The Homes He Lived In: Frank at the Fox Residence
Earlier this summer, a particular house in the Los Angeles area had everyone talking. It was Sinatra’s former home in Chatsworth, CA, known to many as the Fox Residence or the Farralone Estate. The house had been on the market earlier in 2011 for an asking price of a cool $12 million dollars. Sinatra rented the house for ten years, starting in the mid 1950s, when its first owner moved back to New York.
The house was commissioned in 1951 by heiress Dora Hutchinson and was known for hosting multiple Hollywood stars at decadent parties well before it came into Sinatra’s life. Sinatra certainly had lots of room to spread his legs, as it included a 10,000 square foot house as well as a whopping 14 acres of property, and a 1,000 square foot guest house complete with its own pool. Sinatra rented out the guest house to his close friend, movie actress Marilyn Monroe. It’s said that one of her final photo shoots was done in her residence there.
The Fox Residence is located at 9613 Farralone Avenue in Chatworth. In more recent times, the house has played a part in the making of many films and TV shows. It appeared in the motion picture adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls as the house owned by characters played by Beyoncé and Jamie Foxx. More notably, it was featured in a Season 2 episode of AMC's Mad Men, where leading man Jon Hamm’s character Don Draper had a California escapade.
Sinatra left the house a decade after first renting it, preferring to stay in Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage. However, it still stands today, relatively unchanged in architecture.
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