Dorothy McCally & Her Pioneertown Plan B

Dorothy McCally

Hospitality Lover, Music Enthusiast, Pioneer

What is your GOAT?

100% having my children. I have two daughters, 24 and 19. I'll just say that it is never a dull moment in my life, but becoming a mother—just going through the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations of life, and the emotions—really has made me the person I am today. I'm extremely close to both of my girls, and hands down that is my greatest achievement and accomplishment.

What would you say to your OLDER self?

Boy, that would be a long conversation. I think “everything in moderation.” That's kind of been a philosophy that I grew up with, with my family. I think that life is really about balance. Right? Extremes, at least for myself personally, don't really work out.

Best thing that happened to you in the 80s?

I discovered music, an extreme passion of mine. I have handled entertainment in the hospitality world for almost 25 years. So I've been very connected in that industry, but it all started back in the 80s. The first concert I ever went to was to see The Beach Boys, in an outdoor venue. It was just the whole aura of it; I fell in love.

Staying a While in Pioneertown.

I'm originally from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, outside of Detroit. I'm the oldest of five kids from an Irish Catholic family. We're all literally like a year apart. It's a little crazy. We moved around a lot. My father, of course, worked in marketing for the automotive industry with General Motors and Chevrolet. We probably moved 12 or 13 times when I was growing up, which was challenging, but I always looked back on it as an opportunity to go to new places, meet new people. I really thrived through those moves. I thought it was great. 

After college, I tried my own hand in marketing and advertising, but it wasn’t for me. I moved back home with my parents where they were living at that time, in Atlanta, and kind of fell into a role in a country club. I was managing a pro shop as well as waitressing and helping out in the restaurants. I just really loved the interaction on a day-to-day basis with the members at the club and fell in love with the whole hospitality concept.

I started my own food management business and was working for another country club when I came in contact with one of the members, Horst Schulze. If you recognize that name, it’s because he put the Ritz-Carlton hotel company on the map as past president and CEO. We became very good friends. One day, he said he wanted me to come into the hotel to interview for a sales job there. I resisted at first, but he's one of those people you don't say no to. 

I had the opportunity to work for Ritz-Carlton, Starwood and most recently, co-leading sales for the St. Regis in New York, covering the Western US, Western Canada and Asia-Pacific. When the pandemic started, I was furloughed, like 85% of my sales counterparts within Marriott. And then in August, I officially lost my position after 24 years. It is just devastating what this pandemic has done to our industry.

I am a very firm believer in “everything happens for a reason.” In January 2020 (just before the pandemic) I had started really asking, what's my plan B? What does the next half of my life look like? I was about to become an empty-nester officially that year, and was absolutely ready for the next chapter. Hospitality and people are without question my passion, and I knew I needed to do something in that realm. And I have always loved the desert and had become a big fan of Pioneertown. So I put together a full-blown business plan. I made several trips to look for land, found an absolutely fabulous piece of property and moved there.

At a high level, my concept is a bed and breakfast. The Airbnb and the vacation rentals out here in the desert are unbelievable, but I didn't want people to pull up, open up the mailbox and get a key. I wanted to engage with people. To serve them. Pioneertown is about 40 minutes from Palm Springs, 20 minutes from Joshua Tree—the high desert. The future of hospitality, in my view, is about people’s desire to travel to more regional destinations (where they can maybe drive versus fly) and where they can be in a more remote, intimate environment than a 400-room hotel in the middle of Manhattan. There's so much to do here. The national park is off the charts, absolutely aesthetically beautiful, and the hiking is phenomenal. There's more live music than you could possibly ever see. There are art shows, galleries, thrift stores. It's such a dynamic community, and it's continuing to evolve, just as we all are kind of working through this pandemic and what it's going to look like coming out of it.

This is my next chapter, and though it may take some time to bring my concept to life, I'm completely committed to this community. In hindsight, it's difficult to lose your job after so many years, but I was completely in a different mindset and focused on the next thing. And you hate to go out that way, but I am so happy to be working for myself, using my experience of the last 25 years to just create my own thing in what I consider to be paradise. So it's kind of a win-win all around, but it's been like anything: You start any new business, there's always roadblocks, ups and downs. But we'll get there.

I think it's so important that you have a plan B, that you always have a hand in multiple interests and think: What if something catastrophic happened? What if I lost my job? What would I do? Where would I go? Have a financial plan, a little bit of a safety net, because, it's just life, right?