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Sunnylands Center and Gardens

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Sunnylands Center and Gardens was designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners in the late 2000s. It is surrounded by a nine-acre art garden planted with more than 70,000 arid-climate plants and trees. Landscape architect James Burnett said that the design was inspired by the Annenberg’s collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

Visitors to Sunnylands Center and Gardens can enjoy a variety of free public programs. The programs include guided garden walks, exhibitions, a selection of 20th century sculptures, films, and multi-media kiosks. The interior of the Center’s Great Room, with a camera-ready view of Mount St. Jacinto, was designed by Michael Smith, best known for his work decorating the residential quarters of the Obama White House. The gift shop features a selection of items related to Sunnylands. A café features light lunches, coffee, tea, and snacks.

The Historic Estate

The 15-acre Center and Gardens is the starting point for tours of the 200-acre historic estate . Tickets for tours must be purchased online.

The historic house and grounds were completed in 1966. The house was designed by A. Quincy Jones, a pioneer of midcentury modern architecture. The estate contains thousands of trees, 11 man-made lakes, a tennis court, and a nine-hole golf course designed by Dick Wilson. It was the winter residence of Walter and Leonore Annenberg.

The Annenberg’s left the historic residence – where they entertained seven U.S. presidents, British royalty, celebrities, and international leaders – in a public trust to be forever operated as a high-level retreat center devoted to international understanding and the public good. Since their passing, The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands has hosted meetings that address serious issues facing the nation and the world.

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Return to Sunnylands

First in an eight-part series.

Linda Meierhoffer January 31, 2011 Real Estate

In the latter part of the 20th century, the name Annenberg epitomized glittering parties, elegant Sunday brunches, and holiday fetes attended by the top echelon of the entertainment and political worlds. Limousines, often accompanied by Secret Service detail, snaked up the drive beyond the pink wall framing the Annenberg estate, known as Sunnylands.

Presidents from Eisenhower to Bush, royalty from Princess Grace to Queen Elizabeth, domestic and foreign dignitaries from Colin Powell to Margaret Thatcher visited Walter and Leonore Annenberg in Rancho Mirage. It perhaps should come as no surprise, given the fact that both Walter and Leonore at one time held the title of ambassador.

Such was their influence in business; philanthropy; and the promotion of education, the arts, communication, and peace that the couple established a founda-tion to ensure Sunnylands survived them (Walter died in 2002, Leonore in 2009).

The property, encompassing not only the residential grounds, but also a newly built visitors center, is scheduled to open to the public in November. Last month, in conjunction with the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands hosted its first private meeting for a select group of filmmakers from around the world in the interest of encouraging socially relevant cinema.

“Retreats could take many forms,” says Geoffrey Cowan, president of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, “like a Camp David-type meeting where there’s a negotiation with the Americans, Palestinians, and Israelis to work out a peace agreement. Or it could be a group of scientists who get together to address an end to world hunger or problems with energy and water. Or it could be a meeting that leads to the creation of an institution like the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund.” The signature goal is straightforward: “To Lee and Walter, the informality of small groups of interesting people coming together would accomplish wonders,” says Diane Deshong, one of Leonore’s daughters.

MEETING OF THE MINDS

Long before Walter was Richard Nixon’s ambassador to Britain and Leonore held the ambassador-ranked title Chief of Protocol in Ronald Reagan’s administration, they were two young people from wealthy families who dealt with the same difficulties faced by the not so wealthy. Walter wanted to make his mother and seven sisters proud after his father, Moses, went to prison for tax evasion and died shortly thereafter.

“One of [Walter’s] sayings was, ‘Adversity tests us from time to time, and it is inevitable that this testing continues during life,’” recalls Michael Comerford, who served as the Annenbergs’ butler and house manager for 40 years.

Walter took the reins of Triangle Publications, his father’s debt-ridden company, and turned it into a communications giant. TV Guide and Seventeen were two of his most successful publications.

“In his time, he was one of the true innovators of the magazine world,” Cowan says. In Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg, author Christopher Ogden writes, “Walter had built his business in part on the notion of ‘essentiality.’ Anyone interested in business had to take The Wall Street Journal; in horse racing, the Daily Racing Form; in television, TV Guide. They were the nation’s three essential publishing businesses, and Walter owned two of them.”

But by the mid-1980s, there were dozens of teen magazines and a proliferation of gambling casinos, which led to a tighter market for Seventeen and a decreased interest in horse racing. Annenberg sold much of Triangle to Rupert Murdoch in 1988 for a jaw-dropping $3 billion, then the most expensive deal in publishing history, with the plan to devote the rest of his life to education and philanthropy, according to The New York Times.

Leonore Cohn was 7 when her mother died and her father couldn’t adequately care for her and her younger sister. In Legacy, Ogden quotes her as saying, “My father gave us away. Nobody knew what to do with us, and we had no place to go.” Their uncle, Harry Cohn (head of Columbia Pictures) sent the girls to boarding school. Later, they lived in the Cohn house, where Leonore learned from her Aunt Rose how to dress with style and entertain VIPs. These traits served her well as U.S. chief of protocol (“the first paying job I’ve ever had,” she told The New York Times); she held the post 11 months.

Both Walter and Leonore were divorced (he once, she twice) before they married each other in 1951 and moved to Walter’s home, Inwood, near Philadelphia, Pa. Leonore (known as Lee to her friends) “was a California girl … born in New York but raised in Los Angeles,” Deshong says. “She loved being on the West Coast.” So the Annenbergs purchased nearly 197 acres of undeveloped desert in 1963 and began building Sunnylands. (In 1967 and 1968, they purchased an additional 727 acres. Approximately 400 acres across the street from the walled estate were subsequently sold; in 1995 and 2001, they donated 4- and 2.5-acre parcels, respectively, to the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert.)

“It was so large at the time that people in Rancho Mirage didn’t want it here,” says Gloria Greer, society editor for Palm Springs Life. “They were afraid it would look like a supermarket!” Opinions softened as the Annenbergs became gracious hosts during the winter. Desert residents coveted invitations to sway on the marble dance floor to the strains of big-name bands.

“They were absolute partners and had such incredible respect for each other,” says Betty Barker, a Palm Desert resident and longtime friend of the couple, especially Leonore. “Most people knew Lee was beautiful and had money, but they didn’t know how brilliant she was.”

