By Katherine Clarke

In a secretive California community where few homes are ever publicly available for sale, a five-bedroom house is hitting the market for $6.9 million.

At Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs, homes usually trade quietly between family members and friends. But former Marvel Enterprises CEO Eric Ellenbogen, who purchased the oldest home at Smoke Tree in 2021 for $3.95 million, is bucking that trend by listing the house publicly with Bennion Deville Homes/Luxury Portfolio International.

"We felt strongly that offering the property on the open market would provide the greatest opportunity to identify the right architectural steward, like ourselves," said Ellenbogen, 68, who bought the house with his husband, Dominic Ramos-Ruiz.

At the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains, Smoke Tree Ranch has a near-mythical status in Palm Springs. Dating to the early 1900s, the ranch has long drawn some of America's wealthiest families, including Walt Disney and the Ford family of the Ford Motor Company. Known for its Wild West feel, the community has dirt roads and unassuming homes, many of which still belong to the families that built them.

Ellenbogen's home, built in the 1930s, had been owned by the Gilmore pharmaceutical family for roughly 90 years before he bought it. After the purchase, Ellenbogen worked to have the home successfully designated as a historic landmark by the city of Palm Springs.

Sitting on about 1.8 acres, the roughly 5,500-square-foot house surrounds a central courtyard with a large pool, according to the listing agents, Patrick Jordan and Stewart Smith. On the exterior, there are steel casement windows and wood shake shingles.

Ellenbogen has bought and sold several Midcentury-Modern homes over the years, including several in Palm Springs: a 1960s house designed by architect William F. Cody, and Twin Palms, which was once owned by Frank Sinatra. He also owned a Los Angeles home designed by Modernist architect Carl Maston, which he sold to "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy. Ellenbogen joked that house hopping is his "unfortunate habit."

A native Angeleno, Ellenbogen was CEO of Marvel in the late 1990s. After his stint at the comic-book publisher, he co-founded the entertainment company Classic Media, which sold to DreamWorks Animation for $155 million in 2012 and later to NBCUniversal.

The Gilmore house was already in great condition when he purchased it, Ellenbogen said, but it took more than two years of research and documentation to secure its landmark status. "It was not protected, and absent this historical designation could have been torn down or ruined," he said.

Ellenbogen said he is selling the property because he and Ruiz have other homes around the country, and are spending more time at their home in Spain. "I did what I set out to do, which was really to protect the property," he said.

Write to Katherine Clarke at Katherine.Clarke@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 27, 2026 14:30 ET (19:30 GMT)

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