Twin Palms – Frank Sinatra’s Former Palm Springs Estate

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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.

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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.

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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!  Smile

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.

Frankie’s House from “Alpha Dog”

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One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like forever now is the home belonging to Frankie Ballenbacher’s (aka Justin Timberlake’s) father, Juergen Ballenbacher (aka Chris Kinkade), in the ultra-dark and depressing movie Alpha Dog.  As I have expressed a few times before on this blog, I was not at all a fan of the 2006 flick, which was based on the real-life kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz by Jesse James Hollywood and his group of drug-dealing cronies, as it was far too disturbing for my taste.  But I did absolutely fall in love with the mid-century-modern-style abode where the teenaged kidnap victim, who was named Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin) in the movie, spent the majority of his imprisonment.  I started looking for the Ballenbacher residence pretty much immediately after first watching the film and, even though I knew it was located somewhere in the Palm Springs area, try as I might, I just could not seem to find it.  Then on June 1st, fellow stalker/location manager Scott Trimble, of the STS Locations website, wrote a comment on my post about the Caliente Tropics Resort, the motel featured in Alpha Dog, stating that he had actually worked on the movie.  So I immediately wrote to him and enlisted his help in tracking the place down.  And even though he had only worked on the portion of the movie that was filmed in Los Angeles and was therefore unsure of where the Ballenbacher home was located, he was instrumental in finally helping me to find it.  Thank you, Scott!  Smile So a couple of weekends ago, while out visiting my parents in Palm Springs, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place.

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In real life, the Ballenbacher residence is known as the Koerner House and it boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4,224 square feet of living space, and 1.1 acres of land.  The abode was originally designed in 1955 by legendary mid-century modernist architect E. Stewart Williams, the very same man who constructed the Kenaston Residence in Rancho Mirage – the dwelling where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie posed for their now-infamous July 2005 W Magazine photo shoot.  As you can see above, the home is pretty darn incredible!

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In Alpha Dog, drug-dealing kingpin Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch) orders his friend Frankie to take Zack, whom Johnny is holding as a marker for a $1,200 debt Zack’s brother has incurred, to Frankie’s father’s house in Palm Springs to hide out for a few days.  The vast majority of the movie was filmed at the dwelling and both the exterior . . .

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. . . and the interior of the property were used in the flick.

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And while the house is pretty darn incredible, it was actually the backyard area, which appeared quite frequently in Alpha Dog, that I became so enamored of.  What an absolutely amazing piece of property!  As you can see above, because it is so strikingly beautiful, it was rather difficult for me to narrow down which screen captures of the backyard to post.

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While driving to stalk the Koerner House, the GC and I spotted several open house signs and, thinking that it might just be the Koerner House that was open and that I might just have the opportunity to go inside and see that amazing backyard in person, I almost had a full-blown heart attack!  Sadly though, it was in fact a neighboring residence that was hosting the open house, so I guess, for the time being at least, I will just have to settle for looking at aerial views of the property.

Big THANK YOU to Scott Trimble, from the STS Locations website, for finding this location for me!  Smile You can follow Scott on Twitter, and learn all about his many location scout adventures, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Koerner House, aka Frankie Ballenbacher’s home from Alpha Dog, is located at 1275 South Calle De Maria in Palm Springs.