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Travel + Leisure
6 days ago
- Travel + Leisure
This New 10-acre Desert Escape Has Private Pools, Sleek Villas, and Concierge Service—and Its Just Minutes From Joshua Tree
Just beyond the northern boundary of Joshua Tree National Park, where the Mojave stretches wide and the sun warms the bouldered landscape, a new collection of vacation homes is offering a luxurious reimagining of desert hospitality. Set on 10 private acres and less than a 10-minute drive from the park entrance, Panorama Villas by Fieldtrip is a modern desert compound designed for connection—and escape. It features five custom-built villas, each outfitted with a private heated pool and hot tub, game room, and ample outdoor gathering space. It's a hospitality hybrid, with the intimacy and privacy of a vacation rental paired with the services of a boutique hotel. Think: 24/7 concierge and curated experiences ranging from private chefs to sound baths. And it's all located between the north and west entrances of Joshua Tree National Park and just minutes from the town of Joshua Tree. The villas can be booked individually—ideal for families, small groups, or short creative retreats—or together as a full estate, creating an 18-bedroom, fully serviced enclave. The design encourages a sense of community while offering enough room to truly spread out. 'Panorama Villas represents everything we've been working toward—a property that really pushes the boundaries of what a custom-built vacation rental can be,' Ramin Savar, co-founder of Fieldtrip, a company known for its high-touch desert retreats, said in a press release shared with Travel + Leisure . 'Over the years, we've carved out a niche as the go-to in the desert for hosting group gatherings, film productions, and retreats, thanks to our team's ability to deliver complex, high-touch events. Panorama was designed specifically to meet this demand—a purpose-built estate for group experiences, backed by the infrastructure to execute these events flawlessly.' At the center of the property is Peak, the largest of the five homes. With eight bedrooms and six bathrooms arranged across two wings, it comfortably hosts up to 12 guests and functions as a natural gathering space for larger parties. A 20-foot dining table anchors the open-concept living area, while game and entertainment rooms (with a bar, billiards, and arcade games) add a playful edge. Outside, two side-by-side pools and adjacent hot tubs are flanked by fire pits and outdoor kitchens. Three- and two-bedroom villas—Crest A, Vista A, Crest B, Vista B—round out the compound. Each offers a similar aesthetic and amenity profile: clean lines, chef's kitchens, indoor-outdoor flow, and mountain views. The interiors, designed by Los Angeles-based Kevin Klein Design, take cues from the desert itself, as all five homes feature warm textures, natural palettes, and tactile materials that feel both modern and grounded. Bookings, whether for individual villas or the entire estate, can be made at Rates for Peak start at over $2,000 a night.
The Guardian
21-07-2025
- The Guardian
A Route 66 ghost town was ‘frozen in time'. Is it on the brink of a comeback?
The tiny desert cafe, caught in a desolate middle between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, had only been open for five minutes when the first customers of the day ambled in from the already blistering heat. It was a Friday morning in June, sand swirling outside across the cracked street and towards the Bagdad Cafe's front door. In the same parking lot, a 1950s-era sign advertised a motel that no longer exists. In the distance, only a few surviving businesses remained: a small community center, a veterans organization and a long-standing roadhouse bar popular with locals. A few miles to the north, an entire neighborhood was abandoned in the 1990s after mounds of blowing sand swallowed it whole; today, only rooftops and chimneys peek out from the towering sand dunes. Despite the general ghost town-like atmosphere, the cafe's early-morning visitors were giddy. Neilson Lopes, a tourist from Brazil, happily perused a rack of neon T-shirts and snapped photos of the dimly lit cafe. He and his wife had flown and driven, on the back of a motorcycle, thousands of miles to be there, in the middle of nowhere. 'I've planned this trip for 10 years,' he said. 'For decades, maybe.' Because while this Mojave Desert outpost – a tiny settlement of 2,000-some people called Newberry Springs– may look deserted to the uninitiated, it's positioned on one of the most famous roads in the world: Route 66. The roughly 2,400-mile (3,900km) route stretches from the California coast to Chicago, connecting both small towns and sprawling metropolises across the country. For many, the road embodies a sense of quintessential Americana, from its quirky roadside kitsch to its historic roots. And next year, Route 66 is turning 100 years old. Nationwide preparations for the big anniversary have been underway for years: caravans of people are planning to drive the entirety of the route, and Congress even created a Route 66 Centennial Commission in 2020 to commemorate the milestone. In small towns such as Newberry Springs, and an even tinier neighboring community 10 miles west called Daggett, residents are hoping the anniversary will bring in a flood of extra visitors. The Bagdad Cafe, where the 1980s cult classic film by the same name was shot, currently sees about 6,000 tourists each month. Locals anticipate that those numbers will double in 2026 – and they're planning other ways to capitalize on the centennial, too. 