“Mom was a proud graduate of Stanford University at a time when there were very few women attending Stanford,” Deshong notes.

According to Cowan, dean emeritus of the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California, the Annenberg mission was “to be of service to all people.”

“Most of all, the Annenbergs loved their country,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She recalls Walter once stating, “My country has been good to me. I must be good to my country.”

And Leonore, Jamieson continues, “loved the meetings that she hosted at Sunnylands at which [Supreme Court] Justices O’Connor, Breyer, and Kennedy provided her with guidance for her Sunnylands Trust project designed to teach high school students the Constitution.”

A HOME OF LOVE

Having worked for Walter’s predecessor in the U.S. ambassador’s London residence, Comerford bore knowledge of high etiquette, fine wines, and formal service when, in 1969, he was offered the position of Sunnylands valet and personal assistant to Ambassador Annenberg.

“I organized the entire household, hiring and replacing staff as needed, arranging weekend dinner parties from family gatherings to big events, including eight New Year’s Eve parties for President Ronald Reagan,” he says.

Through the decades, Comerford came to understand and appreciate his employer’s preferences. Food: an American hamburger or a New England boiled dinner, Irish stew, braised lamb shanks, and pasta. Cards: bridge or poker. Golf partners: “He enjoyed playing with Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, professional golfer Ray Floyd, Ambassador Charles Price, and [Texas businessman] Bobby French,” Comerford reports.

The Annenbergs’ generous philanthropic endeavors also made headlines. Some of Walter Annenberg’s most important contributions were to education. He founded the journalism school at USC and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1990, he donated $50 million to the United Negro College Fund. And in 1993, he attended a White House ceremony at which President Clinton announced the ambassador’s $500 million matching-grant program that ultimately funded 2,400 public schools serving more than 1.5 million students. “The ambassador thought that if you didn’t educate the grade school mind, then by high school, you’d lose them to gangs and drugs,” Comerford says.

Barker met Leonore Annenberg in the early 1950s when the latter lived in Philadelphia and became friends with Barker’s mother. “I was an only child, and my mother had a very empty nest after I moved to Chicago,” Barker says. Then in the late 1970s, Barker ran into Leonore at the Christian Science Church in Palm Desert.

“Neither of us had any idea the other one was living here,” Barker recalls. “From that time forward, we were in touch almost every day, best friends. Christian Scientists all over the world read the same lesson every week, and then we hear it on Sunday. Our habit was to discuss it after we had read it on Monday morning. Then we would sit down together and share what we’d each gotten out of it.”

Although both Walter and Leonore were born into Jewish families, they didn’t practice that faith, celebrating Easter and Christmas with family and friends. “Walter was very understanding, appreciative, and proud of our devotion to our religion,” Barker says. “His sense of humor was always there, too. He called me Ma Barker. I don’t think he ever called me Betty!”

Many friends noticed the special bond between the Annenbergs.

“I still smile when I think of Lee and Walter and their love for each other,” says Evelyn Hall of Indian Wells. “Walter had a twinkle in his eye when he looked at Lee.” Hall recalls when Walter was in a wheelchair at a party and Leonore took his hand and danced around his chair while the music played. On his 90th birthday, with 80 guests present, Walter Annenberg raised his glass and made this toast to his wife, according to Comerford: “The best thing I have done in my life is to marry you, Lee.”

New Year’s Eve parties at Sunnylands were legend among the lucky invitees. “The ladies were in beautiful gowns, and the gentlemen handsome in tuxedos and bow ties,” Hall says. “Lee loved parties and was the ultimate hostess … and enjoyed music. We met presidents, former presidents, governors, Supreme Court justices, first ladies, senators, and congressmen at the Annenbergs.” Although Walter’s public persona could be very formal and dignified, Comerford calls him “a superb conversationalist with dinner guests,” and Barker says he was always the one to take her around and introduce her to others at Sunnylands parties.

The setting itself — vast private grounds with a golf course (nine holes with two sets of tees) and fishing lakes outside and a museum-worthy collection of art inside — created an unparalleled ambiance.

Palm Springs resident Jamie Kabler, the former husband of Leonore’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, says, “My wedding [at Sunnylands] was the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever attended, and I’ve been to White House weddings and weddings all over the world.” Dr. John Harper, then rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church directly across from the White House, performed the ceremony. “He asked me to tell Lee that a church is better set up to witness a ceremony, … and I made the mistake of making that phone call. Lee said, ‘Jamie, if [Sunnylands] was good enough for Barbara and Frank Sinatra [who also were married there], it’s good enough for you.” Kabler laughs. “I learned that Lee had the experience and knew what she was talking about. Even Brooke Astor said, ‘To be invited to Sunnylands was the greatest invitation one could ever have.’”

“Lee was very precise,” Kabler says. “If you were invited at 7 p.m. for a 7:45 dinner, at 7:43 you were walking down the hallway to the dining room.”

According to Mary Perry, Sunnylands’ marketing consultant, such precision carried over to meticulous recordkeeping: “For every piece of art they bought, they kept the receipts and all of the background information. We know that our documentation is correct because it came from the artists.”

Kabler says that when Lee entertained, she thought of everyone involved, from the wait staff to the cook to the guest of honor. “Walter never cared about who people were, but what they were,” Barker says, referring to the ambassador’s consideration of character over title.

Cowan, too, talks about the Annenbergs’ thoughtfulness and the fact that Walter knew his father, Louis G. Cowan, former president of CBS. “Walter was a man of very few words, but one time I was at their house for brunch with my wife. He put his arm on mine and said, ‘Your father was a good man.’ It’s a wonderful, touching statement that’s still meaningful to me today.”

“They never raised their voices with each other,” Kabler declares. “Walter and Lee were truly a team.”

Deshong shares this about her mother and stepfather: “The marriage of Mom and Uncle Walter was a love match.”

MAKING A COMMITMENT

Drive along Bob Hope or Frank Sinatra Drives and the petal pink concrete block wall that marks two sides of Sunnylands’ perimeter lends an air of mystery to this grand estate, named after Moses Annenberg’s summer place in the Poconos, where, it is said, Walter liked to fish with his father. It’s possible that Sunnylands represented a familial bond to Walter, and it certainly became the stable home a young Leonore craved following her mother’s death. “One of her happiest days was when she and Uncle Walter began work on Sunnylands,” Deshong says. “When Sunnylands was finished [in 1966], Mom loved having all the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren come visit.”

