Discover Cuyama Buckhorn, a 1950s roadside motel reimagined with mid-century design, cowboy heritage, and thoughtful branding in California’s high desert.
On the high desert plains of Central California, surrounded by mountains and the wide-open skies of the Cuyama Valley, sits Cuyama Buckhorn, a 1950s roadside motel and restaurant brought back to life with design-forward intention. Growing up just down the road in Bakersfield, I have a deep appreciation for projects that respect and revive this region’s heritage. Once a stopover during the oil boom era, the Buckhorn has been transformed into a boutique destination where mid-century lines meet cowboy heritage, and where small-town hospitality anchors a new kind of desert escape.
Honoring the Past, Designing for Today
The project is thanks to the amazingly talented Kiana Toossi of Holiday Studio with a simple principle: restore what was already there. From reusing original block walls to reinterpreting the carved buck logo found on the old bar door, the creative team leaned into the motel’s history as a design brief in itself.
Identity: The new brand system merges mid-century geometry with western flourishes. Typography nods to the 1950s but feels current, while the color palette draws directly from the desert landscape…