Down-to-earth Ford's 2nd home, California's Rancho Mirage, was in playground of rich & famous

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) _ Gerald R. Ford left the White House 30 years ago to retire in Southern California's celebrity desert playground. <br/><br/>Former Ambassador Walter Annenberg coaxed Ford,

Wednesday, December 27th 2006, 9:15 pm

By: News On 6

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) _ Gerald R. Ford left the White House 30 years ago to retire in Southern California's celebrity desert playground.

Former Ambassador Walter Annenberg coaxed Ford, a Midwesterner, to the Coachella Valley, home to Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby, among others.

This is where President Dwight D. Eisenhower played golf in the 1950s and Ronald Reagan regularly spent New Year's Eve when he was president.

Rancho Mirage, 120 miles east of Los Angeles, has more than 15,000 permanent residents and is a winter home to more than 11,000 people. Its golf greens are set against arid mountainsides, and a five-mile fence keeps endangered wild bighorn sheep away from homes and streets.

Ford bought his home, a single-story estate along the links of the Thunderbird Country Club, in 1977, the history page of the Rancho Mirage Web site says. That same year, it adds, ``President Ford hits second person in one month with a golf ball.''

Ford hit the ski slopes near his Colorado home for part of the year, then played golf in the desert for the rest of the year. He was a regular at the Bob Hope golf tournament each year.

Ford was active in the community, raising money for charities that included the Betty Ford Center, the substance-abuse treatment facility named after his wife of 58 years.

The center held a memorial for Ford Wednesday afternoon, collecting condolence notes from more than 200 patients and staff to pass along to his family.

Ford's death hit desert residents hard. A candle flickered at dawn Wednesday atop his sidewalk star along the Palm Springs Walk of Stars. Flags were lowered to half-staff outside exclusive gated communities.

``He was such a jewel in Rancho Mirage,'' said Sharon Kite, wife of Mayor Richard Kite. ``He got involved from the minute he got into town. He was a very amazing man, and he had that adorable smile.''

Neighbor Vincent Monteleon, 51, said Ford ``did enormous things for the Coachella Valley. He put the city on the map.'' It was a thrill to go to the post office, he said, and hear someone ask, ``Any mail for the president today?''

In the first decades of his retirement from politics, Ford worked from an office filled with photographs and memorabilia. The office overlooks the golf course where Ford would simply walk out and play. Other golfers would pass within a hundred feet of the former president's home.

His golfing waned with age and infirmity. Ford turned 93 on July 14, and 121 days later he became the oldest ex-president, breaking the record set by Reagan.

``The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends,'' Ford said in a statement at the time.