Merv Griffin’s Former House – and Some Big News!

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The Grim Cheaper and I had a fabulous time in Palm Springs last week celebrating Thanksgiving with my parents – so much so that we have decided to move there permanently!  We have been seriously considering a move to the Desert for a few months now, but finally decided to pull the trigger while driving back to Pasadena last Saturday afternoon and called up our landlord to officially give our 60 days notice.  While I will miss my beloved L.A. more than words can express, I think our being in the desert will do wonders for my dad’s health (not to mention my poor mom’s sanity).  The fact that our new apartment (which we LOVE) is half the price of our current apartment – and twice the size! – AND features a HUGE walk-in closet only sweetens the deal.  (My current closet situation is absolutely pitiful, but I digress.)  And not to worry, my fellow stalkers, my blog is not going anywhere.  We own a condo in Santa Monica that is only rented out part time and we will be staying in it whenever it is free so that I will be able to stalk.  IAMNOTASTALKER is most-definitely here to stay, I promise.  Smile  And now, on with the post!

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A couple of months ago, my mom mentioned that she had seen a real estate listing for Merv Griffin’s former 39-acre estate in La Quinta.  The listing did not cite an address, though, and my mom was desperate for me to track the place down because she could not imagine where an almost forty-acre property could possibly be located in the LQ.  Thankfully, I was able to find the abode fairly quickly via a Google search and, as it turns out, the pad is pretty darn close to my parents’ house.  So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place Thanksgiving morning.

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Merv, who had been a frequent Desert visitor in the past, purchased the land for his La Quinta estate while in town for a tennis tournament sometime during the 1980s.   According to a 2006 Palm Springs Life article, he said, “I looked around and thought this would be a great place to bring my horses.  I bought the first and only 80-acre parcel I saw.  It was a disaster — nothing but sand, cactus, a little old motel, and a small lake.  My son asked me, ‘What are you going to do with this?’  And I said, ‘See if I can make Kentucky out of it.’”  Griffin bought up several adjacent plots of land in the following years, eventually amassing a whopping 240-acre compound.  He built a private home for himself on the site in 1986 and the surrounding acreage was transformed into Griffin Ranch, an exclusive equestrian-themed gated community that formally opened in 2007.  And while the Ranch was originally expected to feature 393 custom estates, according to Brad Schmett’s La Quinta real estate website, new construction was halted in 2009 and the fate of future development there is currently unknown.

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Griffin’s ginormous Moroccan-style residence was inspired in part by clothing designer Yves Saint Laurent’s home in Marrakech, which Merv claims to have once snuck into while on a visit to Morocco  (a man after my own heart, I swear Smile).  He commissioned famed interior decorator Waldo Fernandez (who is/was the go-to designer for such stars as Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, and Jennifer Aniston and who handled the 1980s remodel of the Beverly Hills Hotel, which was also owned by Griffin at the time) to style the interior.  Sadly, Merv’s home was gutted in an electrical fire in 1987, not long after it was first constructed, and had to be completely rebuilt.

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Griffin’s former estate, not much of which is visible from the road, is nothing short of spectacular, as you can see in the aerial views below.  In fact, when I first saw the below images I thought I was looking at a resort!  The estate boasts a 5,483-square-foot main house with a 2000-square-foot living room, retractable dome skylight, 20-foot ceilings, and two master suites with Moroccan-style steam showers.  The property also features four detached circular-shaped casitas, a 1,712-square-foot guest house (with three bedrooms and two baths!), separate staff quarters, an equestrian center with a 16-stall stable, a barn, a regulation-sized racetrack (apparently the only one in the entire Coachella Valley), an infinity pool, and a 2.5-acre(!) pond complete with a swan paddle boat.

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Upon Griffin’s passing in 2007, the home became a vacation rental and was then put up for sale this past March for a whopping $14.5 million.  It was relisted in June for $9.5 million and appears to still be on the market today.

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Thanks to fave website The Real Estalker, I learned that Griffin’s former house is also a filming location!  The dwelling was where Slade Smiley and Gretchen Rossi vacationed with Gretchen’s parents, Brenda and Scott, in the Season 5 episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County titled “Let’s Bow Our Heads and Pray”.

