Icon Fit for a King—and You? - Page 2

For the Alexanders, he designed a 4,695-square-foot home with four beds, five baths, a round kitchen island, and a remarkable circular living room with a 64-foot couch and a conical indoor barbecue in the middle.

Sadly, the Alexanders only lived a few years in the exquisite house before their private plane crashed leaving Palm Springs Airport on November 14, 1965.

"It was huge, the impact they had," Meeks said of the development company run by Robert Alexander and his father, both of whom perished in the crash along with their wives and four others. "Palm Springs would probably be an even bigger and more populated place if they had lived."

Of course, the desert has grown up quite a bit around a home dubbed 'The House of Tomorrow' by Look magazine in 1962, but the house itself is relatively unchanged.

"The house is all still original," said Meeks, one of three listing agents on the property. "It's almost like it was preserved by the Smithsonian."

While the home is basically unaltered design-wise, the current owner has decorated specifically to support his use of the house as a party rental and tourist attraction feting Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

Presley leased the home for a reported $21,000 a year starting in 1966 and brought his fiancee there with the intent of marrying in the desert community he loved. Unexpected attention from the press in April 1967 caused the couple to flee by a rear exit and fly to Las Vegas to be married before returning to honeymoon in the home. Two TV movies about Presley since his death in 1977 have included shooting at the estate.

The current owner, who declines to be identified, bought the estate for about $500,000 in 1987 and charges $35 a head for tours, said Meeks, adding, "It was him that put the 'Honeymoon Hideaway' moniker on the house."

"It's kind of set up as an Elvis museum. Because of that, he [the owner] won't let me do a regular open house," said Meeks, who shares the listing with Gregory Bega of Sotheby's International in Santa Monica and Mary Kay Nibley of Rodeo Realty in Beverly Hills. "It'd have to be by appointment only."

Exclusivity fit for a King, one might say.

For more on the Alexander House listing, click here.