'We're a teeny, weeny, little slice of Route 66,' said Renee Kaminski, a co-owner of Newberry Spring's historic bar. 'But we're a mighty one.' Out in remote Newberry Springs, an unincorporated community that lacks an official mayor or city council, a handful of residents have instead informally banded together to start sharing ideas for Route 66's centennial. One of them, Karla Claus, has become a de facto ambassador for the town. Wearing a Route 66 crown atop an American flag cowboy hat, unbothered in a pair of jeans even as the thermostat topped 100F (38C), she described her grand plans for the centennial one recent summer afternoon. This anniversary, she said, is a chance for Newberry Springs to be reborn. 'My vision is that we're going to be one of the go-to destinations for those caravans [of Route 66 fans],' she said. 'That we're saying to those people: 'Make sure you come here.'' To make that vision a reality, Claus, who is also the vice-president of the local chamber of commerce, recently received a micro-grant to start leading custom, history-focused Route 66 tours. And there's a lot of history to be shared. In 1926, as millions of Americans were buying their first car and taking to the open road, Route 66 was created as part of the nation's first federal highway system. Car ownership had newly exploded; the Model T had only been introduced about two decades prior. The route was famously dubbed 'Mother Road' by John Steinbeck in his classic 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. At the time, before the route became better known for its flashing neon signs, old-school diners and eccentric roadside attractions, the road was a migration route for climate refugees fleeing the Dust Bowl. Hit hard by severe drought, dust storms and the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of people funneled out of the Great Plains via the now-celebrated route and headed west. In Newberry Springs, Route 66 brought about a kind of heyday in the 1950s. Because of the constant flow of traffic, its main street was bustling: there were more businesses, a couple hotels and a popular rest stop with an expansive swimming pool. But when interstate I-40 came along in the 1970s, it spelled disaster for Newberry. The newer, faster freeway was laid parallel to that stretch of Route 66, meaning that drivers would now fly right by the small town without ever noticing it. The development was a death knell for other tiny towns across the state – and throughout the country. The animated movie Cars even spotlighted the issue by creating the fictional Radiator Springs: a forgotten town on Route 66 that withered away after it was bypassed by the interstate. Rose Beardshear, the chamber of commerce's treasurer, said the film is bringing the plight of Route 66 to life for the younger generation. Beardshear was driving through the nearby town of Daggett with her granddaughter when the nine-year-old suddenly said: 'This is like the movie with the cars.' But the boom-and-bust cycle for Newberry didn't end with the interstate. The indie film Bagdad Cafe, about a dilapidated desert cafe and a stranded German tourist who finds an unexpected community there, brought waves of international tourists to Newberry; the movie was a massive hit in France and Germany. When the pandemic halted tourism, especially from other countries, the real-life Bagdad Cafe shuttered. It only reopened again recently (without serving food), after the owner started a GoFundMe to make necessary repairs on the building. Part of Newberry's appeal for visitors now is that it feels removed from the 21st century; the town looks 'frozen in time', Claus said. Still, there are lots of improvements to be made before the centennial. Beardshear, for one, is hoping to transform a short stretch of the route into a 'musical highway'. If all goes according to plan with the county, grooves or markers would be added to the side of the road, creating vibrations that sound like a song when drivers pass over them. Kaminski, the owner of the town's bar called The Barn, has plans to host monthly themed events in 2026, including car shows and live music, and to create a campground of vintage trailers for tourists who are passing through. The Barn is also a landmark in itself; it first opened in 1952 and is reportedly one of the oldest continually licensed bars on Route 66 in California. 'I think Newberry really illustrates that whole mantra of 'Mother Road',' Kaminski said. 'We will take you in and make sure you're safe on Route 66.' West of Newberry lies Daggett, the minuscule village that Beardshear's granddaughter thought could be the set of Cars. Daggett has another claim to fame for a different generation: Steinbeck briefly mentioned it in The Grapes of Wrath. Today, at first glance the community looks neglected. Only a few hundred people live in the area, and crumbling or forgotten homes abound. But one man named Daryl Schendel, who owns an auto repair shop in nearby Barstow and spends his nights and weekends on historical preservation projects, sees far beyond that. 'It may look junky when you go through it, like a little has-been town,' he said recently, driving through its small collection of streets. 