How do the celebrities, the rich and the famous live and enjoy? What types of mansions do they build? An example was the Hollywood legend Bob Hope.
The late Hollywood superstar, comedian, actor Bob Hope’s architectural gem of a Palm Springs home in California, U.S.A. hits the market at US$50 million. See details from Vanity Fair magazine and New York Times newspaper below.
(Image of Bob Hope sourced from blog-stampofapproval.com)

(Image below of Bob Hope sourced from sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
(Image of Bob Hope sourced from blog-stampofapproval.com)
(Image below of Bob Hope sourced from sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
Featured in Vanity Fair magazine, read here some details:
February 26, 2013
Bob Hope’s Contemporary Castle
Architect John Lautner made his mark on Southern California by designing dramatic, space-age residences
throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
The estate of entertainer Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores, in Palm Springs was one of the largest homes he ever made. With six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms and spanning 22,000 square feet, the swooping structure boasts remarkable views, intricate gardens, and a stunning open portico.
Described by Dolores as her “contemporary castle,” the structure was designed by Lautner to disappear into the mountain and to have guests looking outward from it feel as though they were looking from a cave onto a remarkable vista.
The copper roof makes the home, from a distance, appear to rise like the sun out of the top of the hill.
It was put on the market this week by the Hope estate, co-listed for $50 million Ann Eysenring of Partners Trust in Beverly Hills along with Patrick Jordan and Stewart Smith of Windermere Real Estate in Palm Springs.
Here is the New York Times report on February 25, 2013 about this house:
Exclusive
Bob Hope Estate in Palm Springs Is Up for Sale
Brian Thomas Jones
The Palm Springs estate of Bob Hope is available for an asking price of $50 million.
By Michelle Higgins
The huge Palm Springs estate of Bob Hope, the comic icon of midcentury film and television, and his wife, Dolores, is being brought to market for the first time this month, at an asking price of $50 million.
Brian Thomas Jones
The 23,366-square-foot home was designed in 1973 by the California Modernist architect John Lautner.
Perched high in the exclusive Southridge community, with panoramic views of the Coachella Valley, including the city of Palm Springs and the San Jacinto Mountain, the 23,366-square-foot home was designed in 1973 by the California Modernist architect John Lautner. It was built to resemble a volcano, with three visorlike arches and an undulating concrete roof, a hole at its center opening a courtyard to the sky. The roofline has been described as one of the most distinctive works of architecture in the Coachella Valley. The house has also been likened to a giant mushroom. Its original wood frame burned down during construction, in a fire sparked by a welder. Work was finally completed in 1980.
Used mostly as a second home and entertaining space by the Hope family, it can accommodate as many as 300 guests for dinner under an enormous covered terrace. Each January for many years, the family threw a huge dinner party to mark the end of the Bob Hope Classic golf tournament, now called the Humana Challenge. “That was sort of a highlight of the desert social calendar,” said Linda Hope, a daughter of the couple.
Mr. Hope died in 2003 at the age of 100; Mrs. Hope died in 2011 at 102. “Mother and Dad would sing together,” Ms. Hope said.
Tony Bennett, Glen Campbell and film starlets would visit the home. A big buffet would be laid out on the terraced patio, including Mrs. Hope’s famous antipasto salad, which she insisted on mixing herself, adding the vinegar and oil by eye. A clear tent was put up on part of the terrace to keep out the cold while still allowing guests to take in the spectacular nighttime view. “The whole desert was at your feet,” Linda Hope said.
The home, which is being listed with Ann Eysenring, a broker with Partners Trust Real Estate of Beverly Hills, and Patrick Jordan and Stewart Smith of Windermere Real Estate in Palm Springs, has 6 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, 3 half baths, indoor and outdoor pools, a pond, putting greens and a tennis court.
Mr. Lautner, the architect, eventually distanced himself from the project after Mrs. Hope hired a designer to make changes to the interior. None of them constituted a major alteration of the Lautner design, which includes a boulder jutting into the living room; she simply made interior modifications to make it “more livable,” according to Linda Hope. The changes included extending the dining room toward a balcony and making it possible to get from the bedrooms to the front door without crossing a patio, Ms. Hope said.
“I think my mother was a frustrated architect,” she added, noting Mrs. Hope’s serial remodeling of their primary home in Toluca Lake, Calif. “My dad used to say every time he went away he needed a road map to get back through his house.”
In Palm Springs, Mrs. Hope commissioned the artist Garth Benton, who painted the murals on the garden walls at the Getty Villa educational center and museum in Malibu, to paint a Rousseau-like mural on the back wall of the bar, and a lush, greenhouse-like wall of plants in the spa, which houses a pool, a hot tub and an exercise area.
It was Mrs. Hope who spent the most time at the Palm Springs house, while her husband traveled extensively, and famously, for work. Each November, Mrs. Hope would travel from Toluca Lake with a caravan of cars to carry the clothes, dishes and silverware she thought she would need for the season.
“People used to laugh and say, the court is moving,” Linda Hope joked, adding: “She absolutely adored the place. My dad did, too.” But it wasn’t until her parents were in their late 80s and 90s, she said, that they really spent more time there together.
Bob and Dolores Hope, who were avid golfers, loved the desert, Ms. Hope said. The Lautner-designed house was their third home in Palm Springs and their “dream house.”