According to the New York Times, Bob and Dolores Hope’s home in Palm Springs was listed in February 2013, reportedly for an asking price of $50 million. The late entertainer and his wife commissioned the home from architect John Lautner, renowned for numerous projects in Southern California including Googie’s Coffee Shop on Sunset Boulevard (1949, demolished 1989, and where the eponymous style got its name), The Chemosphere (1960) in the Hollywood Hills, and Palm Springs landmark Elrod House (1968). Construction began in 1973, but the home’s completion was delayed when it caught fire later that year due to unspecified causes. The second version, completed in 1979 with additional changes by the couple, was so different from Lautner’s original vision that it was rumored he distanced himself from the project. The 23,366 square-foot property boasts six bedrooms, ten bathrooms, and a distinctive mushroom or torus-shaped roof that elicited this quip from the comedian: “At least when they come down from Mars, they’ll know where to go.”

Source: New York Times, Triangle Modernist Houses

Photo: Brian Thomas Jones