Things to See in Palm Springs

August 4, 2011December 6, 2013

Twin Palms – Frank Sinatra’s Former Palm Springs Estate

Another Palm-Springs-area location that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked two weekends ago while vacationing in the Coachella Valley was Twin Palms, the former desert home of legendary crooner Frank Sinatra and his then-wife Nancy Barbato. And while I have actually stalked – and even blogged about – this location once before (way back in April of 2008!), since it was in the very early days of my site, it was an extremely short post that did not include any of the property’s vastly fascinating history. So I decided that the estate was most definitely worthy of a re-write.

Apparently, on May 1, 1947, Frank Sinatra, who had just signed a highly profitable movie contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, wandered into the offices of newly-founded architectural firm Williams, Williams, & Williams. At the time, now-legendary architect E. Stewart Williams, who designed Frankie’s house from Alpha Dog which I blogged about last Thursday, was a novice who had just joined his father’s firm and had yet to design a private residence. Frank, who was holding an ice cream cone and wearing a sailor’s hat, informed the team that he wanted them to design and build a huge Georgian-style estate by Christmas, in time for a party the singer was hosting. And even though the desired finish date was only seven short months away, Williams, Williams, & Williams took the job. Apparently, Frank was a difficult man to say “no” to. E. Stewart came up with two designs for the singer, one in the Georgian-style that Frank had originally envisioned, and another in the mid-century-modern-style, which Stewart would later become famous for. Sinatra liked the modern design and the rest, as they say, is history. E. Stewart’s partner and brother, Roger, later said, “We’d have been ruined if we’d been forced to build Georgian in the desert.”

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The four-bedroom, five-bathroom, 4,500-square-foot estate, which was built fully air-conditioned at a cost of $150,000, was completed in time for Frank’s party. The property was nick-named “Twin Palms”, thanks to the two large palm trees which flanked the home’s piano-shaped swimming pool. The estate, which is currently used as a vacation rental and filming location, currently boasts authentic period furniture, countless Frank Sinatra memorabilia, the original Valentino sound system on which Frank used to cut his records, a pool house complete with his-and-her bathrooms, and a full library of the iconic crooner’s music.

Frank and Nancy divorced in 1948 and Frank’s mistress and future wife Ava Gardner subsequently moved in. Of her time in the house, Ava said, “It was the site of probably the most spectacular fight of our young married life, and honey don’t think I don’t know that’s really saying something . . . Frank’s establishment in Palm Springs, the only house we really could ever call our own, has seen some pretty amazing occurrences.” Indeed! According to the home’s rental website, one of the sinks in the master bathroom bears a crack from a champagne bottle that Frank threw at Ava during one of their legendary brawls. You can see a photograph of that crack here. Frank also reportedly once threw all of Eva’s belongings into the driveway of the home after she had attempted to catch him cheating on her with actress Lana Turner. It was also in this house that Frank kept a room for his friend and my girl Marilyn Monroe, who was a frequent guest. In 1957, after filing for divorce from Ava, Frank sold the property and moved to a new home in nearby Rancho Mirage. Today, Twin Palms is a Palm Springs Class 1 Historical Site and is featured regularly in photo shoots for fashion magazines, including Men’s Health, Town & Country, Palm Springs Life, Sunset, German Elle, and Vogue. And the dwelling is also a filming location! Apparently Frank allowed the exterior of the property to be featured in the 1950 movie The Damned Don’t Cry, which starred Joan Crawford. You can see some fabulous interior photographs of the estate on the Rearranged Design website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Twin Palms, Frank Sinatra’s former desert home, is located at 1148 East Alejo Road in Palm Springs. You can visit the property’s official website here. Tours of the estate are conducted on a semi-regular basis and private tours, for a minimum of 20 guests, can also be arranged by clicking here.

July 27, 2011July 26, 2011

Cary Grant’s Former Palm Springs Estate

Another Cary Grant location (and I promise that this is the last of them for a while for those who are hoping for a change of pace) that the Grim Cheaper and I stalked while vacationing in the Palm Springs area two weekends ago was the “Cary Grant Estate”, aka “Las Palomas”, the Andalusian-style, U-shaped farmhouse that the actor called his desert home for nearly two decades. I came across information about the property, which is currently for sale for a cool $2,995,000, when doing some cyber-stalking while trying to track down the estate belonging to Charlie Rich, which I blogged about yesterday. And even though Cary’s daughter, Jennifer, never mentioned Las Palomas in Good Stuff, her newly-penned memoir about her late father, because we were in the area and because I have recently found myself just slightly obsessed with the movie icon, I decided I just had to stalk the place.

The Cary Grant Estate was originally built in 1927 and was commissioned by Dr. Jacob John Kocher, Palm Springs’ very first pharmacist. When Cary laid eyes upon the property in 1954, along with his then-wife, actress Betsy Drake, it was love at first sight and he immediately set about purchasing the place. He owned it for the next 18 years and, for a time at least, made the secluded sanctuary, with its large pool, sparkling fountains, trellised arbors, and towering palm trees, his primary residence. Cary nicknamed the property “Las Palomas”, Spanish for “The Doves”. Just a few of the luminaries who visited Cary during the nearly two-decades that he lived at the estate include Howard Hughes, Alfred Hitchcock, Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, and Katharine Hepburn. Grant, a longtime supporter of the U.S. armed forces, also made it a practice of hosting numerous events on the property for the Marine Corp soldiers stationed at the nearby Twentynine Palms military base. Sometime after Grant sold the home in 1972, it was purchased by professional bodybuilder and three-time-Mr. Olympia-winner Frank Zane. Upon Zane’s departure, the property fell into serious disrepair due to years of neglect. And then, in 1998, it was rescued by Jane Cowles Smith, an author/doctor who purchased the dilapidated estate and immediately set about a painstakingly-detailed and historically-accurate 11-year renovation process , during which she restored the dwelling to its original grandeur. She also had the property designated a Class 1 Historic Site by the City of Palm Springs. Sadly though, as you can see above, not much of the 6-bedroom, 6-bathroom, 6,000-square-foot, ultra-private abode, which sits on 1.54 lush acres of land, can be seen from the street.

