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FEATURESTORY

Hanging with the Chairman of the Board

Frank Sinatra’s Palm Springs mini-mansion turns an off-site event into a lifetime memory

by Paul Nolan

One story that gets told about Twin Palms, the 4,500-square-foot "mini-mansion" where Frank Sinatra lived from 1947 until about 1954, is about the night when Sinatra, furious with the on-again-off-again love of his life Ava Gardner, broke a bottle of booze over the bathroom sink. To this day, guests of the renovated home can see the long, jagged crack in the porcelain that resulted from that outburst.

Sales managers don't want that kind of eruption from their salespeople, but most wouldn't mind a slice of that sort of passion now and then. A couple of nights in the same surroundings just may create intensity by osmosis. At the very least, it's an experience that people are sure to take home with them, which is why Twin Palms is regularly rented out by companies for team retreats, corporate parties, even celebrations around new product introductions like one that Reebok recently staged there.

"Nowadays, it's really not acceptable to sit in a row of chairs and tables in a hotel conference room," says Ron Davidson, Chief Operating Officer of Homes Run (www.homesrun.net), the property management firm for Twin Palms and a host of other one-of-a-kind, upscale homes around the world. "Companies are trying to shatter that concept and inspire individuals who generate revenue for them. They're looking for other means of providing inspiration and saying 'thank you' while still making it functional."

Located two miles from downtown Palm Springs, Twin Palms passed through a series of owners in the five decades since Sinatra sold it and was so neglected at one point that the roof began to cave in. Three investors from New York purchased the property in 2005, gutted it and completely restored it, filling it with vintage furniture from the Sinatra era.

Weekend renters are mostly well-to-do individuals seeking a Sinatra moment, but the property is rented Monday through Thursday for one-day corporate events. Corporate business accounts for about 25 percent of reservations, Davidson says. A one-day event for a group of 100 costs about $6,500 before food and beverage. The place is yours for the weekend for $10,000. Homes Run provides top-notch, full-service catering for an additional cost.

"A concierge can coordinate with an event planner, arrange for pre-arrival groceries, set up in-house spa treatments, arrange preferred golf tee times… anything guests request," Davidson says. "The concierge meets guests at the residence, takes them on a tour and literally is on call 24/7 while they're in the residence." A major liquor company that is holding its national sales meeting at a Palm Springs resort in November reserved the home for two privately catered affairs. The president of the company and some select executives will stay overnight at the house. The four-bedroom home can house up to eight overnight guests.

Davidson touts the home's Italian-made linens and fine furnishings, but it's the Sinatra mystique that people pay for. The house bends around a piano-shaped backyard pool that Los Angeles Times reporter and Sinatra aficionado J.R. Moehringer says is the nexus around which Twin Palms was meant to revolve.

"The pool is where Sinatra liked to hang, drink, talk, entertain, and where his legendary friends sometimes entertained him in unexpected ways. Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo staged a watery makeout session here one night," Moehringer writes.

Homes Run rents other Palm Springs properties with celebrity panache, including Sandacre, a five-bedroom Mediterranean villa where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio once lived behind 15-foot wooden gates and which Davidson says can host a sit-down dinner for 500. "It's a huge draw for corporate events because of the size and what it can provide for an event," he says.

Location doesn't ensure an enthralling off-site experience, but stepping outside of the ordinary and renting a pad like Twin Palms sure doesn't hurt your chances of creating something memorable. As the fiery Ava Gardner wrote in her 1990 autobiography, "Maybe it's the air, maybe it's the altitude, maybe it's just the place's goddamn karma, but Frank's establishment in Palm Springs, the only house we really could ever call our own, has seen some pretty amazing occurrences."

Click the play button in the movie above to view a video profile of a property
with as much personality as The Chairman himself.

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For information on renting Twin Palms or other luxury homes from Homes Run,
visit www.homesrun.net or e-mail rdavidson@homesrun.net.
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