Judy Vossler recognized her voice immediately.
From her general manager desk at the La Quinta Resort & Spa, she knew the voice she heard belonged to Candice Bergen.
“She told me who she was,” Vossler recalled. “She said, ‘my father, Edgar Bergen, as if I didn't know who he was, and my wooden brother, Charlie McCarthy, we used to come to La Quinta Hotel,’ and she tells me that her father owned land around the hotel.”
Bergen, who was starring in the TV show Murphy Brown, which coincidentally has made a recent comeback on CBS, was trying to find the room that she stayed in at the hotel.
“Bergen told me, ‘I was just a child when we used to come here, and things have changed so much, I can't find the room where I used to stay,’ “ Vossler recalled. “I said, ‘OK, let's try this. Let's go to the front door, and you have to trust me. Put your arm through my arm and close your eyes, and become seven years old again, and let's walk to how you think you got to your room.’ “
Vossler says they began walking and Bergen didn’t miss a turn.
“When we got to, not this first building, but the second building, she stopped and I said, ‘OK, open your eyes now,’ and she burst out crying. She said, ‘this is it,’ so I left her sitting there with her memories, but it was such a great experience to take someone and let them find a place they had been that truly had changed a lot.”
Vossler shares many such anecdotes during a 90-minute walking tour of the resort where she details the resort’s rich history and unique characters who stayed there. She served as the resort’s general manager from 1980 until 1993, and also worked for Landmark, one if the hotel owners in the 1970-80s, and witnessed its expansion during that time.
“I was blessed and had the privilege of going through almost all the phases of remodel, so it's ingrained in me,” she says.
The annual tour is set for 10:30 a.m. Dec. 8, but the deadline for tickets is Dec. 6 — $45 for members of the La Quinta Historical Society and $55 for non-members. A catered lunch at the resort is included after the tour.
For information and to purchase tickets, visit eventbrite.com.
VIDEO: See highlights of the tour of La Quinta Resort featuring tour guide Judy Vossler.