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Something that can be seen from the street, though, is the estate’s mailbox (pictured above). When Grant first purchased the property, he commissioned his close friend, legendary Los-Angeles-area architect Wallace Neff, to build a second-story addition, consisting of two bedrooms and two baths, above the home’s garage. It is said that at that same time Neff also designed a small-scale replica of Las Palomas to be used as the home’s mailbox. I find it so incredibly cool that that mailbox is still there, almost six full decades later! LOVE IT!

Sadly, the aerial views of the property are not that great, but you can visit the home’s real estate listing and see some close-up photographs of the place here and you can read a more in-depth history of the estate here and here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Cary Grant Estate, aka Las Palomas, is located at 928 North Avenida Palmas in Palm Springs.

July 26, 2011July 25, 2011

Charlie Rich’s Former Palm Springs Estate

Another location that Jennifer Grant spoke fondly of in Good Stuff, the memoir about her late father, actor Cary Grant, was the Palm Springs estate belonging to Cary’s good friend, Las Vegas Dunes Hotel owner Charlie “Kewpie” Rich. Many weekends of Jennifer’s childhood were spent at “Uncle Charlie’s” lush, four-acre Coachella Valley oasis, which the Beverly Hills, 90210 actress described as “my adolescent wonderland” and a “desert Disneyland”. In the book, Jennifer writes, “Our number-one weekend getaway was to Uncle Charlie’s Palm Springs estate. Uncle Charlie was a staple in our life. Kewpie was maybe five feet tall, bald as they come, with a year-round tan (sometimes orange out of the Coppertone bottle – which Dad heckled him for) and a heart that never stopped giving. Uncle Charlie lived in a Spanish adobe on several acres of manicured, palm-tree-lined property. I learned to drive a golf cart and play putt-putt on that lawn. We stayed in the pool house, near the good-for-guppy-hunting pond and gorgeous rose gardens.” Well, as you can imagine, as soon as I read those words, I became absolutely obsessed with tracking the place down. And while vacationing in the Desert two weekends ago, I spent quite a few hours doing just that. I ran into a few snags along the way, though, as I was originally under the very incorrect assumption that Charlie “Kewpie” Rich, hotel owner, and Charlie Rich, country crooner, were one in the same. As it turns out, they are most definitely not!

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Charlie Rich’s Palm Springs House–Villa Paradiso

It was not until I came across the YouTube video posted above that I realized my mistake. Thankfully, said video lead me to a real estate listing for the estate formerly belonging to the correct Charlie Rich, complete with an address! Yay! So I immediately dragged the Grim Cheaper right on our to stalk the place – in 108-degree weather, no less!

Charlie Rich’s former home, which Cary Grant dubbed “Villa Paradiso”, was originally built in 1928 and features 8 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms (not kidding!!!), 13,000 square feet of living space, a four-car garage, a climate-controlled fur-storage-closet (also not kidding!!!), a swimming pool, a pond, over one hundred palm trees, several eighty-year-old Cypress trees, sweeping mountain views, and 3 stand-alone guest houses, one of which was built by Uncle Charlie especially for Cary Grant. Cary’s guest house boasts a formal living room, a fireplace, a large bar, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and one large bedroom. A photograph of that guest house circa 1970 was featured in Good Stuff and I was absolutely FLOORED to discover a recent picture of the structure on the property’s real estate listing in which it still looks almost exactly the same as it did when Cary and Jennifer vacationed there. SO INCREDIBLY COOL! According to the real estate listing, Howard Hughes also spent quite a bit of time at the property.

Sadly, not much of the ultra-private estate, which is currently for sale for a cool $8,950,000, is visible from the street.

Thank god for aerial views! As you can see above, the place is pretty darn magnificent and majorly dwarfs everything which surrounds it. I cannot even imagine owning a home like that! Sigh! You can visit two of the property’s real estate listings and see some great close-up photographs of it here and here.

On a stalking side note – fellow stalker/celebrity enthusiast Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, her dog Sammy, the GC, and I were lucky enough to run into a few stars while hanging out together this past Saturday night in Beverly Hills.

While walking to our cars after grabbing dinner, Pinky happened to spot The Hangover star Ken Jeong, who could not have been nicer or funnier! He practically did an entire, private stand-up comedy routine for us, right there on the sidewalk. So incredibly cool! And he gave Pinky a kiss on the cheek after posing for a pic with her! How cute is that?

We spotted Kevin Nealon a few minutes later and he was also a total sweetheart and even remembered meeting Pinky at the Sundance Film Festival a couple of years ago.

And last, but definitely not least, we saw Ed Helms from The Office and The Hangover. I had previously heard that Ed is not especially fan-friendly, but I am very happy to report that that information is not accurate as he was super sweet to Pinky and me and happily posed for a picture with both of us. Mine sadly came out a little blurry, which I did not realize until after I got home. Such a bummer, but I am stoked nonetheless to have gotten a picture at all.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Charlie Rich’s former home is located at 457 West Hermosa Place in Palm Springs.