555 & 575 N Patencio Rd

The Harold Matzner Estate occupies a private promontory above Old Las Palmas where the San Jacinto range rises directly behind the compound and the full sweep of the Coachella Valley opens below — a position no other residential address in the desert shares, on nearly an acre and a half of assembled ground comprising three structures, nearly 16,000 square feet, eleven bedrooms, sixteen bathrooms, and multiple pools and spas across two fully realized estates and a guesthouse.

The main residence at 555 North Patencio was designed in 1982 by Palm Springs architect Laszlo Sandor, with interiors by Steve Chase — the celebrated Rancho Mirage designer whose work defined the aesthetic language of desert luxury for a generation. Its architecture is uncluttered and horizontal, built around a single organizing principle: light. Raked plaster walls move through the interior, their texture alive at every hour as the desert sun crosses the compound — catching at dawn along the entrance hall, settling into warmth across the great room by afternoon, receding at dusk to something quieter and more considered. Architectural Digest devoted a full feature to the property in May 1983, the first owner having commissioned a second layer of interiors by Jack E. Lowrance for the occasion — testament to a house already considered among the most significant residential works in the desert. For all its scale, the residence lives with a remarkable intimacy — soaring volumes that draw inward rather than expand outward, each room organizing itself around a human moment rather than an architectural statement. The great room opens entirely to the terrace through a retractable wall of glass, dissolving the boundary between interior and desert. A sunken conversation space anchors the living room — gathered below the principal floor, oriented toward the wide opening to the mountain beyond — a room that manages to feel both intimate and boundless. Stone floors carry throughout, a Steinway anchoring the living room alongside Asian art and antiquities accumulated over four decades with a collector’s deliberateness — giving the residence the quality of a place continuously deepened rather than ever simply finished.

The second residence at 575 North Patencio is a fully resolved estate in its own right, its architectural language distinct but its conviction equal. The entrance hall rises to a sweeping curved staircase, a grand piano centered on a raised circular platform below a rain chandelier. The great room reaches double height, the valley visible through glass on three sides. The master bath — curved black stone, a suspended rain shower open to a skylight above, a slit window framing the palm canopy and valley beyond — carries the same architectural seriousness as everything around it. One room is carved into the boulder face of the mountain itself, a stone fireplace set into the rock, the terrace visible through a full width of glass beyond.

The guesthouse, finished to the standard of both residences, offers a world entirely its own — private, self-contained, and quietly removed from the life of the compound. It was here that the film festival’s most celebrated guests found their desert. Among them, Cate Blanchett.

Harold Matzner chaired the Palm Springs International Film Festival for more than two decades, contributed more than $85 million to the valley he called home, and earned the title Mr. Palm Springs from a city that understood precisely what it owed him. Of everything this desert had to offer, he chose this ground — and held it for nearly forty years.

Offered at $19,500,000. Available for the first time since 1986.

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