Works by several masters were donated by the Annenbergs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, including a Rodin statue. Monica Almeida / The New York Times

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with Walter and Leonore Annenberg, during one of her many visits to Sunnylands. The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.

Among the seven presidents who stayed at Sunnylands was Ronald Reagan, in 1981 with his wife, Nancy. The Wite House

RANCHO MIRAGE, California - Few places in the world have drawn guests like those who made it behind the pink walls of Sunnylands, the Walter H. Annenberg estate here in the desert.

Ronald Reagan celebrated New Year's Eve here 18 times, one of seven presidents who signed the Annenberg guest book. Richard M. Nixon retreated to Sunnylands after his resignation. It was the place to go for celebrities luxuriating in nearby Palm Springs: Frank Sinatra married his fourth wife here. Even Queen Elizabeth II was a regular.

Now Sunnylands, built by Walter and Leonore Annenberg 46 years ago, is about to lift its veil. In February, under the terms of a trust set by the Annenbergs in 2002, Sunnylands will open as what is being heralded as a Camp David of the West Coast, a place for national and foreign dignitaries and diplomats to gather for summit meetings and retreats.

And in March, the estate - a striking example of midcentury modern architecture, hidden in a stunning setting in the desert and ringed by mountains - will for the first time be open for public viewing. A 5,180-square-meter visitor center has risen as part of the transformation envisioned by Mr. Annenberg, an ambassador to England under Nixon who made much of his fortune as the publisher of TV Guide magazine.

"I suppose we could have opened Sunnylands as some sort of museum or mausoleum," said Wallis Annenberg, who is Mr. Annenberg's daughter and the president of the Annenberg Foundation. "But I thought that would be a terrible waste."

The Annenbergs' considerable connections (not to mention the $300 million endowment) bodes well, and three summit meetings have been scheduled for the spring, including one on relations between the United States and Mexico that involves 22 policy leaders.

At the same time, the public is going to be able to get a glimpse of a world that was once shut off from all but the most high-powered of world leaders and the cream of Palm Springs celebrity society - Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Bob Hope, Truman Capote, Gregory Peck, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire and Clark Gable - and the titans, most of them Republican, who were part of the Annenberg world.

The estate fills 81 hectares, its golf course spotted with 850 olive trees, 11 artificial lakes and a scattering of sculptures. As for the estate's first couple, their remains rest in a pink mausoleum on a hillside. Mr. Annenberg died in 2002, and Mrs. Annenberg died seven years later.

The 7,600-square-meter house, designed by A. Quincy Jones, includes soaring ceilings and clean lines and a vast open living room where every window seems to spill onto gardens. There are 22 bedrooms, plus the Annenberg suite, reserved for visiting presidents and heads of state.

Most of the art collection that lavished the walls of this home - works by Picasso, van Gogh, Andrew Wyeth, Monet - was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York upon Mr. Annenberg's death. Digital reproductions now hang in their place.

The estate fairly glows with history, as was evident during a leisurely tour of the rooms of the main house, the guest wings and other cottages.

President George H. W. Bush left a fishing pole by his bedroom window for early morning excursions to a lake, stocked with bass, outside his room.

"The reason he liked to stay in this room is because he liked to fish," said Mary Perry, who heads community relations for Sunnylands.

Nixon, who appointed Mr. Annenberg to the Court of St. James's, came here in disgrace, to escape the reporters who followed him after he left Washington.

His sentiments about Sunnylands and its owner were clear in his notation in the guest book: "When you're down," he wrote, "you find out who your real friends are."

The New York Times

(China Daily 02/05/2012 page12)