If you design a golf course, you should have a guaranteed house on the property. That seems more than fair. All the blood, sweat and tears that go into putting a course together—especially one as gorgeous as Tradition Golf Club in La Quinta, California—should let you get first dibs on the housing lottery.
Well, it seems like Arnold Palmer did exactly that with this West Coast retreat. Built in 1999, the home sits on the second fairway of the Palmer-designed course, just 167 steps from the clubhouse’s locker rooms. Palmer’s daughters sold the Coachella Valley resort home in 2022 to Louise Bellisimo, and now she’s planning to sell it again after some modern renovations.
Sitting on less than half an acre, the four-bedroom and 3.5-bath centred around a spacious living room with 16-foot beamed ceilings is hitting the market for $5 million after some impressive updates, including opening up the back of the house to see more of the top-ranked course and the Santa Rosa Mountains in the distance.
“I saved the style of the home,” Bellisimo said. “I left all the arches, and I left it so that he could walk in and like it … I didn’t ever buy it thinking I was going to sell it. It’s just that things change with the family, and I can’t get them out here as much as I’d like. So I have to go to them.”
Along with the short walk to the clubhouse, the front door is just 15 to 20 steps from the tee box. That’ll surely cut down on your golf commute time! There’ll be an in-person open house at 52123 Dunlevie Court in La Quinta on Jan. 12 and you can even look through the home’s virtual tour.
The $5M price tag also includes some remarkable golf memorabilia from two leather armchairs once used by Palmer to some of the golf great’s old photographs—most notably one of him with caddie Michael “Fluff” Cowan, signed, “To Arnold, It’s been a gas. — Fluff.”
If you’re in the market, you’re not going to do much better than this. $5M to own a piece of golf history, a pretty swanky California hideaway and the shortest golf commute possible? Actually … can we expense this?
Images: courtesy of Sotheby’s International Realty
