Great place to party despite no Rat Pack

Q&A: The Farralone Estate

Is US$12 million (Dh44m) a good price? The agent, Lynn Trescher of Coldwell Banker, says the house would be worth $100m if it were in Bel Air. The property is located in Chatsworth and listed as 35 minutes from Los Angeles and 30 minutes from Malibu.

Can you make money renting a house to film crews? Definitely. A house with a special look that is easily accessible to Hollywood will be in great demand. The owners of the Farralone Estate say the property generates between $500,000 and $2m a year in location shoot fees.

A modern single-storey glass-walled house perched on a hill outside Los Angeles oozes 1960s California cool.

Frank Sinatra lived in the house for years, entertaining Hollywood movie stars Ava Gardner, Lucille Ball and his notorious rat pack. Marilyn Monroe spent time in the guest house, where she was rumoured to have had a fling with John F Kennedy, a former US president.

More recently the hit TV show Mad Men used the house for the famous episode The Jet Set, in which the main character Don Draper escapes for an exotic California sojourn.

Today the property, known as the Farralone Estate, is for sale.

The 10,000-square-foot house, priced at US$12 million (Dh44m), sits on 5.6 hectares at the end of a long driveway on an isolated hilltop overlooking a 1,215ha nature preserve.

The house was designed in 1951 by Pereira & Luckman, the architects who also designed the Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Transamerica building in San Francisco, the "pyramid" tower.

The design features the square corners and open modern style that characterised many of the most famous homes built in the 1950s and 1960s.

The sleek house, barely visible on the hillside, features 16-feet high ceilings and most of the walls are glass, offering panoramic views. There are four bedrooms and five bathrooms, as well as a one-bedroom guest house where Monroe stayed.

The guest house is 1,000 square feet and offers its own pool.

The main house also features a detached gymnasium next to a 50ft swimming pool where Draper lounged in the Mad Men episode. There is also parking for 200 cars, making it "the ideal abode for hosting large parties and events", according to the listing agent, Coldwell Banker Previews International.

While TV viewers might recognise it from Mad Men, the house is appears regularly in other TV shows and films. It has featured in Dream Girls, Swordfish, Ali and others in which the script called for a bit of modern chic.

Top 5: Marilyn Monroe films

1 Some Like It Hot (1959), director Billy Wilder

2 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), director Howard Hawks

3 How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), director Jean Negulesco

4 The Seven Year Itch (1955), director Billy Wilder

5 Bus Stop (1956), director Joshua Logan

Source: Amazon

The Quote: Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. - Marilyn Monroe, actress

kbrass@thenational.ae