Pink oleanders originally provided privacy for the estate. The pink wall, one of the most-asked-about elements at Sunnylands, was a 1990s addition when the oleanders began to die from blight. Leonore asked that the wall match the pink tile roof of the house, and the quintessential California girl told friends the color reminded her of the desert sunrises and sunsets.

“What people don’t know is that they had the greatest greenhouses in the Coachella Valley,” Kabler says. “They were acres in size and were air conditioned fully in the summer and produced thousands of orchids. When you arrived at Sunnylands for the season, those orchids in the house had all been bred and raised on site. Lee sent people her own orchids as presents … She loved cymbidium orchids in purple, white, and coral pink.”

When the gate to Sunnylands opens in November, there will be more to soak up than the sun and the family’s societal connections. Walter and Leonore’s valued causes — education, the arts and sciences, communications, fair political discourse, and world peace — will be center stage as the repurposed property conjures grand possibilities for now and for future generations.

Visitors will learn about the Annenberg history and legacy through a film in the visitors center theater and from kiosks in an exhibition space. They can participate in educational activities, sit on a bench outside and absorb the beauty of the surrounding gardens and mountain views, or enjoy a Zen experience walking in the gardens’ labyrinth. They also can pay a fee to ride electric trams that will ferry them across the golf course (which will remain private except for retreat guests) and past manmade fishing lakes to tour the refurbished Annenberg home. Throughout, they will be introduced to the couple’s passion for the arts, as evidenced by their acquisition of museum-quality paintings, sculptures, and other collectibles.

“There’s a concern because most of the family’s paintings are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York that there are not significant pieces of art here. That’s just not true,” says Perry, referring to the billion-dollar donation of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pieces bequeathed to the museum by Walter Annenberg in 1991. Sculptures by Auguste Rodin, Alberto Giacometti, and Jean (Hans) Arp, as well as silver gilt — all part of the Annenbergs’ personal collection — are just a sample of what will be on display at Sunnylands.

“Mom wanted Sunnylands to be public,” Deshong says. “She chose the architects [for the visitors center] and worked with the plans and budgets long before she died.”

According to Perry, Leonore insisted the center’s main space — with expansive views of the lawn, garden paths, and San Jacinto Mountains — resemble a living room.

“She wanted people to feel welcome here, like they were in her home. I like to say the biggest challenge will be getting people to leave, because it will be so comfortable,” Perry jokes.

“What’s exciting to me and the rest of the community is that Sunnylands isn’t just about what happened in the past. It’s about what’s going to happen here now and in the future.”

Related Article: Remembering a Gracious Couple: A Firsthand Account

Walter and Leonore Annenberg’s Estate Sunnylands - Rancho Mirage CA

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Return to Sunnylands

By Bob Colacello

Photography by Todd Eberle

‘Ronnie and I were never big New Year’s Eve people. But we loved the New Year’s Eves at Sunnylands,” says Nancy Reagan of the annual dinner dances that the late billionaire publisher, philanthropist, and power broker Walter Annenberg and his wife, Lee—short for Leonore—used to give at their plush 200-acre estate in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs. “They were wonderful parties. People came from all over: London, Paris, New York—everywhere.” As Lee Annenberg recalled in her waning years, “We had nine tables, and Tony Rose’s Orchestra, and, boy, did we really have fun.” Among those who made the cut: Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller, Malcolm Forbes, Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, Betsy Bloomingdale, and nearly the entire top rung of the Reagan administration, including Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, National-Security Adviser Colin Powell, and White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker. The Reagans attended 18 times between 1974 and 1993, including all eight years that he was president.

Six other U.S. presidents were also guests at Sunnylands, starting with Dwight Eisenhower, who liked to play golf on the estate’s nine-hole course and fish in its 11 man-made lakes, which would be amply stocked with bass and trout before his visits. Shortly after the 1968 election, a victorious Richard Nixon spent a weekend with the Annenbergs and told Walter he’d like him to be his ambassador to Great Britain; six years later, after resigning the presidency in disgrace, Nixon retreated behind Sunnylands’ eight-foot-high pink stucco walls. After Gerald Ford left the White House, he and Betty built a home in Rancho Mirage and became very close to Walter and Lee. George H. W. Bush hosted an official dinner for Japanese prime minister Toshiki Kaifu at Sunnylands in 1990. Bill and Hillary Clinton were there for Valentine’s Day in 1995, and George and Laura Bush made separate visits, in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

Then there were the royal houseguests: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Princes Charles, Andrew, and Edward, Princess Grace of Monaco, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. The foreign leaders: Margaret Thatcher, Brian Mulroney, Bibi Netanyahu. The Old Guard show folk: Jimmy Stewart, Helen Hayes, Kitty Carlisle Hart. The media powerhouses: Norman Chandler, Donald Graham, Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters. Not to mention Sam Walton, Henry Kissinger, Alan Greenspan, Democratic National Committee chairman Robert Strauss, Republican National Committee co-chairman Anne Armstrong, John Kerry and Teresa Heinz, and Bill and Melinda Gates.

With 22 guest rooms spread out among the 20,000-square-foot main house and three cottages—all designed by A. Quincy Jones, the master of Southern California modernism, and furnished by William Haines and Ted Graber, the Reagan set’s favorite decorators—a shortage of beds was never a problem. Still, it’s hard to think of another American private house where so many important people came together to socialize, exchange ideas, and influence one another in a totally secluded and relaxed atmosphere. Or, for that matter, of another American couple who possessed the wealth, connections, and will to make that happen.

“Sunnylands is an extraordinary place, another world,” says Oscar de la Renta, who spent several weekends there, along with his wife, Annette, and a group that usually included Jayne Wrightsman, Mercedes and Sid Bass, Patty and Gustavo Cisneros, and Philippe de Montebello, then director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As de la Renta notes, one of the highlights of any visit to Sunnylands was the opportunity to see Walter’s collection of more than 50 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces. “Walter thought about where to leave his collection for a very long time,” recalls de la Renta. The Philadelphia Museum of Art was assumed to have the inside track, because the Annenberg family’s publishing company was based in Philadelphia and Walter and Lee lived there six months of each year. In 1991, however, Walter announced that he was donating the collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “He told me he based his decision on where the most people would have the easiest access to the collection,” says de la Renta.