'But people don't realize the history that was here.' The town itself is like a living museum: there's a blacksmith shop that dates back to the 1890s on one corner, another pioneer-era hotel still standing a block away. For years, Schendel and others have collected thousands of historical artifacts related to Daggett, from old journals to glass bottles to the actual clothes that nearby miners wore in the 19th century. Much of that history has been out of public view as Schendel and a small team work together to organize everything. But the Route 66 centennial has motivated him to move faster on at least one project: reopening a historic welcome center for the anniversary caravans passing by Daggett, where some of the artifacts he has stockpiled will be on display like a museum exhibit. Schendel received a Route 66-themed grant from the National Park Service last year to help make the project happen. 'I'm imagining this being a major new thing happening on Route 66,' he said. 'And it'll open up so many doors to the history of the area.' Both Schendel and the women from Newberry want their towns to become more of a destination for Route 66 fans – but they also don't want things to change too much. Visiting somewhere that feels completely off the grid, they say, is part of the charm. 'I can't imagine anyone wanting Newberry to change into some city,' Beardshear said. 'We want to maintain our rural character.'
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Yahoo
A Route 66 ghost town was ‘frozen in time'. Is it on the brink of a comeback?
The tiny desert cafe, caught in a desolate middle between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, had only been open for five minutes when the first customers of the day ambled in from the already blistering heat. It was a Friday morning in June, sand swirling outside across the cracked street and towards the Bagdad Cafe's front door. In the same parking lot, a 1950s-era sign advertised a motel that no longer exists. In the distance, only a few surviving businesses remained: a small community center, a veterans organization and a long-standing roadhouse bar popular with locals. A few miles to the north, an entire neighborhood was abandoned in the 1990s after mounds of blowing sand swallowed it whole; today, only rooftops and chimneys peek out from the towering sand dunes. Despite the general ghost town-like atmosphere, the cafe's early-morning visitors were giddy. Neilson Lopes, a tourist from Brazil, happily perused a rack of neon T-shirts and snapped photos of the dimly lit cafe. He and his wife had flown and driven, on the back of a motorcycle, thousands of miles to be there, in the middle of nowhere. 'I've planned this trip for 10 years,' he said. 'For decades, maybe.' Because while this Mojave Desert outpost – a tiny settlement of 2,000-some people called Newberry Springs– may look deserted to the uninitiated, it's positioned on one of the most famous roads in the world: Route 66. The roughly 2,400-mile (3,900km) route stretches from the California coast to Chicago, connecting both small towns and sprawling metropolises across the country. For many, the road embodies a sense of quintessential Americana, from its quirky roadside kitsch to its historic roots. And next year, Route 66 is turning 100 years old. Nationwide preparations for the big anniversary have been underway for years: caravans of people are planning to drive the entirety of the route, and Congress even created a Route 66 Centennial Commission in 2020 to commemorate the milestone. In small towns such as Newberry Springs, and an even tinier neighboring community 10 miles west called Daggett, residents are hoping the anniversary will bring in a flood of extra visitors. The Bagdad Cafe, where the 1980s cult classic film by the same name was shot, currently sees about 6,000 tourists each month. Locals anticipate that those numbers will double in 2026 – and they're planning other ways to capitalize on the centennial, too. 'We're a teeny, weeny, little slice of Route 66,' said Renee Kaminski, a co-owner of Newberry Spring's historic bar. 'But we're a mighty one.' Related: A Route 66 town was dead. This man resurrected it into 'a classic desert destination' A desert town 'frozen in time' Out in remote Newberry Springs, an unincorporated community that lacks an official mayor or city council, a handful of residents have instead informally banded together to start sharing ideas for Route 66's centennial. One of them, Karla Claus, has become a de facto ambassador for the town. Wearing a Route 66 crown atop an American flag cowboy hat, unbothered in a pair of jeans even as the thermostat topped 100F (38C), she described her grand plans for the centennial one recent summer afternoon. This anniversary, she said, is a chance for Newberry Springs to be reborn. 'My vision is that we're going to be one of the go-to destinations for those caravans [of Route 66 fans],' she said. 