Listing of the Day
Location: Old Las Palmas, Palm Springs, California
Price: $4.8 million
Old Hollywood glamour lives on at this 1960s Palm Springs house, which belongs to Karen Haines, founder of premium vodka cocktail brand Spa Girls Cocktails.
The gated property in the celebrity haven of Old Las Palmas is a glass-wrapped single-story home with an outdoor pool and large lawn grounds. It was made for entertaining, with its sweeping reception rooms, majestic palm tree gardens and impressive mountain backdrop.
Ms. Haines—who launched her ready-to-drink canned vodka cocktail business in 2017—described her house as “James Bond meets ‘Valley of the Dolls,’” referring to the 1967 film about the entertainment industry.
The walled and gated front garden has towering palm trees.
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Villa De Leone, as it is known, has a mid-century design with stylings that draw on Hollywood’s golden age. It has extravagant features, including an impressive double-door entrance with water fountains, classical columns and unfinished interior marble walls. It has a freestanding stone fireplace in the living room, a vintage dining room chandelier, mirrored walls and a covered, column-lined pool terrace. Its main rooms have wide pool and garden views.
In the Palm Springs house, Ms. Haines and her husband, Chris, have created a “British Room,” featuring Pop Art, a collection of vintage racing motorcycles and a Union Jack flag carpet. There’s an adjoining mirrored bar area. It also has a recording studio where rows of electric guitars are displayed.
“My husband and I curated every detail on our own. Once you are in the house, you do not want to leave,” Ms. Haines said. “The house is filled with our favorite things—from art to music and it’s an entertainer’s dream. We have had some incredible parties, I must say.”
This soundproof music room, filled with musical instruments, was designed for composing and playing music.
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Ms. Haines has owned the home since 2012.
The four-bedroom walled-garden property was designed and built in 1962 for former TV executive Bob Marx, the son of Gummo Marx of the Marx Brothers.
Stats
The 4,278-square-foot detached house stands on a 0.45-acre plot. It has four bedrooms (two have been converted into a home office and an entertainment room), two and a half bathrooms, a kitchen, two living rooms and a dining room.
Amenities
In addition to the freeform pool, the property has a state-of-the-art recording studio and a chef’s kitchen. It has large, established front and rear gardens, filled with mature palm trees. It has a walled and gated property line and a double garage.
Design Notes
In 2015 and 2018, Villa De Leone has featured twice on Palm Springs Modernism Week, the annual festival celebrates the city’s mid-century design and celebrity history. “We were thrilled that in 2018 we were referred to as the ‘fan favorite’ from the previous tour, which is why we were asked again to participate,” Ms. Haines said.
Neighborhood Notes
The house lies in the Old Las Palmas neighborhood, about a mile from downtown Palm Springs and its main amenities. It is the first and oldest community to be built in Palm Springs in the mid 1920s and is known for its large number of celebrity homes.
Agent: John Campbell, Keller Williams Luxury
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