As long as Walter was alive, the Annenbergs retained the right to have the pictures at Sunnylands while they were in residence. After Walter died, in 2002 at age 94, and the Metropolitan took permanent possession of the artworks, Lee had digital copies made that look so real it’s hard to tell the difference. She passed away in 2009, but her high-tech facsimiles are still hanging, in perfect replicas of the original gilt frames.

This month, Sunnylands begins its second life as a nonprofit center for high-level political, cultural, scientific, and educational conclaves—“the Camp David of the West,” as the Annenbergs envisioned it.

Sixteen months before Walter’s death, he and Lee directed the Annenberg Foundation, of which they were the only board members at the time, to establish the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. They provided it with an endowment of $300 million. The foundation’s board is limited to Walter’s blood descendants—his daughter by his first marriage, Wallis Annenberg, and her children—but the Sunnylands board also includes Lee’s daughters by her previous two marriages, Diane Deshong and Elizabeth Kabler, and their children.

The trust’s mission statement sets forth the “Permitted Programs” for which Sunnylands may be used. At the top of the list: “For the President of the United States and the Secretary of State of the United States to bring together world leaders in order to promote world peace and facilitate international agreement.” Five more clauses cover other high government officials as well as leaders in philanthropy, education, medicine, science, the humanities, and the arts. A final clause provides for “public access, on an objective and nondiscriminatory basis, to educate the public on the educational and historical significance of Sunnylands.”

“I’m very happy that we’re opening it to the public,” says Wallis Annenberg proudly. “What a remarkable gathering place! How much history has taken place there!” Guided tours will begin at the 15,000-square-foot visitors’ center, designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners of Los Angeles in a compatible neo-modernist style and situated on 15 acres adjacent to the estate. The house itself has been retrofitted for earthquakes, and the electrical, heating, air-conditioning, and irrigation systems have been updated to cut power and water usage in half—all at an outlay of $60 million, including construction of the visitors’ center. “Sustainability is of major importance to us,” says Wallis, referring to the Annenberg Foundation. “And once you’re inside those gates, and you don’t see any trace of nearby housing or surrounding developments—just lush green lawns stretching into the desert—you know it’s about serenity, isolation, vastness of nature.”

In 1963, Walter, who had inherited The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily Racing Form from his father, Moses Annenberg, in 1942 and founded TV Guide in 1953, and Lee, who had been raised in Beverly Hills by her uncle Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, bought the empty desert scrubland that would become Sunnylands. Located at the intersection of Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope Drives, the entire estate was completed three years later. It cost $5 million, and Walter named it after his parents’ 5,000-acre summer retreat in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.

Lee had asked A. Quincy Jones for a “Mayan roof,” but otherwise the house is quintessentially in his style, with its spacious, open rooms on a single floor and vast stretches of glass walls offering views of the pool, the golf course, and the purple San Jacinto Mountains. Rodin’s bronze Eve was placed—and still stands—in the center of the 6,400-square-foot combined entrance atrium and living room. That was where the major paintings were hung; Van Gogh’s Roses had pride of place over the mantelpiece. Haines and Graber designed virtually every piece of furniture. Long, low, cream-linen sofas were embroidered with pale-blue floral motifs; dark-brown lacquered coffee tables had rare Chinese objects encased under the glass tops. In the passageway to the dining room, an entire wall held an extensive collection of Steuben glass, and impressive examples of Meissen porcelain, Regency gilded silver, and Ming vases were also on display. All of this has been left exactly as it was.

To maintain such grandeur, Walter and Lee employed a household staff of 20 and 30 full-time gardeners. Their first overnight V.I.P. guests, in early 1967, were the Reagans, then California’s brand-new governor and First Lady. Nancy recalls, “We slept in the bedroom that became the Room of Memories. It was then Walter’s mother’s room.” Unfortunately, Sadie Annenberg never laid head to pillow, having died a year before the house was finished. After the Annenbergs returned from London in 1974, carting six years’ worth of photographs of themselves with various dignitaries, they had the room’s windows sealed and began using the space to show off their ever growing accumulation of historic ephemera. Today, visitors to the Room of Memories can see, for example, four decades of the Queen Mother’s framed Christmas cards.

Lee Annenberg, who served as Reagan’s chief of protocol for a year, was nothing if not a perfectionist. “She put colored jelly beans in each of the guest bedrooms to match the décor,” says her daughter Elizabeth Kabler, the founder of New York Center for Living, which helps young people overcome addictions. “On the driving range, they used to pile the balls up in a pyramid. But Walter had that sensibility, too. There’s an aesthetic to Sunnylands, a sense of beauty. It’s a magical kingdom.”

By Charlotte Klein

By Eve Batey

Like other family members, Kabler, whose father was Schenley liquors tycoon Lewis Rosenstiel, attended many of the New Year’s Eve parties. She recalls, “One year, Ginger Rogers and Frank and Barbara Sinatra were invited for after dinner, and they came too soon, so they had to come back. Walter danced with Ginger.”

Kabler’s daughter, Liz, tells me, “I started going when I was five. I was put in my little evening gown and came in toward the beginning and said hello to everybody and danced on Kirk Douglas’s feet.” That was in 1987, the penultimate year of the Reagan presidency, when George H. W. Bush, she says, “was still called Vice President Bush. And I caused quite an uproar, because he’d invited me to draw with him on one of the mornings. So I woke up quite early, and I marched over to his room and started banging on the door. I didn’t know that you just don’t do that to a vice president. But he did come and draw with me.”

In 1998, I was writing an article on Palm Springs for this magazine, and Lee Annenberg’s best friend, Harriet Deutsch, the wife of Sears, Roebuck heir Armand Deutsch, asked Lee to include me in that year’s festivities. By then the party was down to four tables, and the guest list was made up mostly of what remained of the old Reagan kitchen-cabinet group: former ambassador to the Vatican William Wilson; former United States Information Agency chief Charles Wick and his wife, Mary Jane; retired steel magnate Earle Jorgensen, who was 100, and his wife, Marion. The men were in tuxedos, most of the ladies in long black velvet dresses set off with major jewels. Waiters passed sevruga caviar and other fancy hors d’oeuvres. But all that paled in comparison with the art and décor. A huge Monet of irises hung over a sofa flanked by end tables holding pots full of color-coordinated magenta orchids. “Lee has these orchids on these tables year-round,” Ann Douglas, Kirk’s wife, informed me. “I don’t know how she does it.”

