Qualla: Sunnylands

Sunnylands: Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Toohool, CC0. The pink roof was not a subtle choice. When architect A. Quincy Jones completed the Annenberg estate in Rancho Mirage in 1966, the compound's distinctive pink color was visible for considerable distances across the Coachella Valley flatlands, a deliberate signal that something significant occupied these 200 acres. Walter Annenberg, who had built a publishing empire that included TV Guide and the Philadelphia Inquirer, did not build things quietly. He built Sunnylands to the scale of his ambitions and filled it with the art those ambitions could afford: Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Wyeth — a collection that would eventually be donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Image: Toohool | CC0

Sunnylands: A Compound Built for History

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Don Graham from Redlands, CA, USA - God bless it!, CC BY-SA 2.0. At the time of its completion, Sunnylands was the largest private residence in Riverside County. The Jones design spread across the site in a series of low horizontal pavilions connected by covered walkways, the low profile emphasizing the vast scale of the property rather than t...

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Image: Don Graham from Redlands, CA, USA - God bless it! | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sunnylands: Camp David of the West

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Toohool, CC0. The Annenbergs used Sunnylands as a center of social and political gravity from its earliest years. Frank Sinatra was married at the estate. Every US president from Nixon to Obama either visited or used the compound for significant diplomatic purposes. President George H.W. Bush ...

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Image: Toohool | CC0

Sunnylands: The Art That Moved to New York

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Emily Gadek, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Annenberg Impressionist collection was one of the significant private collections assembled in the twentieth century United States. Works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and Andrew Wyeth hung in the rooms where presidents and prime ministers relaxed over dinner, creating an atmo...

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Image: Emily Gadek | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sunnylands: A Property That Outlasted Its Owners

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Toohool, CC0. Walter Annenberg died in 2002; Leonore Annenberg died in 2009. Both are interred on the Sunnylands property, a choice that expresses the depth of their attachment to a place they had built as the culmination of a lifetime of acquisition. After Leonore's death, Sunnylands opened t...

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Image: Toohool | CC0