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Um, can you say “product placement”?  Winking smile

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The interior of the home was also shown in the episode.

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You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Merv Griffin’s former house is located at 81345 Avenue 54 in La Quinta.

The Miramonte Resort & Spa in Indian Wells

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One Palm-Springs-area hotel that I have long wanted to vacation at – not because it is a filming location, but because it is just simply beautiful – is the Miramonte Resort & Spa in Indian Wells.  The Grim Cheaper and I ate dinner at the resort once upon a time many years back and I have been enamored of the place ever since.  So for our recent Coachella Valley getaway two weekends ago, I begged the GC to book us a room there.  And even though the rates weren’t exactly inexpensive despite the intense summer heat, he readily agreed!  Shocking, I  know!  It was not until the very end of our stay, as we were checking out of the hotel, that I discovered, thanks to the super nice concierge on duty, that the resort was not only something of a celebrity hot-spot, but also a filming location!  They say that the more you think about something, the more you attract that thing to you and in this particular instance that was definitely the case.  It seems I always find myself stalking, even when I am not necessarily intending to.  Winking smile

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The Miramonte Resort & Spa, which has been awarded Four Diamond status from AAA, boasts 215 spacious guest rooms sprawled throughout an 11-acre piece of property that has been designed to resemble a Tuscan villa.  The well-manicured grounds include several flower and herb gardens, outdoor fireplaces and piazzas, meandering pathways, hammocks tucked away in shaded little spaces, sparkling fountains, 24-hour room service (LOVE it!), a two-story, 12,000-square-foot spa, which was named the “#1 Resort Spa in North America & Caribbean” by Conde Nast Traveler, two 18-hole championship golf courses, two pools, including an adults-only pool, and over 30,000 square feet of event and meeting space.  And while the resort is quite large and boasts countless amenities, it somehow manages to retain an intimate, secluded, and quiet ambiance.  Both the GC and I absolutely loved the place!

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Best of all, we somehow got upgraded to a 425-square-foot “Estate Room” during our stay, which featured a full marble bathroom, two queen-sized ‘Desert Dream Beds’, a sitting area, free wireless internet (which the GC was absolutely floored about), a 42-inch flat screen TV, and striking views of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

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The Miramonte’s SUPER-nice concierge, who spent about twenty minutes speaking with me about filming locations and my website, informed me that The Real Housewives of Orange County had once filmed at the hotel.  In the Season 6 episode titled “Body Shots”, Housewife Peggy Tanous and her husband, Micah, spent the weekend with their two daughters, Capri and London, in the Miramonte’s Presidential Suite.  It was while laying by the resort’s pool that baby Capri cut her finger and had to be rushed to the hospital – which was just a slight overreaction to the situation in my opinion, but I digress.

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The concierge also informed me that in the Season 1 episode of Flavor of Love titled “Flav’s Trippin’”, Flavor Flav took contestants Brooke Thompson, aka “Pumkin”, and Nicole Alexander, aka “Hoopz”, to the Miramonte for a spa getaway.  Just a few of the other celebrities who have been spotted at the resort include Larry King, three-time Olympic figure skating World Champion Peggy Fleming, Bernie Mac, George Lopez, Tony Bennett, Tommy Hilfiger, Chris Tucker, and Judy Sheindlin, aka “Judge Judy”.

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On a side note – while at my parents’ new house this past weekend, I came across a few celebrity autographs that I had compiled over the years, including the one pictured above from Miss Liza Minnelli.  And even though, because I have always been far more into photographs than autographs, there are not that many of them, I thought it might be fun to post a few on my site.  So I created a new page titled “Celebrity Guest Book”.  You can check it out here.  Enjoy!

And a very big HAPPY ANNIVERSARY goes out to my parents today, who are celebrating a whopping 37 years of marriage!  Congratulations, guys!  I love you!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Miramonte Resort & Spa is located at 45000 Indian Wells Lane in Indian Wells.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.