After a dinner of quenelles of pike with bay shrimp, chicken Kiev with roasted potato balls, salad and cheese, and an ice-cream bombe for dessert, Lee proposed a toast: “I’d like you all to think for a moment of our beloved Ronnie and Nancy, who can’t be here tonight, and of all the other friends who aren’t here anymore.” Then Walter, 90 and showing his age, stood and toasted Lee. “I am so lucky to have been carried by my wife in the manner I deserve,” he declared. He stood two more times, between speeches by Wilson, Wick, and Charles Price, who had been Reagan’s ambassador to Belgium and Britain, and repeated the same toast, word for word. Each time Lee responded, “Thank you, honey.” Then he and Lee led off the dancing. By 10 after midnight it was all over.

In March 2000, Lee invited me for a weekend. I drove from Los Angeles with Betsy Bloomingdale. As we passed through the security gate and across a bridge over one of the fake lakes, Betsy exclaimed, “Look at those pink petunias!” There were about 5,000 of them. “Oh, what money can do,” she added with a sigh. I was assigned the peach guest room: peach-and-green flowered bedspreads, peach-and-green flowered chaise and armchair, peach chest of drawers and night tables, green desk and desk chair, cream walls, peach-and-cream striped curtains, peach wall-to-wall carpeting, peach wastepaper basket, and, yes, peach jelly beans. In the Game Room, where we joined our fellow houseguests, New York banker Ezra Zilkha and his wife, Cecile, then vice-chairman of the Metropolitan Opera, the color combination was glossy coral and canary yellow. On the bar, two tall glass cylinders contained potato chips and pretzels, which had been stacked one by one in a perfect spiral pattern. It was all too much, and yet somehow chic: 1950s high-modern style carried to dizzying mannerist heights.

Over lunch, the talk was of the battle for the Republican presidential nomination, being fiercely fought between Senator John McCain and then Texas governor George W. Bush. Walter, who could still be quite sharp, had some wise, if cynical, advice for the candidates: “Never let your spoken words reveal your inner thoughts.” Lee added, “I don’t like what Bush and McCain are doing. Al Gore is going to win if they keep this up.”

By then Walter and Lee were already planning for what Sunnylands would become after they were gone. In December 2003, 14 months after Walter was buried on the grounds, newly elected governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and 30 state legislators met at Sunnylands for a conference called “California’s Future.” In 2004, 2007, and 2009, the last time shortly before Lee died and was buried beside her husband, she invited Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Stephen Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy to the estate to help formulate high-school programs on the Constitution sponsored by the Sunnylands trust. The three justices met there again this January to pursue that project with Kathleen Hall Jamison, head of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and program director for the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, to use the new official name. The first “summit,” taking place this month, will be on U.S.-Mexican relations.

Liz Kabler, an art consultant, thinks her grandparents’ estate is perfectly suited for its mission. “When you look through the guest books,” she says, “it’s unbelievable the peaceful tranquillity people felt there. I can’t imagine anybody throwing a fit in anger there. Or not being more amenable to really talking.”

I spoke to her and other family members prior to the grand opening, in February, which drew an impressive crowd, including U.S. chief of protocol Capricia Marshall, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, George Shultz, Barbara Sinatra, Eli Broad, museum directors Michael Govan, Jeffrey Deitch, and Ann Philbin, former ambassadors William Luers, John Gavin, and Robert Tuttle, and former First Son Steve Ford.

‘I’m so excited,” says Diane Deshong, Lee’s daughter from her first marriage, to Las Vegas casino owner Beldon Katleman. “It’s just what Mother and my stepfather would have loved. My desire is for people to know that, as important as Sunnylands was, it was a family residence also. And I think my parents were the happiest—especially Uncle Walter—when it was just he and Mother there. And we loved to be with them. We would go out every Christmas and Easter and Mother’s Day. So it was really our home, too. It’ll never be the same. But it’s the way it should be after Mother and Uncle Walter passed away.”

Will the potato chips still be stacked in spirals?

“We’re never going to be able to maintain it like that,” says Deshong. “But we’re trying to do the best we can to make the retreat participants feel comfortable and have the privacy that I personally think you need to get something accomplished.” Diane’s children, Howard Deshong III, an investment counselor, and Leonore Deshong, an animal-rights activist, were at the opening with their children, who, along with their cousins, will eventually replace their elders on the board. As Diane Deshong explains, “The new generation—our kids and our grandkids—that’s what’s going to give Sunnylands life as time goes on.”

One last note: according to the trust’s mission statement, the master bedroom may be used only by the president of the United States or other heads of state.

Bob Colacello

Royal watch.

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Visiting Sunnylands, Palm Springs's Luxury Getaway for Presidents and Royalty

Even democracies have their kingmakers. And in the United States, there have been few more powerful than the Annenbergs.

You may not have heard of them, but the people who govern the world have depended on their patronage for generations. In the 1960s, billionaire media titan Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore hired architect A. Quincy Jones to create a midcentury-modern residence in the California desert town of Rancho Mirage, two hours' drive east of Los Angeles and 20 minutes east of Palm Springs. From there, the Annenbergs parlayed their fortune into unprecedented political influence. When Richard Nixon fled the White House upon resigning in 1974, this is where he went to decompress: 200 gated, meticulously landscaped acres and a private 9-hole golf course well away from the prying eyes of the press, Sunnylands served for decades as an exclusive desert retreat for the American elite, hosting private parties and dealmaking that made the world spin. The Annenbergs hosted royalty, U.S. presidents, prime ministers, and celebrities. Now anyone can visit. 

Handsome movie star William Haines was voted the top box-office attraction of 1930 by movie distributors, but he was soon forced out of the industry for being gay. But like Walter, Haines was deftly diplomatic—he became a professional interior designer and earned the favor of prickly high-end clients including Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Gloria Swanson, George Cukor, and Frank Sinatra. His work, which humanizes the 25,000-square-foot house via clusters of cozy living spaces, was trendsetting, blending custom furnishings, exquisite French décor, Asian touches, and great paintings. Haines pieces are now prized among design collectors, but at Sunnylands, entire rooms of his work are still intact.

