Frank Sinatra's Desert Home: Peek Inside

It's the centennial of the Chairman's birth; remember him with a visit to his Palm Springs abode.

THE CHAIRMAN AT HOME: Some locations are forever associated with particular singers or song styles, and to enter the building and not hear what you're expecting to hear can be rather discombobulating. Stroll into a carnival and you're likely to experience some plinky calliope. Walk into a ballpark and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" might be thrumming from the loudspeakers behind homeplate. And should you find yourself sauntering into an old-school, mid-century, red-booths-and-strong-martinis steakhouse, it will not surprise you, at all, to hear Mr. Frank Sinatra crooning on the sound system. In fact, there are few places that identify with a particular singer more, and any performer would love to earn that sort of location-based cachet, though it is hard to achieve. Still, there are places that are even more associated with the Chairman of the Board, even beyond those booth-and-steak joints where Mr. Sinatra's song reign: His own homes, for one. True, it is rather easier to enter an open-to-the-public steakhouse vs. a private home once owned by the superstar, but that will all change on Sunday, Oct. 11 when Twin Palms, Mr. Sinatra's Palm Springs estate, throws the doors wide for an afternoon of tours.

E. STEWART WILLIAMS... served as the architect on the 1947 gem -- good guess -- and the property received a Class 1 Historic Site designation in 2011. The tours, which run a few times during the day, last about 45 minutes and cost forty bucks to join. You're right -- the Modernism Week Fall Preview is going down around town that weekend, so you're liable to see tour goers rocking some vintage duds, the kind that Mr. Sinatra's guests might have, back in the day. Oh, and you do know that this is the centennial year of his birth? There are special doings throughout 2015 in honor of his legacy, including a Grammy Museum exhibit in downtown LA, but only a few fans will get to peek inside his desert getaway. Will that be you? Slide your fedora over one eye, hold your jacket over your shoulder by a finger, and snap your fingers, swing cat-style, all the way to Palm Springs.

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