{{short description|Historic house in California, United States}} {{Use American English|date=July 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox NRHP | name = Frank Sinatra House<!--Please maintain its NRHP name here--> | nrhp_type = | image = Frank Sinatra House - Palm Springs 02.jpg | caption = | location = 1148 E. Alejo Rd.<br>Palm Springs, California | coordinates = {{coord|33|49|52|N|116|32|01|W|display=inline,title}} | locmapin = California#USA | area = | built = 1947 | architect = E. Stewart Williams | architecture = Mid-century modern | added = December 27, 2016 | mpsub = [https://web.archive.org/web/20180527120721/https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/MC100000457.pdf Architecture of E. Stewart Williams MPS] | refnum = 16000893<ref name=nris>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/upload/weekly-list-2017-national-register-of-historic-places.pdf|title=National Register of Historic Places Program: Weekly List|date=January 6, 2017|publisher=National Park Service|access-date=2018-05-26}}</ref> }}
'''Twin Palms''', also known as the '''Frank Sinatra House''', at 1148 East Alejo Rd is a mid-century modern house in the Movie Colony East neighborhood of Palm Springs, California.<ref name="Meeks">{{cite book|last1=Meeks|first1=Eric G.|title=The Best Guide Ever to Palm Springs Celebrity Homes|date=2014|orig-year=2012|publisher=Horatio Limburger Oglethorpe|isbn=978-1479328598|pages=139–40, 143}}</ref> The house was designed by E. Stewart Williams, to a commission from the American singer and actor Frank Sinatra. The house was Williams's first residential commission.
==History== Sinatra started coming to Palm Springs in the late 1940s. He had been told about it by his close friend, the composer Jimmy Van Heusen, who had stopped for fuel there while flying to Los Angeles. Van Heusen told Sinatra of the beauty of the desert later that day, and Sinatra insisted that they fly there that evening. Fellow acquaintances of Sinatra's who had also started frequenting Palm Springs in the 1940s included Lana Turner and Dinah Shore, and the actress Ava Gardner who was to become his second wife.<ref name="AD">{{cite web|url=http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/frank-sinatra-palm-springs-california-house-article|title=AD Revisists Frank Sinatra's Palm Springs Compound|author=David McClintick|publisher=Architectural Digest|date=30 November 1998|accessdate=16 December 2015}}</ref> On 1 May 1947 Sinatra walked into the offices of E. Stewart Williams, wearing a white sailor cap and eating an ice cream cone, and requested that the firm build him a Georgian style house as a weekend residence; he had recently signed a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and had made his first $1 million.<ref name=GuardNov05>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/nov/01/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries|title=Obituary: E. Stewart Williams|date=1 November 2005|work=The Guardian|accessdate=16 December 2015}}</ref> Feeling that the Georgian style was unsuitable for the extremes of the desert environment, Williams showed Sinatra two architectural drawings, one of the Georgian design, and the other of a single-storey modern house. Sinatra chose the modern design, and the house was to be Williams's first residential commission. Williams's brother and architectural partner, Roger, later said that he was "so glad" that Sinatra chose the modern design, believing that "We'd have been ruined if we'd been forced to build Georgian in the desert".<ref name=GuardNov05/> Sinatra demanded that the house be completed in time for a Christmas party he intended to host.
The house was eventually finished shortly before the new year at a cost of $150,000. Sinatra lived in the house from its completion in 1947 to 1954, and sold it in 1957. Before selling it, Sinatra rented the house to Moss Hart so that he and Judy Garland could re-write ''A Star is Born''.<ref name="Meeks"/> Twin Palms was subsequently photographed by Julius Shulman.<ref name="TP">{{cite web|url=http://www.sinatrahouse.com/about-twin-palms/|title=Twin Palms – History|publisher=Twin Palms|accessdate=16 December 2015}}</ref>
The house was later occupied by a Texas couple for 43 years who let it become dilapidated, until its 1997 sale for $135,000. It was subsequently sold in 2000 for $1,345,000 and for $2.9 million in 2005.<ref name="Baker2008">{{cite book|author=Christopher P. Baker|title=Explorer's Guide Palm Springs & Desert Resorts: A Great Destination|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dtUqQKw2H9EC|year= 2008|publisher=The Countryman Press|isbn=978-1-58157-971-0|page=106}}</ref><ref name="Kaplan2010">{{cite book|author=James Kaplan|title=Frank: The Making of a Legend|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=guPQPm02vuUC|year=2010|publisher=Little, Brown Book Group|isbn=978-0-7481-2250-9|page=176}}</ref> Twin Palms was offered for sale in 2010 for $3.25 million.<ref name="FenwickHusselby2010">{{cite book|author1=Jolyon Fenwick|author2=Marcus Husselby|title=Einstein's Watch: Being an Unofficial Record of a Year's Most Ownable Things|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FS1hQNQ2fEUC&pg=PA106|date=2010|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=978-1-84668-344-2|pages=106–}}</ref>
==Design== Twin Palms is a single-story residential building, 4,500sq ft in size with 4 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms, constructed around long horizontal lines framed with steel and aluminum and windows that stretch to the ground. The house has a flat and slightly sloping roof, and a piano shaped swimming pool, the design of which was entirely accidental. The house is named for the two palm trees that stand next to it. The house would become an early emblematic example of a style known as desert modernism.
==See also== * 70588 Frank Sinatra Drive, Sinatra's Rancho Mirage, CA residence from 1956 to 1995
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Official website|http://www.sinatrahouse.com/}}
Category:E. Stewart Williams buildings Category:Frank Sinatra Category:Houses completed in 1947 Category:Modernist architecture in California Category:Buildings and structures in Palm Springs, California Category:Tourist attractions in Palm Springs, California Category:National Register of Historic Places in Riverside County, California Category:Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in California Category:Historic sites and districts in Palm Springs, California Category:1947 establishments in California