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Sunnylands, the Annenberg Estate House... - Sunnylands Center & Gardens

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Sunnylands, the Annenberg Estate House Tour

First, make sure you make reservations for the House Tour. Tours of the inside are limited. We had a wonderful docent (Lane) for our tour and he is extremely knowledgeable of the midcentury architecture and art/sculptures throughout this 200 acre magnificent estate. It is well worth the price of the ticket ($45) for the 2 hour tour. You can then walk the grounds and the center at your leisure. The memorabilia of the hundreds of presidents, celebrities and foreign dignitaries is impressive but the estate design itself is worth the trip. Recommend this tour.

If you plan on visiting Sunnylands, make sure that you make reservations to tour the house. You can visit the center anytime, but you need reservations to tour the house. It is fantastic.

We enjoyed our tour of Sunnylands. We had no trouble getting tickets at the end of September, we booked one week in advance. Definitely buy tickets in advance. The tour groups are limited to 7 at a time. They drive you around the estate and up to the house front door in a stretched golf cart which was nice, especially since it was very hot out. They don't allow photography inside, claiming for security reasons, I question if that is the real reason. Google images has plenty of interior pictures available so it is a bit late for that. I would not recommend this tour for children or teens, few would really get it, and there are no child friendly activities. It is "don't touch anything" we were even warned not to touch the furnishings or lean on anything. Children under 10 are not permitted on any tour. Parking is free and there was ample when we were there on a Friday. It isn't cheap to tour the house. With a stop at the coffee shop, we spent $130 for the two of us. The food is decent at the casual but pricey café, the menu is very limited, only 5 of the 7 meal options were available for us. They have a nice outdoor seating area, but it was too hot in the sun when we were there. I wouldn't come just for the café. As much as I enjoyed it, the feeling that we were being treated as lower class people being allowed a glimpse into the lives of superior people didn't escape me. Note our GPS takes us about a 1/5 mile south away from the entrance, it happened to other people as well. The signed driveway is halfway between Frank Sinatra Drive and Gerald Ford Drive on Bob Hope Drive. Please tap the "thanks" button if I helped.

Beautiful grounds make this a very pleasant place to visit. The plants and trees are laid out so that it makes a wonderful place to walk through and there is a tram ride through the main grounds which is well explained to the riders.

Beautiful grounds. We took the house tour, well worth it. We were sorry no photographs were allowed inside the home, but that's understandable considering it's used a retreat.

This 35,000 sq. ft. house on 200 acres, which has been the host to presidents, cabinet members, the Supreme Court, the British Court, leaders and entertainers of the world is now open to the public for tours. The story of the Annenbergs is amazing. Lithuanian Jewish immigrant background. They rose to the heights of American wealth and influence. They gave billions in philanthropy and their trust continues to do so. Both husband and wife served as US Ambassadors to England. How to visit: You can visit the visitor center and walk around the grounds at no cost. The visitor center is a museum itself and there is a 20 minute video about the Annenbergs that is also free to watch. But I recommend two tours. The first tour should be reserved in advance. It is the house tour and costs $45 per person. It lasts 90 minutes and takes you into this amazing home and it's fabulous collection of art. The second tour right now can only be booked on site. It costs $21 and takes you on a ride around the estate. It lasts 45 minutes. I did both back to back and highly recommend the combination. There are other seasonal tours, a free bird walking tour, and maybe some other special tours. Check the website for more information. There is a small gift shop and cafe at the visitor center.

Sunnylands Center & Gardens

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The Annenberg Estate in Rancho Mirage—also known as Sunnylands—was hidden from the public’s eye behind a pink wall for decades until it opened for tours in 2012. The main home features a unique style of midcentury modern architecture. The estate is used as a retreat where world leaders can come together and work toward world peace and the resolution of global conflicts.

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Sunnylands sneak peak, "sunnylands" shines for gardens & design.

Philanthropists and distinguished public servants, Walter and Leonore Annenberg, left behind their blush-brushed residence to benefit thought leaders and inspire the public. The 200-acre Sunnylands estate is an interior and exterior work of art framed by the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains. Presidents, foreign dignitaries and iconic celebrities have all found refuge here and as of March 2012, us plebes can get a taste of the 1% living too. The newly renovated visitor center is open to the public Thursdays through Sundays for the enjoyment of art, history and greenspace. It’s recommended to plan ahead and purchase tickets ($35) for an intimate tour of the mid-century modern house and manicured grounds to truly appreciate the impact of interior design, architecture, and landscaping.

Strolling Through Sunnylands Gardens

It doesn’t surprise me that the landscape architect of Sunnylands Gardens, James Burnett, has received a 2012 ASLA professional award for his design of this amazing property. I’ve never heard of Mr. Burnett and I don’t know anything about professional landscaping, but it was immediately apparent to me on my visit to Sunnylands last spring that the grounds had been arranged by a perfectionist. This is arid, desert landscaping. Much depends on strategic plant placement and an eye for texture and perspective, for one cannot always count on lushly blooming foliage. Strolling through Sunnylands Gardens (there are 1.25 miles of walking paths) is a multi-sensory experience. Streams and reflecting pools, flaming yellow palo verde trees, barrel cacti, mesquite, and other native plants have all been artfully arranged to compete for your attention. I recommend spending at least a couple hours here. Stay for lunch: The salads are divine, and reasonably priced. Sunnylands Center and Gardens is open Thursday through Sunday, and admission is free, as is parking. You can purchase tickets (way in advance) for tours of the house and for guided birdwatching, but if you’re content to simply enjoy the spectacular gardens and dine on a fresh salad, you can’t beat the price. For years, Sunnylands has hosted world leaders on numerous occasions for private retreats, providing an amiable atmosphere for high-level political discussions and problem-solving sessions. Is world peace possible? May it be.

Time Warp in Palm Springs

Retreat from the oppressive mid-day heat at Sunnylands, the former Annenberg Estate in Rancho Mirage that includes a 25,000 square foot midcentury modern estate housing several major works of art, guest cottages, a private 9-hole golf course, and 11 man-made lakes. Take a guided tour (you must book it in advance) and see where the Annenbergs (publishing money: the Mr. A founded TV Guide) hosted multiple celebrities and political powerhouses. The old photos, notes and personal objects on display are fascinating. The Perfect Palm Springs Weekend: http://bit.ly/1eBYnRl

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Sunnylands Home Tour Highlights

Visiting Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage is always a calming experience – with its Zen cacti gardens, a great lawn, outdoor cafe, and small gallery space showcasing Modernist designers and artists. The former Annenberg estate,  Sunnylands (just a short drive from Palm Springs), has welcomed presidents and royalty since the 1960s, thanks to billionaire publishing magnate Walter Annenberg, who created TV Guide, Seventeen Magazine, and one of the first TV stations out of Philadelphia. Most notable is the introductory 35-minute film showcasing the numerous presidents and celebs who brought the estate to life.

