A Piece of the Action
Palm Springs cool.
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Sharephotos by: Time and Place Homes
January 1, 2005
James Bond may have encountered more nefarious attackers than the killer acrobats Bambi and Thumper in Diamonds Are Forever, but rarely was he jumped on in a better setting. “It’s so sleek and very dramatic,” says Mitch Willey of the John Lautner–designed home, which is part of his portfolio of villa rentals. “It is one of the most iconic and timeless pieces of architecture to emerge from the last century, and a perfect location for a Bond film.”An appreciation for architecture as well as privacy and service is what led Willey, a former international lawyer, to start his own company, Time and Place Homes—that, and a series of bad experiences when he rented his own homes. “I would come home to find strings cut from my grand piano and Waterford crystal chandeliers broken,” he says. “Not to mention the complete lack of service for people who were spending $100,000 to rent one of my homes for a month. I knew I could do better.” Time and Place’s highest concentration of homes is in Palm Springs, with 19 properties that include the Arthur Elrod home designed by architect John Lautner, Frank Sinatra’s legendary Twin Palms estate, as well as Sandacre, the former weekend retreat of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio.
“We are the only company in the U.S. that offers five-star deluxe hotel services in private homes that all have architectural history and significance,” Willey says. And while the historic architecture has been preserved, interiors have been refreshed to meet the expectations of sophisticated travelers. Sheets are by Frette, towels are from Waterworks. A concierge is on-call to arrange anything from golf tee times to restaurant reservations; additional amenities include housekeeping, a private chef and poolside massages. “It’s better than staying at a hotel,” Willey says. “Hotels lack intimacy and don’t have one place you can gather a large family. Our homes offer privacy, but they also have fully equipped kitchens and large spaces for families to be together.
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“We are selective, and we don’t want to take on so many homes that we lose track of things,” Willey adds. “We will probably never list more than 25 in Palm Springs.” Once a property is accepted, the company commissions its own designer to modernize interiors as well as keep them up to date. With the recently purchased Sinatra house, that meant keeping the infamous bathroom sink where Frank was rumored to have thrown a bottle at Ava in rage (the crack is still there), while substituting furniture more suited to the Rat Pack. “Some of our homeowners may scoff when we insist on certain things like $1,000 sheets, but in the end, they see why it’s worth it,” Willey notes.
Ranging in style from the ultramodern Lautner home, with a sliding glass wall that divides the pool in half between indoors and outdoors, to the Spanish Revival Sandacre with spacious grounds that have become popular for weddings and large events, the Palm Springs properties include the former estate of Mamas and Papas’ John Philips as well as the Stewart Williams masterpiece built for Colorado cattle baron Prescott Stevens, one of the original developers of Palm Springs.
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Time and Place currently offers a selection of more than 100 architecturally distinguished properties in 25 different locations throughout the world. “We are looking to add properties in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Tuscany, Barcelona, New York and Jackson Hole, but we will most likely stop adding locations in about two years once we are in 40 different cities,” Willey says.
Time and Place also caters to business travelers who need an Internet connection. “Most of our clients are successful business people who come for a long weekend, but need to be able to check email come Sunday morning,” Willey says. “It is as common in Paris as much as it is in Washington, D.C., where you can do e-mail on a 42-inch plasma-screen TV.”
