A Palm Springs estate that looks like a windowless fortress from the outside is on the market for $6.75 million, Gimme Shelter has learned.

The posh desert retreat was commissioned in 1969 by the late financier Jerome Factor, the son of Prohibition-era Chicago mob associate and Las Vegas casino owner John “Jake the Barber” Factor, half brother to cosmetics mogul Max Factor.

Today, the white-washed residence, at 1255 East Via Estrella, is one of the best preserved examples of California mid-century modern architecture in the Coachella Valley. The brutalist front is windowless, shielded by a 14-foot-high wall, with 10-foot-high aluminum-clad silver double doors. 

It may also be a testament to the Factors’ family history. 

As a 19-year-old student at Northwestern University in 1933, Jerome was kidnapped and held for eight days before emerging unharmed, according to the New York Times. Jerome’s father was also kidnapped that year, just as the US Supreme Court was ruling on a UK extradition request stemming from Factor’s alleged role in a massive stock fraud.

(He had reportedly borrowed $50,000 from Arnold Rothstein and Al Capone to pull off an $8 million stock swindle, defrauding the Royal family in the process. It was known as the largest European stock scam in history at the time.) 

Jake the Barber, linked to the Chicago Outfit, also owned the Stardust Resort and Casino in Vegas, and was one of — if not the largest — donors to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential election campaign, helping to deliver the Illinois vote to JFK, who won the state by just 8,858 ballots.

JFK didn’t forget. On Christmas Eve, 1962, President Kennedy pardoned Factor for a 1943 mail-fraud conviction, saving him from deportation to the United Kingdom.

President Kennedy and his brother, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, signed Factor’s pardon, which was later auctioned at Christie’s for $13,750. (In 1943, Factor had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for mail fraud. He spent the last 25 years of his life as a wealthy philanthropist; three US senators, the LA mayor and a former California governor attended his funeral.)

Architects Hank Webber and Don Staska designed the home in 1969, with original interiors by Chicago’s Richard Himmel and landscape architecture by David Hamilton. 

From the outside, it is a stark, brutalist box. Inside, the 5,471-square-foot space is an oasis, with a gallery-length corridor that was designed to showcase Jerome and Christine Factors’ Pop and OpArt collection. 

A great room is anchored by a black granite fireplace wall and bronze-tinted glass walls that open to the San Jacinto Mountains. The home features three bedrooms and five baths. 

If you are thinking about grand-scale outdoor entertaining, fear not. A pool terrace was built to accommodate 300 guests. The home, on offer for the first time since 2017, sits on half an acre along the 13th fairway of the Canyon Country Club.

“No other mid-century home in the desert has survived in such original condition,” the listing notes. 

In 1973, it was featured in a six page spread in “House Beautiful,” and not much has changed since then. The home is also featured in Steve Treinen’s “Canyon Country Club: History and Design of Palm Springs Garden of Eden.” 

The seller is Jamie McFate, a veteran Limited Brands executive, who lives there with his partner, Nick Bouchard. McFate bought the home for $2.19 million in 2017, according to records. The home’s original furniture and art collection is also available for sale separately.

The listing broker is Eric Lavey, global director at the Beverly Hills Estates.