It was an incredible experience, literally, when Micechat got to be among the first guests inside Cotino’s private Artisan Club. Not only is the private, membership-based club a gorgeous desert oasis, but it also has the Imagineering touches that true Disney fans crave — including a dreamy midcentury clubhouse inspired directly by Incredibles 2.
Located in beautiful Rancho Mirage, California, near Palm Springs, Cotino is Disney’s first-ever planned community, the debut project of Storyliving by Disney. The official groundbreaking was in 2022, and the community has been opening in phases since then. The first residents moved into their homes in spring 2025; Artisans Club officially opened to members on Friday, Oct. 24. Portions of Cotino that will be open to the public, including a beach on Cotino Bay and a shopping and dining area similar to Downtown Disney, are still under construction and are expected to open in 2026.
Read on to learn all about Cotino, and to get an exclusive peek inside Artisans Club and the Incredibles 2-inspired Parr House.
Cotino, a Storyliving by Disney Community, Explained
Walt Disney had a long history with Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley as a whole, visiting often before buying his own home in the ultra-private Smoke Tree Ranch (which he sold to finance Disneyland, and then bought a larger home in the exclusive community shortly afterwards). The desert was his escape from the pressures of running the company, and he brought back quite a lot of inspiration from his sojourns there.
Walt’s love of the area is woven into more of the company’s work than you might realize. There are subtle hints of Smoke Tree Ranch in the architectural style of Frontierland, and a reference to “classic Smoke Tree flavor” on the bottle of barbecue sauce in the concession stand built into the queue of Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway in Toon Town. Of course, there’s that famous Smoke Tree Ranch tie he wore in so many episodes of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, which is memorialized on the Partners statue of Walt and Mickey in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland and Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World. But Smoke Tree Ranch also made its way into the company’s filmmaking, including providing the inspiration for the Triple R Ranch in Spin and Marty, which aired from 1955-1957.
While you won’t see many (if any) direct references to Smoke Tree Ranch at Cotino, it’s undoubtedly a similar feel. Cotino is a private gated community, which is protected on all sides by high walls that obscure the view inside. Once you’re inside, homes are arranged in the neighborhoods in close proximity to each other. The idea is to insulate residents from the outside world; it’s not too dissimilar to the Progress City Walt once dreamed of. (For a full explainer on how the community is designed, read our story here.)
The homes on offer today start in the mid $1 million range for the “cottage” homes, and go up for the “grand” and “estate” collections. Eventually, there will be as many as 1,900 homes in the development, and Cotino will also have condominiums as a more affordable option to the standalone homes.
There is one enormous, but extremely subtle, reference to the community’s inspiration: “cotino” is Latin for “smoke tree,” the name of a plant common in Coachella Valley which gave a neighborhood in Rancho Mirage its name, as well as Walt’s ranch and the first Storyliving by Disney community.
References to Walt himself and to Disney more broadly are there, but they’re subtle. Some streets have names like Harmonious Drive and Brilliance Avenue. Inside the development’s sales office, you’ll find vintage books like Walt Disney’s America and some vintage memorabilia from Disneyland, but there are none of those hints in the homes themselves.
There are a few more references in the neighborhoods, but you have to be a superfan and well-versed in Walt Disney’s history with the area to truly appreciate them. Longtable Park is the community’s 55+ area, and is named after the “longtable suppers” that Walt and Lillian used to host at Smoke Tree Ranch. They’d invite family, neighbors, and often Walt Disney Studios employees to gather, relax and exchange ideas in the desert. That area of Cotino has a Longtable Park recreation area, with one enormous long table built in for the same kind of gatherings (as well as several smaller ones and green space).
Another recreation area in the Longtable Park development is Four Winds Park, an homage to Rolly Crump’s Tower of the Four Winds at the 1964 World’s Fair. Other than that, the inspiration for Cotino is largely the surrounding landscape.
Inside Artisan Club, Cotino’s Private Club
Artisan Club is Cotino’s answer to Club 33 at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. It’s a pricey membership-based area that includes recreation activities, a private beach and access to the only two restaurants that are currently on property (though more that will be open to the public are in the works).
Cotino Bay is the centerpiece of the development, a 24-acre water feature made with eco-conscious Crystal Lagoons technology that minimizes evaporation and water waste. The size of 80 Olympic swimming pools, it truly feels like an oasis in the desert. Artisan Club is built on part of the shoreline of Cotino Bay, and offers a private beach area, including a heated swimming area in the lagoon, and an unheated swimming area, as well as a swimming pool. Membership also includes water sports out on the lake, like paddleboarding and kayaking.
The club includes two restaurants. Architects Fork is a full-service restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, including a huge bar with the ideal view of the water whether you’re sitting inside or outside. The menu includes seasonal salads and grill offerings like seafood and Wagyu steak. Plot Twist is the club’s beach bar, with casual lounge seating and similar menu offerings.
(There aren’t many hidden Mickeys around the club, but there is one inside the restaurant, and a few slightly easier ones to find outside at Plot Twist.)
In the same way that Aulani incorporates local Hawaiian architecture and culture into its high-end hospitality, the club’s architecture is designed to blend into the desert landscape and complement, rather than detract from, the view of the San Jacinto Mountains at the edges of the valley. Inside Architects Fork, an enormous chandelier hanging over the bar is actually a topographical relief of those mountains, sliced into dimensional layers and marked with popular hiking trails.
In addition, the club offers programming and entertainment, like fitness classes and lectures from visiting experts, like from National Geographic. The club’s lobby has a rotating archival exhibit on loan from the Walt Disney Archives, currently showcasing items that tell the story of Walt’s love of Palm Springs, like photos of his involvement in the Desert Circus parade and a straw sun hat worn by Walt.