Walk the wildflower field or Great Lawn gardens and marvel at the history of this former meeting place where major ideas have been exchanged, often over golf or dinner, and international relations and laws sorted out and discussed. Admire more than 70 species of arid-adapted plants amongst twin reflecting pools filled with river stones and contemplate life on the Obama bench or while winding through a labyrinth. The museum and gardens are open Wednesday through Sunday and admission is free.

But to dive deeper into the past, book a home tour of the Annenberg’s historic winter home, a 25,000 square-foot midcentury modern masterpiece designed by architect A. Quincy Jones and interior designers William Haines and Ted Graber.

Whizz by the nine-hole golf course, many man-made lakes, and outdoor sculptures on a shuttle with 6 other guests through the 200-acre estate. You’ll get a chance to walk through the home’s grand atrium (where parties often happened); the Room of Memories, which houses photographs and correspondence from England’s royal family; and the guest bedrooms where famous visitors, including President Ronald and Nancy Reagan, stayed while visiting the Annenbergs. This midcentury modern estate feels like a true American royal residence.

Make sure to book your tour a month in advance as tickets go on sale on the 15th of each month at 9 AM and sell out quickly. Tours operate Wednesday – Sunday . The cost is $55.00 per person plus a service fee. Photos are not allowed on the inside of the home.

Besides the home tour, birding and historic walking tours are offered for a fee. Many other activities are offered complimentary, such as yoga on the Great Lawn each Friday at 10 AM, Tai Chi on Saturdays, and free kids activities on Sundays.

Take Note of These Five Things on the Sunnylands Home Tour:

An Art Collection to Dream About

Grand holiday parties were thrown in the living room entrance foyer, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows and a massive art collection consisting of all the masters one might hope to see in a museum. Today, some of the framed famous art still exists at Sunnylands. Maybe you can spot a Monet, Rodin, Van Gogh, Giacometti, or Picasso? Most of the extensive collection has been donated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Admire fine and decorative arts that Walter and Leonore Annenberg carefully placed in their home. The Sunnylands website reports that “Decorative objects include works by Tiffany & Co., Lalique, Meissen Porcelain, Boucheron, Boehm Porcelain, and Steuben glass. Assembling an important Chinese ceramic, stone, and metalwork collection was among their favorite collecting activities. These works span the Tang dynasty to the Republic of China era and include cloisonné figures and furniture, sancai-glazed funerary figures, jade and jadeite figures, and export porcelain. Other tabletop objects include selections of Georg Jensen tableware and royal pedigree English silver-gilt.”

Admire shelves of etched glassware. Outside, pose with the gold sculpture that looks like mid-century bronze splayed wings. Admire the new metal flat geometric moving sculpture in the pool that may make tunes when the wind hits it just right.

Attention to Design and Architecture

Notice the cantilever (large overhang) entrance reminiscent of Palm Springs’s former gas station (now Visitor Center) as you arrive, next to the circular driveway flanked by a 20-foot tall replica of a Mexican column at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, designed by artists José and Tomás Chávez Morado.

Design lovers will be in awe of the worldly treasures inside. Take note of the embroidered couch, a backgammon table, and mosaic-tiled floors at the entrance that appear to showcase horoscope signs.

Mint green, yellow, and blush pink were beloved hues in this household as many rooms reminded me of a candy dish. The guest house offers bedrooms each with a different color theme and matching colored jelly beans – most likely a treat offered during the Reagan era. The wallpaper prints (today reminiscent of many Palm Springs homes) match the bedspread colors and the swooping lengthy drapes. All rooms feel like you could step outside as large floor-to-ceiling windows let in that sunny desert light creating a feeling of being one with the outdoors.

Take note of the symmetry all around such as the placement of furniture – a beloved design practice of the era. The full-length windows allowed the Annenbergs to enjoy the many birds that settled in the desert environment as special feeders were placed for viewing and even amplified into the house for listening pleasure with microphones.

Don’t miss the rose garden and mature cacti that don the estate’s landscape, rising higher than the rooftops like art themselves. Palm trees and clouds reflect like a painting in the manmade lakes. And speaking of rooftops, gaze up when you are outside to admire the roof with what looks like a pink upside-down basket, presumably designed to echo the color of the nearby mountains at sunrise and sunset.

Appreciate the entertaining that went on in and out of the kitchen

Notice the beloved Celedon green color even evident in the China collection still intact in the service kitchen. Check out some of the old-school menus served to see what may have been popular dishes of the time. In one photo, you can see famous chefs like Bobby Flay serving important men seated at a long table. In one photo a young John Kerry is seated across Barack Obama and Xi Jinping and other diplomats.

Absorb history by looking at the room of old photos

The whole house feels like a living museum, especially the Room of Memories filled with framed photographs on the walls and shelves and tables – even Christmas cards from every year saved (and some framed) from the royal family. Find pictures of Queen Elizabeth and family photos of Princess Di and Charles with their sons signed. Look for photos of Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, and many presidents, celebrities, and dignitaries of the time who visited, made deals, and “partied” here. Look for autographed books and an original portrait very valuable and very old painting of George Washington.

Fascinating Facts to Ponder

The Annenbergs are buried on this property in a Mausoleum – away from the home. If you own a certain amount of land in California, you can be buried on your property.

Obama golfs here every year but doesn’t stay here. Both Trump and Biden were invited to stay here but both declined.

Mr. Annenberg sold his many business endeavors like TV Guide, Reader’s Digest, Teen Magazine, and more in the 1980s for around $3.2 billion (over $8B in today’s dollars).

What was their connection with the royal family? While their first meetings with The Queen were at formal diplomatic events, the Annenbergs fostered a friendship with several Royals during their 5-year stay in London while Walter was the U.S. Ambassador to England, from 1969 to 1974.

