Jayne Mansfield's Pink Palace

Jayne Mansfield's Pink Palace was a mansion bought and refurbished with pink paint and fixtures by American actress Jayne Mansfield in 1957. The mansion was demolished in 2002.

Jayne Mansfield's Pink Palace
Gate and partial view of Mansfield's former mansion, the Pink Palace (photographed 1997)
General information
Address	10100 Sunset Boulevard
Town or city	Holmby Hills, Los Angeles
Coordinates	34°4′49.26″N 118°25′34.71″W
Demolished	2002

History

In November 1957, shortly before her marriage to Mickey Hargitay, Mansfield bought a 40-room Mediterranean-style mansion formerly owned by Rudy Vallée at 10100 Sunset Boulevard in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles.[1] Much of the investment to buy the house came from the $81,340 ($740,445 in 2019 dollars[2]) she inherited from her maternal grandfather Elmer Palmer.[3][4] Mansfield had the house painted pink, with cupids surrounded by pink fluorescent lights, pink furs in the bathrooms, a pink heart-shaped bathtub, and a fountain spurting pink champagne, and then dubbed it the "Pink Palace". It was, according to her, a "pink landmark".[5] Hargitay, a plumber and carpenter before getting into bodybuilding, built a pink heart-shaped swimming pool. Mansfield decorated the Pink Palace by writing to furniture and building suppliers requesting free samples. She received over $150,000 ($1,365,462 in 2019 dollars[2]) in free merchandise, paying only $76,000 ($691,834 in 2019 dollars[2]) for the mansion itself.[6] It was still a large sum, when the average cost of a house at the time was under $7,500 ($68,273 in 2019 dollars[2]).[7]

The Pink Palace was sold after her death and its subsequent owners have included Ringo Starr and Engelbert Humperdinck.[8] In 2002, Humperdinck sold it to developers, and the house was demolished in November of that year.

References

• Strait, Raymond (1992). Here They Are Jayne Mansfield. New York: S.P.I. Books. ISBN 978-1-56171-146-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Faris, Jocelyn (November 1994). Jayne Mansfield: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-28544-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Citations

1. Marc Wanamaker, Westwood, Arcadia Publishing, 2010 , p. 55
2. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved January 1, 2020.
3. Faris 1994, p. 7
4. Michael Mundy, "Limit: The Game is Back with Warring Realtors", Los Angeles Magazine, January 1998
5. Strait 1992, p. 93
6. The Pink Palace
7. Census of Housing, U.S. Census Bureau.
8. Web bio from fansite.