'That we're saying to those people: 'Make sure you come here.'' To make that vision a reality, Claus, who is also the vice-president of the local chamber of commerce, recently received a micro-grant to start leading custom, history-focused Route 66 tours. And there's a lot of history to be shared. In 1926, as millions of Americans were buying their first car and taking to the open road, Route 66 was created as part of the nation's first federal highway system. Car ownership had newly exploded; the Model T had only been introduced about two decades prior. The route was famously dubbed 'Mother Road' by John Steinbeck in his classic 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. At the time, before the route became better known for its flashing neon signs, old-school diners and eccentric roadside attractions, the road was a migration route for climate refugees fleeing the Dust Bowl. Hit hard by severe drought, dust storms and the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of people funneled out of the Great Plains via the now-celebrated route and headed west. In Newberry Springs, Route 66 brought about a kind of heyday in the 1950s. Because of the constant flow of traffic, its main street was bustling: there were more businesses, a couple hotels and a popular rest stop with an expansive swimming pool. But when interstate I-40 came along in the 1970s, it spelled disaster for Newberry. The newer, faster freeway was laid parallel to that stretch of Route 66, meaning that drivers would now fly right by the small town without ever noticing it. The development was a death knell for other tiny towns across the state – and throughout the country. The animated movie Cars even spotlighted the issue by creating the fictional Radiator Springs: a forgotten town on Route 66 that withered away after it was bypassed by the interstate. Rose Beardshear, the chamber of commerce's treasurer, said the film is bringing the plight of Route 66 to life for the younger generation. Beardshear was driving through the nearby town of Daggett with her granddaughter when the nine-year-old suddenly said: 'This is like the movie with the cars.' But the boom-and-bust cycle for Newberry didn't end with the interstate. The indie film Bagdad Cafe, about a dilapidated desert cafe and a stranded German tourist who finds an unexpected community there, brought waves of international tourists to Newberry; the movie was a massive hit in France and Germany. When the pandemic halted tourism, especially from other countries, the real-life Bagdad Cafe shuttered. It only reopened again recently (without serving food), after the owner started a GoFundMe to make necessary repairs on the building. Part of Newberry's appeal for visitors now is that it feels removed from the 21st century; the town looks 'frozen in time', Claus said. Still, there are lots of improvements to be made before the centennial. Related: The road less travelled: don't miss these quirky stops along the famed Route 66 Beardshear, for one, is hoping to transform a short stretch of the route into a 'musical highway'. If all goes according to plan with the county, grooves or markers would be added to the side of the road, creating vibrations that sound like a song when drivers pass over them. Kaminski, the owner of the town's bar called The Barn, has plans to host monthly themed events in 2026, including car shows and live music, and to create a campground of vintage trailers for tourists who are passing through. The Barn is also a landmark in itself; it first opened in 1952 and is reportedly one of the oldest continually licensed bars on Route 66 in California. 'I think Newberry really illustrates that whole mantra of 'Mother Road',' Kaminski said. 'We will take you in and make sure you're safe on Route 66.' Preserving a living museum West of Newberry lies Daggett, the minuscule village that Beardshear's granddaughter thought could be the set of Cars. Daggett has another claim to fame for a different generation: Steinbeck briefly mentioned it in The Grapes of Wrath. Today, at first glance the community looks neglected. Only a few hundred people live in the area, and crumbling or forgotten homes abound. But one man named Daryl Schendel, who owns an auto repair shop in nearby Barstow and spends his nights and weekends on historical preservation projects, sees far beyond that. 'It may look junky when you go through it, like a little has-been town,' he said recently, driving through its small collection of streets. 'But people don't realize the history that was here.' The town itself is like a living museum: there's a blacksmith shop that dates back to the 1890s on one corner, another pioneer-era hotel still standing a block away. For years, Schendel and others have collected thousands of historical artifacts related to Daggett, from old journals to glass bottles to the actual clothes that nearby miners wore in the 19th century. Much of that history has been out of public view as Schendel and a small team work together to organize everything. But the Route 66 centennial has motivated him to move faster on at least one project: reopening a historic welcome center for the anniversary caravans passing by Daggett, where some of the artifacts he has stockpiled will be on display like a museum exhibit. Schendel received a Route 66-themed grant from the National Park Service last year to help make the project happen. 'I'm imagining this being a major new thing happening on Route 66,' he said. 'And it'll open up so many doors to the history of the area.' Both Schendel and the women from Newberry want their towns to become more of a destination for Route 66 fans – but they also don't want things to change too much. Visiting somewhere that feels completely off the grid, they say, is part of the charm. 'I can't imagine anyone wanting Newberry to change into some city,' Beardshear said. 'We want to maintain our rural character.' Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- The Guardian
A Route 66 ghost town was ‘frozen in time'. Is it on the brink of a comeback?