Check out the plaque outside the front door presented to Mr. and Mrs. Annenberg in March 1990 from the City of Rancho Mirage, declaring Sunnylands a Historic Site, in recognition of the official dinner given by President George Bush in honor of Prime Minister of Japan Toshiki Kaifu.

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A Retreat for the Rich and Powerful Is Opening Its Doors to the World

By Adam Nagourney

• Jan. 23, 2012

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Few places in the world have drawn guests like those who made it behind the pink walls of Sunnylands, the Walter H. Annenberg estate here in the desert.

Ronald Reagan celebrated New Year’s Eve here 18 times, one of seven presidents who signed the Annenberg guest book. Richard M. Nixon retreated to Sunnylands after his resignation. It was the place to go for celebrities luxuriating in nearby Palm Springs: Frank Sinatra married his fourth wife here. Even Queen Elizabeth II was a regular.

Now Sunnylands, built by Walter and Leonore Annenberg 46 years ago, is about to lift its veil. In February, under the terms of a trust set by the Annenbergs in 2002, Sunnylands will open as what is being heralded as a Camp David of the West Coast, a place for national and foreign dignitaries and diplomats to gather for summit meetings and retreats.

And in March, the estate — a striking example of midcentury modern architecture, hidden in a stunning setting in the desert and ringed by mountains — will for the first time be open for public viewing. A 17,000-square-foot visitor center, built to accommodate this new public chapter of a once-private oasis, has risen as part of the transformation envisioned by Mr. Annenberg, an ambassador to England under Nixon who made much of his fortune as the publisher of TV Guide.

“I suppose we could have opened Sunnylands as some sort of museum or mausoleum,” said Wallis Annenberg, who is Mr. Annenberg’s daughter and the president of the Annenberg Foundation . “But I thought that would be a terrible waste.”

The extent to which the ambitious public policy goals of the Annenbergs will come to life — think visiting presidents sleeping in the Annenbergs’ canary yellow master bedroom, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and speakers piping in bird chirps from the feeder outside — will become clear in the months ahead. The Annenbergs’ considerable connections (not to mention the $300 million endowment) bodes well for its success, and three summit meetings have been scheduled for the spring, including one on relations between the United States and Mexico that involves 22 policy leaders and officials from both countries.

“We have had a number of discussions with the White House, State Department and Congressional leadership,” said Geoffrey Cowan, the president of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, emphasizing that the estate will be made available to leaders from all political parties.

At the same time, the public is going to be able to get a glimpse of a world that was once shut off from all but the most high-powered of world leaders and the cream of Palm Springs celebrity society — Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Bob Hope, Truman Capote, Gregory Peck, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire and Clark Gable — and the titans, most of them Republican, who were part of the Annenberg world.

Sunnylands is about 10 miles from Palm Springs here in the Coachella Valley, a place better known these days for its annual music festival, in a neighborhood of streets that hark back to its Rat Pack past: Bob Hope Drive, Gerald Ford Drive, Frank Sinatra Drive and Dinah Shore Drive.

During a tour of the property that included guest cottages, the art collection and archival material from the glory years, the bustle of construction and last-minute tidying-up suggested the imminence of the official opening. It was late afternoon, and the sun was setting over the San Jacinto Mountains, casting the grounds in shadows and ever-changing desert hues.

“Now you are going behind the pink wall,” Mr. Cowan said as a golf cart bounced along a dirt road and over the hills of the nine-hole golf course that surrounds the home. At that moment, passing the gates to the grounds, the rest of the world disappears. There is no sign of life or development, “just lush green lawns stretching to the desert in the east, and the stunning San Jacinto Mountains in the west,” Ms. Annenberg noted.

A New Life for a Former Home to Luminaries

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The estate fills 200 acres, its golf course spotted with 850 olive trees, 11 artificial lakes and a scattering of sculptures. There are precisely two palms, a reluctant ambassadorial bow to the iconic tree of Southern California. As for the estate’s first couple, well, they never really left: their remains rest in a pink mausoleum on a hillside. Mr. Annenberg died in 2002, and Mrs. Annenberg died seven years later.

The 25,000-square-foot house, designed by A. Quincy Jones , includes soaring ceilings and clean lines and a vast open living room where every window seems to spill onto the lawn and gardens. There are 22 bedrooms for guests, plus the Annenberg suite, reserved for visiting presidents and heads of state. Most of the art collection that lavished the walls of this home — works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Andrew Wyeth, Monet — was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York upon Mr. Annenberg’s death. Digital reproductions now hang in their place.

The estate fairly glows with history, as was evident during a leisurely tour of the rooms of the main house, the guest wings and other cottages. President George Bush used to leave a fishing pole by his bedroom window for early morning excursions to a lake, stocked with bass, outside his room. “The reason he liked to stay in this room is because he liked to fish,” said Mary Perry, who heads community relations for Sunnylands.

Reagan used to play golf on his weekends. “My first memories of going there was for their New Year’s Eve parties: I played golf with President Reagan there on the 31st of December,” said George P. Shultz, the former secretary of state, who will be here for the opening. “It was fantastic. That became an annual event.”

“The guest list was really exciting and lots of fun — listening to Bob Hope tell jokes and Dolores Hope sing,” Mr. Shultz said. “The Annenbergs made a point of somehow causing interesting conversations to take place.”

A wall in the Room of Memories — it will be on the tour — is dedicated to a collection of Christmas cards from Queen Elizabeth. Next stop: the Game Room. “Walter and Frank Sinatra would share movies that came in from Hollywood with their friends here,” said Geoffrey Baum, Sunnylands’ communications director, motioning to an old-fashioned projector behind a wall. “The screen would come down in front of the window.”

Nixon, who appointed Mr. Annenberg to the Court of St. James, came here in disgrace, escaping the reporters who followed him after he left Washington. His sentiments about Sunnylands and its owner were clear in the notation that he wrote in the guest book: “When you’re down,” he wrote, “you find out who your real friends are.”

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Sunnylands in History

Sunnylands emerged onto the world stage when the historic estate was completed in 1966. It has since welcomed eight U.S. presidents and world leaders, noted intellectuals, celebrities, and friends and family. On many occasions, guests have engaged in dialogue that led to efforts to enhance international understanding and civil discourse.

A place of history, hospitality, and diplomacy in the California desert.

Open Wednesday–Sunday, 8:30 am – 4 pm

760.202.2222 [email protected]

37977 Bob Hope Dr. Rancho Mirage, CA 92270

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