl Bean, Connie Norman, and Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon will be honored with the naming of Community Wings at Living Out Palm Springs as in-house celebrity chefs have also been announced.
Living Out Palm Springs, the elegant LGBTQ+ active adult retirement community celebrates a major milestone on November 15 with a “Beam Signing” ceremony celebrating the placement of the building’s final structural beam.
Community officials, LGBTQ+ activists, developers, and future residents of Living Out, Palm Springs will gather to be a part of the beam signing and get a glimpse of the remarkable work that has been underway since the groundbreaking ceremony last fall.
“With the support of the Palm Springs community, it is incredible to witness the progress that has been made for what will be a life-changing residential development for LGBTQ+ seniors and allies,” said Chairman of Living Out, Paul Alanis. “The dedication and hard work of all involved to bring to life these vibrant, safe, and welcoming set of homes is another step to address the needs of the LGBTQ+ seniors. As our flagship location, this will be a model for the expansion of Living Out communities across the country.”
With the Grand Opening set for the Spring of 2023, Living Out is excited to announce the name of its on-premises restaurant led by world renowned chefs and restaurateurs, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken. The menu will showcase the latest and greatest ingredients discovered on their travels with a seasonal Southern Californian approach.
The name, Alice B., was inspired by the legendary California-born author Alice B. Toklas, who wrote, amongst other things, a memoir disguised as a cookbook chronicling her life with partner Gertrude Stein. Alice and Gertrude shared a publicly acknowledged and enduring relationship for nearly four decades and, as members of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, hosted regular salons attended by relative “unknowns” who would go on to become some of the world’s most influential and celebrated artists and writers.
“We are incredibly excited to open our new restaurant, Alice B., and bring our cuisine to Palm Springs,” said Susan Feniger. “It’s been an absolute dream of mine to open a restaurant with fantastic food, full bar, and live music so we were thrilled to be the culinary team behind Living Out’s full-service restaurant and piano bar.”
In addition to the ceremony, the highly anticipated Living Out wing names will be unveiled. The naming will honor historical LGBTQ+ groundbreakers including:
- Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, lifelong feminists and gay rights activists whose work included cofounding the Daughters of Bilitis, forming the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, and serving in the White House Conference on Aging. After being together for 52 years, Del and Phyllis were the first same sex couple to be married in San Francisco in 2004 and, again, in 2006 when the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.
- Carl Bean was an American singer and AIDS and LGBTQ+ activist, the founder of the Minority AIDS Project in Los Angeles in 1985, and the founding prelate of the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, a liberal protestant denomination that is particularly welcoming to LGBTQ+ African Americans. Archbishop Bean lived his life openly and dedicated his efforts to providing aid to underserved members of society and, in particular, providing a safe place for LGBTQ+ people of faith.
- Connie Norman, the self-proclaimed “AIDS Diva”, was a pioneering AIDS, gay, and transgender rights activist with ACT UP/LA in the late 1980s and early 1990s—long before being a transgender woman was remotely accepted by even the gay community. She worked on the passage of AB101 to prohibit employer discrimination based on sexual orientation and hosted the first daily commercial talk radio show about gay issues in Los Angeles.
“Del, Phyllis, Carl and Connie each dedicated their lives to improving the quality of LGBTQ+ lives,” said CEO of Living Out, Loren Ostrow. “We are thrilled to be able to honor their work and their memory by naming the neighborhoods of our new community to those whose shoulders we stand on today.”
Living Out Palm Springs will be an all-encompassing community with a full-service restaurant and bar, state-of-the-art fitness center, private hair, manicure and pedicure salon, movie screening room, community, game, card, an art studio room, resort-style pool & spas, dog park, and much more.
For a virtual tour of Living Out Palm Springs visit www.livingout.com and for leasing information you can request a reservation here.
About Living Out Palm Springs
Living Out will be an elegant apartment community built on nine acres in central Palm Springs, California. It will comprise 122 luxury apartments, in six-unit configurations ranging from a 1 bed, 1 ½ bath + den, to a 2 bed, 2 ½ bath + den. Units will range from approximately 1,100 sq. ft to 1,800 sq. ft. with every unit including a large usable balcony or patio. The architecture of the community will reference the iconic Mid-Century Modern style for which Palm Springs is famous. The exterior of the property will include covered surface parking for all residents as well as guest and retail parking, event lawns, BBQ and entertainment areas, a resort-style swimming pool, three jacuzzi spa areas, bocce ball courts, a putting green, orchards, rose gardens and walking paths. Living Out Palm Springs will be Living Out’s flagship community created by Loren S. Ostrow and Paul Alanis, owners of Los Angeles-based real estate company, KOAR International, LLC. Living Out Palm Springs will be a resort project for 55+ LGBTQ+ community members and their allies. The community will celebrate vibrancy and authenticity while providing a welcoming, safe, and inclusive environment. Living Out Palm Springs will be the home you have always wanted in the community every LGBTQ+ person deserves! For more information visit www.livingout.com and follow @LivingOutPS on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
About Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger are award-winning chefs, cookbook authors, television personalities, and entrepreneurs. Mary Sue and Susan are highly successful individuals as well as an irresistibly dynamic team. From chef to television, their careers began in 1993, as two of sixteen chefs invited to cook with the legendary Julia Child in her PBS series “Cooking with Master Chefs. They brought their innovative approaches to The Food Network with nearly 400 episodes of the “Too Hot Tamales” and “Tamales World Tour” cooking series, have co-authored five cookbooks together, and were also the original co-hosts of the popular food-centric radio show, KCRW’s “Good Food”. They have both competed on Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters” series, each winning money for their selected charities.