The tiny desert cafe, caught in a desolate middle between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, had only been open for five minutes when the first customers of the day ambled in from the already blistering heat. It was a Friday morning in June, sand swirling outside across the cracked street and towards the Bagdad Cafe's front door. In the same parking lot, a 1950s-era sign advertised a motel that no longer exists. In the distance, only a few surviving businesses remained: a small community center, a veterans organization and a long-standing roadhouse bar popular with locals. A few miles to the north, an entire neighborhood was abandoned in the 1990s after mounds of blowing sand swallowed it whole; today, only rooftops and chimneys peek out from the towering sand dunes. Despite the general ghost town-like atmosphere, the cafe's early-morning visitors were giddy. Neilson Lopes, a tourist from Brazil, happily perused a rack of neon T-shirts and snapped photos of the dimly lit cafe. He and his wife had flown and driven, on the back of a motorcycle, thousands of miles to be there, in the middle of nowhere. 'I've planned this trip for 10 years,' he said. 'For decades, maybe.' Because while this Mojave Desert outpost – a tiny settlement of 2,000-some people called Newberry Springs– may look deserted to the uninitiated, it's positioned on one of the most famous roads in the world: Route 66. The roughly 2,400-mile (3,900km) route stretches from the California coast to Chicago, connecting both small towns and sprawling metropolises across the country. For many, the road embodies a sense of quintessential Americana, from its quirky roadside kitsch to its historic roots. And next year, Route 66 is turning 100 years old. Nationwide preparations for the big anniversary have been underway for years: caravans of people are planning to drive the entirety of the route, and Congress even created a Route 66 Centennial Commission in 2020 to commemorate the milestone. In small towns such as Newberry Springs, and an even tinier neighboring community 10 miles west called Daggett, residents are hoping the anniversary will bring in a flood of extra visitors. The Bagdad Cafe, where the 1980s cult classic film by the same name was shot, currently sees about 6,000 tourists each month. Locals anticipate that those numbers will double in 2026 – and they're planning other ways to capitalize on the centennial, too. 'We're a teeny, weeny, little slice of Route 66,' said Renee Kaminski, a co-owner of Newberry Spring's historic bar. 'But we're a mighty one.' Out in remote Newberry Springs, an unincorporated community that lacks an official mayor or city council, a handful of residents have instead informally banded together to start sharing ideas for Route 66's centennial. One of them, Karla Claus, has become a de facto ambassador for the town. Wearing a Route 66 crown atop an American flag cowboy hat, unbothered in a pair of jeans even as the thermostat topped 100F (38C), she described her grand plans for the centennial one recent summer afternoon. This anniversary, she said, is a chance for Newberry Springs to be reborn. 'My vision is that we're going to be one of the go-to destinations for those caravans [of Route 66 fans],' she said. 'That we're saying to those people: 'Make sure you come here.'' To make that vision a reality, Claus, who is also the vice-president of the local chamber of commerce, recently received a micro-grant to start leading custom, history-focused Route 66 tours. And there's a lot of history to be shared. In 1926, as millions of Americans were buying their first car and taking to the open road, Route 66 was created as part of the nation's first federal highway system. Car ownership had newly exploded; the Model T had only been introduced about two decades prior. The route was famously dubbed 'Mother Road' by John Steinbeck in his classic 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. At the time, before the route became better known for its flashing neon signs, old-school diners and eccentric roadside attractions, the road was a migration route for climate refugees fleeing the Dust Bowl. Hit hard by severe drought, dust storms and the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of people funneled out of the Great Plains via the now-celebrated route and headed west. In Newberry Springs, Route 66 brought about a kind of heyday in the 1950s. Because of the constant flow of traffic, its main street was bustling: there were more businesses, a couple hotels