Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [170]
Of course when I say “you” anymore I’m talking a package deal—you and the two & a half year old you. Time goes so slowly and I’m such a coward when you’re out of sight—so afraid something will go wrong if I’m not there to take care of you, so be very careful. . . .
I love you so very much I don’t even mind that life made me wait so long to find you. The waiting only made the finding sweeter
. . . I love you, Ronnie.60
A year after Reagan signed on, G.E. helped him build “The House of the Future.” Ronnie and Nancy had found the perfect plot of land, as high up as you can go in Pacific Palisades, at the top of a twisting, unpaved road called San Onofre Drive. They hired the local architect William Stephen-son to design their five-thousand-square-foot modern ranch house, but it was very much Ronnie’s project. As Nancy Reagan told me, “Ronnie made a model, and he had it on the dining room table at the Amalfi house. He’d study it, and he figured out some things that were wrong—and how to improve some things. . . . He wanted it to flow; he wanted the rooms to go into each other, because he said when you have parties people always stay in the library. He didn’t want that. He wanted people to spread out.”61
In exchange for letting the house be used in advertisements, G.E. outfitted it with the company’s full repertoire of electrical devices and gadgets, including intercoms in every room, an electric-eye security system in the driveway, a retractable roof over the central atrium, a heated swimming pool with underwater lights, an electric barbecue and rotisserie, a refrigerated wine cellar, a projection booth, three TVs, and a $5,000, state-of-the-art kitchen with two electric ranges, two ovens, three refrigerators, two freezers, a washer-dryer, and—G.E.’s latest innovation—a dishwasher with a built-in garbage disposal.62 There was also a three-thousand-pound switchbox attached to the rear exterior wall that Ronnie liked to joke had a direct connection to the Hoover Dam. “I wasn’t wild about having my home turned into a corporate showcase,” Nancy said, “but this was Ronnie’s first steady job in years, so it was a trade-off I was more than happy to make.”63
Pacific Palisades: 1952–1958
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In 1999, I was given a tour of 1669 San Onofre Drive by the owner, Norman Switzer, a retired executive, who assured me that very little had been changed. The house was well hidden behind a hedge of bougainvillea and an iron gate, which opened onto the short, steep driveway. The Reagans’ original gray shag wall-to-wall carpeting still covered the floors of the living room, dining room, and den. Built-in black-lacquered book-cases lined two walls of the den, and a matching bar stood in one corner.
All three main rooms had floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that opened onto the deck, the pool, and sweeping views of the city and the ocean.
“The ceilings are eleven feet high,” Switzer noted. “When I walked in, I said to my wife, ‘This is it.’ I wanted high ceilings, big rooms, and a view.
We didn’t buy it because of the Reagans.”
The living room was dominated by a gray fieldstone fireplace, and the lights over the dining room table could be changed from white to yellow, pink, or blue. “We have a letter from G.E. to Reagan saying that he should have this lighting system because everybody would look better,” Switzer said, indicating the large metal panel on the wall studded with switches, buttons, and knobs. “There are so many switches in this house we’re still not sure what some of them are for.”
Traces of Nancy’s favorite colors could be found in almost every room: the kitchen cabinets were buttercup yellow, the play area between the children’s bedrooms was bright red, the his-and-her sinks in the master bathroom were pale peach. And every room flowed into the next