Falcon Lair is an estate above Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills, California that was owned by Rudolph Valentino and later by Doris Duke,[1] who called it Falcon's Lair.[2]
Valentino bought the four acre estate in 1925 for $ 175,000 (today about 2m) and named it Falcon Lair.[3] He filled the house with antiques and memorabilia from his travels. Shortly after the purchase he and Natacha Rambova divorced. Valentino kept Falcon Lair, hosted parties, and held horses in his stable. After his death in 1926, the place was auctioned off to settle his debts.[1]
After several owners, Doris Duke acquired the estate in the early 1950s to be with her companion, the jazz musician Joe Castro, and to mingle with the Hollywood crowd. Falcon's Lair became a venue for jazz concerts. Duke befriended Sharon Tate, her neighbour at Benedict Canyon.[4] Eventually, she settled on a pattern where she would rotate her residence during the year staying at Duke Farms and Rough Point during the Summer, on November 22 (her birthday) she would fly to Falcon's Lair, and later spend the Winter at Shangri La in Hawaii.[5] In 1993, after hip surgery, knee surgery, and a stroke Doris Duke was kept in isolation—in a virtual "prison"[6]—at Falcon's Lair until her death. Thereafter, Lafferty, Duke's butler and initial executor of her will, renovated the bedroom for his own use.
Falcon Lair was sold by the Duke Estate in 1998 for less than 3 million dollars.[1] A renovation project started in 2003 but was not completed; the property was offered for sale in 2006.[1] The historical main building of the estate was bulldozed in 2006.[1][3] In April 2009, the property was on the market for $7.95 million.[7]