A bid to make the desert boom

BORREGO SPRINGS, CALIF. — The desert backcountry of San Diego County has always been a great place for long shadows -- the wiry ocotillo stalks at dawn, the oasis in Palm Canyon, the outline of a bighorn sheep on a rocky ridge at sunset. But in Borrego Springs right now, nobody throws more shade than a slim, 6-foot newcomer from Sherman Oaks named Gregory Perlman.

Sporting Ray-Bans and stubble, Perlman strolls the grounds of the oldest and foremost hotel in town, then stops at an outdated and awkwardly placed fountain near the Primrose building.

"This is terrible," he says. "This is 1982 Palm Springs."

The 42-year-old Perlman may look like a 32-year-old actor on hiatus, but he owns this place. And the place up the road. And several other places. Perlman and his investment partners have bought up thousands of acres here since 2004, including Borrego's largest golf-and-vacation-home community, now known as Montesoro. In December, his company GH Capital added the town's marquee hotel, the Casa del Zorro.

He's spent close to $45 million so far -- but he has also closed down one of the town's two grocery stores and inadvertently bulldozed a nearly 2-mile path through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. On June 30, he'll shutter the Casa del Zorro for a summer overhaul, the first time anyone can remember that community institution closing for an entire season.

And so, if a desert outpost with fewer than 3,000 year-round residents and no traffic signals can be said to buzz, then Borrego is buzzing. Are Perlman and his partners visionaries who understand that this patchwork of ranch houses, mobile home parks, golf courses and desert dirt is the last piece of paradise left in Southern California? Or are they obnoxious latecomers who will ruin it?

"They're doing what they damn well please," says Chuck Bennett, a retired engineer who has been involved with Borrego civics for more than a decade.

"Anybody who has invested here is rooting for them," says Gwenn Marie, president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Certainly, Perlman's new neighbors can't complain when he calls this desert outpost "the most beautiful setting in Southern California that doesn't look at an ocean." They can only assume that the hundreds of fancy homes he wants to build will secure jobs and help boost property values.

But if you ask Perlman about the town's main drag, Palm Canyon Drive, he'll tell you, "The way it is now isn't quaint. That needs to be fostered."