A trailer park may have seemed an odd endeavor for entertainment mogul Bing Crosby. Still, in 1952, while cohosting a radio show with Jack Benny at the El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs, Crosby sought a nearby escape where he could relax and revel with Hollywood friends. He purchased land alongside Highway 111 to build his own desert retreat and called it Blue Skies Village — a nod to one of his hit songs.
Today, the upscale mobile-home park is a senior living community, where midcentury relics mix with modern dwellings. Beyond the royal-blue iron gates — a bas-relief of a Stetson-wearing Crosby smoking a pipe at its center — cactuses hold their ground, and slender palms sweep the desert sky. (Crosby is said to have planted 200-plus palms here; at one time, the city mandated that all streetside trees be lit, so after sundown, the entire place was aglow.)
Past Starlight Circle and Crosby’s original pitch-and-putt golf course, streets are named after original investors, including Benny, George Burns, and Barbara Stanwyck. On variously sized parcels, mobile homes range from modest to the Mount Vernon — a sizable structure with separate maids’ quarters. There’s also the Egyptian Tomb with a gas fireplace and waterfall and a Japanese-style minka with a hipped roof. In their carports, golf carts are as common as sedans.
Year-round residents and snowbirds pay homage to the past with similar social activities, like shuffleboard tournaments, variety shows, and potluck suppers in the William Cody–designed clubhouse. (Crosby’s once-popular parties were Western or luau themed.)
One eye-catching peculiarity is a solitary parking meter. Friends, worried Benny wouldn’t have enough money to retire, reportedly put it there and dropped in a nickel every time they walked by — collecting his retirement for him. It is the only parking meter in the city of Rancho Mirage...
