Wednesday, November 07, 2018

Palm Springs: day 7

On Fri we had breakfast at home, then headed to our 2nd home tour:  Twin Palms, the Palm Springs home of Frank Sinatra. The docent said the architect was new at the time Sinatra contracted him to design his home.  Sinatra wanted a colonial style home but the architect was afraid designing one in Palms Springs would effectively end his career, so he persuaded Sinatra to accept a completely different design with custom touches which blends beautifully into the community.

Twin Palms got its name from these 2 tall palm trees in the back yard

The docent also said that this home is not a 'time capsule'.  The current furniture and decor in the home did not belong to Sinatra. Apparently the home was empty and in disrepair at some point, and the buyer of the home was unaware it once belonged to Sinatra.
Master bedroom

The guest bathroom is completely clad in smokey mirrors.  My guess is that this wall treatment was applied in the 70s.
Below the modern flat screen TV is the original stereo sound equipment believed to have been used by Sinatra. Bi-fold doors close to hid the equipment when entertaining.
This is the living room.  Behind the 2 arm chairs and side table is a fireplace, obviously not used with this furniture arrangement.

Guest bedroom with cone shaped fireplace and flame style sconces.

I love the lighting on both sides of the mirror

Another guest bedroom with a unique fireplace


I'm in love with this breakfast room chandelier which resembles a collection of tom-tom drums!
I love all the textures in the dining area with the wood ceiling, stack stone wall, terrazzo floor and sculptural light fixture.
The 3 of us agreed the home wasn't as large or glamorous as we'd expected, but its design was very cool, especially for 1947.  One of the custom touches the architect added for Sinatra is the openings in the breezeway roof.  This was done so that the shadows would create a piano keyboard effect.
While its not as apparent in this photo due the angle from which I took it, the pool is in the shape of a grand piano.

 The front of the home featured a circular driveway.

Following the Twin Palms tour we headed over to McCormick Classic Car to view some of the cars they'll be auctioning soon.  Sorry that many of these photos are partial car shots.  Because the cars were not parked to be photographed it was difficult to get shots of the entire car in many cases.  Hopefully you'll these anyway, as we did.
Love the color of this mid-50s Chevy

Thunderbird

Rolls Royce

Thurnderbird

Rambler wagon


AMC woody wagon

Ranchero

Rolls Royce

Continental

Buick

Corvette


Camaro SS convertible

Next we went for a little road trip to explore the towns just outside Palm Springs.  We took hwy 111 which goes in a south easterly direction and drove through Cathedral City (which Spouse accidentally called Cathedral Ceiling!), Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, and La Quinta.  On the way back we stopped at Del Taco for a quick lunch before heading back to the house for pool and spa time.

After getting ourselves cleaned up we went to Wangs for 'Boys Night Out' happy hour but we didn't stay too long because the music was too loud.  So then we moved onto Hunters for another drink, then walked over to Ruby's Diner for dinner. Then we walked over to Chill Bar to see what was going on there. Back at the house we sat out by the pool for a little while before going to bed.


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