and a popular rest stop with an expansive swimming pool. But when interstate I-40 came along in the 1970s, it spelled disaster for Newberry. The newer, faster freeway was laid parallel to that stretch of Route 66, meaning that drivers would now fly right by the small town without ever noticing it. The development was a death knell for other tiny towns across the state – and throughout the country. The animated movie Cars even spotlighted the issue by creating the fictional Radiator Springs: a forgotten town on Route 66 that withered away after it was bypassed by the interstate. Rose Beardshear, the chamber of commerce's treasurer, said the film is bringing the plight of Route 66 to life for the younger generation. Beardshear was driving through the nearby town of Daggett with her granddaughter when the nine-year-old suddenly said: 'This is like the movie with the cars.' But the boom-and-bust cycle for Newberry didn't end with the interstate. The indie film Bagdad Cafe, about a dilapidated desert cafe and a stranded German tourist who finds an unexpected community there, brought waves of international tourists to Newberry; the movie was a massive hit in France and Germany. When the pandemic halted tourism, especially from other countries, the real-life Bagdad Cafe shuttered. It only reopened again recently (without serving food), after the owner started a GoFundMe to make necessary repairs on the building. Part of Newberry's appeal for visitors now is that it feels removed from the 21st century; the town looks 'frozen in time', Claus said. Still, there are lots of improvements to be made before the centennial. Beardshear, for one, is hoping to transform a short stretch of the route into a 'musical highway'. If all goes according to plan with the county, grooves or markers would be added to the side of the road, creating vibrations that sound like a song when drivers pass over them. Kaminski, the owner of the town's bar called The Barn, has plans to host monthly themed events in 2026, including car shows and live music, and to create a campground of vintage trailers for tourists who are passing through. The Barn is also a landmark in itself; it first opened in 1952 and is reportedly one of the oldest continually licensed bars on Route 66 in California. 'I think Newberry really illustrates that whole mantra of 'Mother Road',' Kaminski said. 'We will take you in and make sure you're safe on Route 66.' West of Newberry lies Daggett, the minuscule village that Beardshear's granddaughter thought could be the set of Cars. Daggett has another claim to fame for a different generation: Steinbeck briefly mentioned it in The Grapes of Wrath. Today, at first glance the community looks neglected. Only a few hundred people live in the area, and crumbling or forgotten homes abound. But one man named Daryl Schendel, who owns an auto repair shop in nearby Barstow and spends his nights and weekends on historical preservation projects, sees far beyond that. 'It may look junky when you go through it, like a little has-been town,' he said recently, driving through its small collection of streets. 'But people don't realize the history that was here.' The town itself is like a living museum: there's a blacksmith shop that dates back to the 1890s on one corner, another pioneer-era hotel still standing a block away. For years, Schendel and others have collected thousands of historical artifacts related to Daggett, from old journals to glass bottles to the actual clothes that nearby miners wore in the 19th century. Much of that history has been out of public view as Schendel and a small team work together to organize everything. But the Route 66 centennial has motivated him to move faster on at least one project: reopening a historic welcome center for the anniversary caravans passing by Daggett, where some of the artifacts he has stockpiled will be on display like a museum exhibit. Schendel received a Route 66-themed grant from the National Park Service last year to help make the project happen. 'I'm imagining this being a major new thing happening on Route 66,' he said. 'And it'll open up so many doors to the history of the area.' Both Schendel and the women from Newberry want their towns to become more of a destination for Route 66 fans – but they also don't want things to change too much. Visiting somewhere that feels completely off the grid, they say, is part of the charm. 'I can't imagine anyone wanting Newberry to change into some city,' Beardshear said. 'We want to maintain our rural character.'
