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Palm Springs long ago secured its place in “Rat Pack” mythology. Frank Sinatra’s Twin Palms estate, his standing table at Melvyn’s and a steady stream of Hollywood royalty helped transform the desert enclave into a mid-century playground.
But when the lights of Palm Canyon Drive grew too bright, Sinatra and his inner circle headed somewhere even more discreet.
Their true sanctuary lay about an hour away in Yucca Valley, California, a sparsely populated, high-desert outpost bordering Joshua Tree National Park.
“At the time, Yucca Valley wasn’t really populated, and that, as the story goes, is why they would come to Yucca and rather than to Palm Springs because there was no one up here,” Justin Merino, president of the Morongo Basin Historical Museum, told SFGate.
In museum archives, Merino found references to the group’s desert detours.
“They would come out, they would have parties,” he said. “There was specifically in the [historical society’s archives] that they came out here because there was no bother, because of small Yucca Valley.”
The architect of this high-desert escape was not Sinatra himself but his close friend and collaborator Jimmy Van Heusen. The four-time Oscar-winning songwriter, responsible for standards such as “Come Fly With Me,” “Love and Marriage” and “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” embraced the desert lifestyle early on.
“When he landed to fuel up in Palm Springs, he stepped out of his plane and immediately knew that was where he wanted to live because of the dry breezes, which were great for the asthma he had had since he was a child,” Jim Burns, director of “Jimmy Van Heusen: Swingin’ With Frank & Bing,” told the Desert Sun. “This was an incredible change for him. From then on, he began telling Sinatra and everybody how great it was.”
By 1963, Van Heusen had purchased a secluded mountaintop property overlooking Yucca Valley.
The compound, alternately called Scenic Mountain, JVH Ranch and Rattlesnake Ranch, became ground zero for off-the-record gatherings. A helipad allowed guests to arrive without fanfare. A pink hot tub reportedly sat in the living room. The vast desert views ensured that what happened there stayed there.
A 1964 Press-Enterprise newspaper feature offered a glimpse of the interior.
“The composer does most of his entertaining at a circular tile bar built adjacent to a spinet piano, giving a piano bar effect,” the story read, according to SFGate. “It is here that his friends gather informally for cocktails or dinner — it seats 10. A low bar divides his kitchen from the large living room, which is built on two levels and has windows on two sides with panoramic views of the valley. Beside the fireplace is a Steinway grand piano, adorned only by an autographed photograph of the late President Kennedy.”
Behind the polished veneer was a reputation for excess. In his memoir, former Sinatra valet George Jacobs described the ranch bluntly.
“Rattlesnake Ranch … was all sex, all the time,” he wrote, as quoted by the Desert Sun. “He would have entire plane crews of stewardesses when stewardesses were the big sex symbols, crashing there at once.”
Jacobs said Van Heusen’s efforts were partly in service of his friend following Sinatra’s split from Ava Gardner.
“Van Heusen’s mission was to never let his friend get so low again,” he wrote, “and to that end, he kept the booze and the broads flowing non-stop.”
The ranch’s remoteness mattered. Studio-era morality clauses still governed stars’ behavior, and Yucca Valley offered insulation from Hollywood scrutiny.
The high desert also served as a quieter refuge. In 1966, Sinatra honeymooned with Mia Farrow at a nearby five-bedroom home now known as Artanis Villa — “Artanis” being Sinatra spelled backward.
“After Palm Springs became their playland, this [area] up here was to just get away a little bit more,” longtime resident Eric Conroy told SFGate.
Local authorities were alerted ahead of the couple’s stay.
“The sheriff’s office was contacted that they were coming out here,” Merino revealed, “That they weren’t asking for anything special, but they wanted them to know that they were coming out here to honeymoon and they wanted to be left alone.”
When the group ventured off the mountain, they often landed at the Copper Room, a restaurant opened in 1957 at the Yucca Valley Airport. “It was very much a little bit of a hangout,” co-owner Mike French told SFGate. “He would host events at the Copper Room.”
French and his partners revived the space in 2020, restoring its mid-century identity. Sinatra’s granddaughter, AJ Lambert, now performs there. “She sings a couple of Frank Sinatra’s albums,” French said, “so it’s really pretty special.”
Despite the lore, documentation remains scarce.
“The whole lower desert [meaning the Palm Springs area] was very much an escape, but especially up in the high desert, it’s very hard to find much evidence,” French said. “It’s mostly stories.”
Still, Van Heusen’s imprint on Yucca Valley was significant enough that he was named unofficial mayor in 1967, celebrating at the Copper Room.
Today, the once-fabled Rattlesnake Ranch is owned by investor Thomas Cribb, who is renovating the property for use as a short-term rental. The pool house is expected to be completed first, with restoration of the main residence to follow.
Van Heusen’s larger-than-life persona continues to fascinate. As noted in his Los Angeles Times obituary, lyricist Sammy Cahn once reflected, “Lyricist Cahn said by telephone from New York that when people ask him who is the most fascinating character he ever met, he always answers ‘Jimmy Van Heusen.’”
“Then they say, ‘What about Sinatra?’” Cahn continued. “I tell them Sinatra thought he was Van Heusen, but he couldn’t pass the physical.”
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