To celebrate the opening, Disney Archives director Becky Cline was on hand to talk about Walt’s connection to the area. “We’ve been working with the folks here at Cotino from the very beginning when this was announced to help add some Disney magic here,” she said, “and to bring in the history and the connections between Disney and this area.” Just for the media preview, Cline brought special items from the archives, including cowboy boots worn by Doreen Tracy on The Mickey Mouse Club, and one of the very last remaining pieces of a Frontierland Stagecoach, an opening day Disneyland attraction.
“Unfortunately, that attraction was built in wood, and it hasn’t survived the last 70 years quite as well as some of the things that are still there,” Cline said. “Between the weathering and critters and termites and things like that, the coach doesn’t exist any longer, but the pieces that were left were turned over to the Walt Disney Archives.”
“This is the actual title piece from the top of the stage coach,” she added. “We also have a wheel and a door, I think, but we brought these things down just to show you the interest that Walt Disney had in the area and in Western theming that he enjoyed so much here in the desert.”
In addition to embracing that history — Disney archivists and historians are expected to make frequent appearances at Artisan Club — it’s the main place in Cotino that truly has a Disney feel to it. The wellness classes include Encanco-themed dance fitness, Incredibles-themed strength training and Moana-themed breath workshops. Inside Architects Fork, there’s a historical image of the House of the Future, in Tomorrowland from 1957-1967, and architectural renderings of rides like It’s a Small World and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad serve as the restaurant’s wallpaper.
Speaking at Artisan Club’s media preview, Walt Disney Imagineering Executive Creative Director Caroline Boone explained that the overarching goal of the club is to create “a creative oasis.”
“That’s really the thread that we pull across every detail of our storytelling and placemaking in each of our amenities,” she explained, adding that, “Each of the different amenities within the club is inspired by a different type of creativity.” One of the most interesting “story moments” in the restaurant: chandeliers made from architects’ pencils hanging over the tables.
Whereas Architects Fork is a tribute to architectural creativity, the beach bar Plot Twist is an homage to works of literature that became Disney films. Pages from Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Living Desert serve as the backdrop in the seating area, and as the chandelier over the bar area, where pages are draped over the light fixtures. The woodwork in Plot Twist is inspired by letterpress printing, and houses a few of those aforementioned hidden Mickeys.
Membership for one person (plus a spouse and eligible children) involves a one-time $20,000 fee, and then $11,000 in yearly dues, plus a $1,000 food and beverage minimum annually. An extended membership that includes parents, grandparents, adult children and grandchildren costs the same one-time fee, but $19,000 in annual dues and $2,000 in food and beverage yearly.
Right now, the club is only open to residents of Cotino, though according to Storyliving by Disney’s Artisan Club fact sheet, memberships to non-residents will likely become available in the future. If you can’t wait to get inside Artisan Club and see Parr House for yourself, your best plan is to make friends with a member, who are allowed limited guest passes with their memberships.
Parr House’s Incredible Mid-Century Inspiration
The biggest Disney inspiration and most visually striking element of Artisan Club is the Parr House, a clubhouse available to club members for private events, or to rent overnight. (Prices aren’t available yet, but are likely more than $10,000 a night for the house, which has six bedrooms and sleeps 16.)
When Pixar animators were looking for mid-century inspiration for Incredibles 2, they headed to Palm Springs, a city known for its unparalleled preservation of the 1950s and 1960s architectural style. So when Imagineers were looking for inspiration for Cotino, they turned straight to that movie. Walk into the house, and you’ll see a living space that looks nearly identical to the Parr family’s home in the movie: huge rock formations, a soaring two-story atrium with all-glass walls overlooking Cotino Bay, mid-century furniture in perfectly retro fabrics and patterns.
“What’s unique about the bedrooms is each one is inspired by a character from the Pixar film Incredibles 2, and we used color and texture and wall coverings in each of those bedrooms to have a nod to the character,” Lorenzo Salazar, senior interior designer with Walt Disney Imagineering explained at the media preview. “We didn’t want an overt expression, not in your face. We wanted it to be very subtle and complimentary to the mid-century architecture.”
Throughout the rooms, there are cheeky nods to the movie, and fun Easter eggs. Find the painting that slides aside to reveal a hidden office, and you’ll see Mr. Incredible’s album, Mr. Incredible Sings, with songs like “No More Bean Dip” and “It’s Incredible.” Upstairs, Dash’s bedroom has his math book stashed up on a shelf, and in another room, the covers of magazines that featured Edna Mode’s designs.
“Everything that you see as a prop is hidden in one of the films,” Caroline Booth explained. “And so we took those moments and used the prop shop at Imagineering and brought those to reality.”
The Pixar animators who worked on Incredibles 2 also helped with the design of Parr House. “I just think it’s such a full circle moment that the Pixar animators came out like literally across the street at Sunnylands when they were looking for inspiration for that house in the film, and then we’re right back out here where it all began,” Booth added.
Cotino’s Future, Including How You Can Visit
The second major element of Cotino Bay, the Town Square, is currently in the works. Similar to Downtown Disney or Disney Springs, Town Square will be a shopping and dining center that’s open to the public. When it opens, there will be restaurants, coffee shops, retail shopping and a yoga studio. Eventually, Town Center will also have a hotel that will be open to the public. The biggest draw for many locals will be access to Cotino Bay. People will be able to buy day passes for beach access and swimming.
“Even if you are not a club member at the Artisan Club and resident of Cotino, you’ll still be able to go buy a day pass, hang out on the beach and get in the water just for the day,” Boone said.
The area is still under construction and is expected to open in late 2026. Cotino is just the beginning of what’s in store for Disney lifestyle experiences. A second Storyliving by Disney community, called Asteria, is in the works in North Carolina. It’s expected to break ground in 2027.