New York Times
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
He Didn't Know It Was an Audition. But He Got the Husband Role.
For most of her adult life, Aleksandra Shira Dubov said had been 'addicted' to unrequited love. So in 2019, when she found herself stargazing in the Mojave Desert near Panamint Valley, Calif., with Daniel Mitchell Berchenko, and he asked if he could kiss her — her response startled both of them. 'What kind of kiss?' she asked. 'Are you wanting to hook up or are you auditioning to be my husband?' While it wasn't the former, he couldn't say with certainty in that moment that it was the latter, either. There was no kiss that night. The two initially met at a festival called 'Passover in the Desert' in 2015, hosted by the San Francisco Bay Area organization, Wilderness Torah, which seeks to reinvigorate earth-based Judaism. But their love story would only begin when they were preparing for the same festival four years later, in 2019, when they were both on the planning team. More than once, a logistical phone call turned into a meandering conversation about their goals and dreams. Though seven additional people were working together on that team, Mr. Berchenko, who goes by Daniyel and uses Emmanuel as his middle name, said, 'Being on a team with Aleksandra felt so natural and good. We just felt in flow together.' In 2018, Mr. Berchenko had recently returned from spending two years on an ancestral pilgrimage to Eastern Europe (his parents immigrated to the United States from Odessa, the Ukrainian city where Ms. Dubov's great-grandparents were also from). He returned feeling ready to meet his life partner. On a hike about a month later in Oakland, Calif., where both were living, their conversation veered from their mutual love of the medicinal herb mugwort to the sudden death of Ms. Dubov's father, Stephen Dubov, at age 55, when she was 21. He was a cantor. 'His ability to hold my emotions and grief and whatever was coming up, I thought to myself, 'This feels like home,'' Ms. Dubov said. When he asked if he could kiss her at the end of the hike, this time, she said, 'Of course.' Ms. Dubov, 40, is a cantorial student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and will be starting as a student cantor at Manhattan's Village Temple this fall. She graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor's degree in voice and theater. Mr. Berchenko, 43, is a rabbinical student in the Aleph ordination program of the Jewish Renewal movement. He is also the B'nai mitzvah program specialist at Larchmont Temple in Larchmont, N.Y., where the couple now live. He has a bachelor's degree in environmental science and policy from the University of Maryland, College Park. [Click here to binge read this week's featured couples.] The couple began to explore a romantic relationship after the kiss, but nothing about their journey to love was linear. They took a break in December 2019. Then the pandemic hit, and he was living in Jerusalem; she was in California. By August 2020, Mr. Berchenko decided to explore a connection with someone else, but ultimately, realized it didn't compare to what he had with Ms. Dubov. By that October, they had found their way back to each other, becoming a pandemic pod, and then, living together in Jerusalem while she was in her first year of cantorial school, and he studied at Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies to prepare for rabbinical school. In March 2024, Mr. Berchenko accompanied Ms. Dubov to Oaxaca, Mexico, for her brother's wedding, which she was officiating. While he hadn't planned on proposing yet, he found the wedding energy contagious. With a moonstone ring from a street vendor, he proposed on an overlook, two days after her brother's wedding, with many of Ms. Dubov's family members still present. On July 6, they were married at Levity Mountain, an organic farm in Manchester, Vt., before 120 guests. Rabbi Zelig Golden, an independent rabbi based in Sonoma County, Calif., who is a founder of Wilderness Torah, officiated. Throughout the weekend, the couple hosted a series of events that they called their 'Ancient Future Love Ritual,' which kicked off with a Shabbat dinner on the night of July 4. The ceremony, where guests sat on blankets, chairs, or stood around their huppah, featured a ritual where they were asked to face different directions, which represented the four cardinal directions and had a different symbolic meaning attached to it. While reciting his vows, Mr. Berchenko told Ms. Dubov, 'I love the vessel that you are for the divine goddess energy that flows through you.' In her vows, Ms. Dubov went back to that night in the desert in 2019, when she first wondered about his intentions. She told Mr. Berchenko: 'After a long and arduous six-year audition process, I'm really happy to tell you that you got the part.'
