"When we're in the desert, nobody has the number, so we can just groove," says Elliott, with Chambers in the hot tub. "Sometimes we sit out here all night," she adds.

Originally Chambers envisioned an old-fashioned soda fountain for the wet bar. When she decided to go with a tiki hut motif, "everyone said I was insane. but now friends think it's fantastic."

A four-poster from Mike Bell Antiques and Reproductions. "I saw it and loved the palm trees," says Chambers.

Like most actors with years of stage training, David James Elliott knows how to make an entrance. On a scorching afternoon in Palm Desert, Calif., Elliott - aka Lieutenant Commander Harmon "Harm" Rabb of the long-running CBS naval drama JAG - huffs into the foyer of his weekend home, wearing shorts and a tank top, his face flushed and his 6-foot-4-inch frame shiny with sweat from a 12-mile run. Let's just say that countless worshipful JAG fans would, at this moment, give anything to put themselves in Harm's way.

"Welcome back," calls Elliott's wife of 10 years (and co-star of four), Nanci Chambers, from one of the plump living room sofas. Chambers, 39, plays JAG's scheming Lieutenant Loren Singer and is expecting their second child in February. "Hi, Dad," chimes in daughter Stephanie, 9, who is sitting at the kitchen counter, surfing the Internet.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," says Elliott, 42. "I'm doing a half Ironman [triathlon] in two weeks, and I'm in training. It's a benefit for disabled athletes. I'm biking 56 miles and running 13, then a disabled athlete will do a 1.5-mile swim." He offers a slightly slippery, superstrong handshake before excusing himself to grab a quick shower. Although the local mercury routinely cracks triple digits, Palm Desert, a resort haven south of Palm Springs, is where Elliott, Chambers and Stephanie go to chill out after a hectic week in Los Angeles. "For me," says Elliott, fresh from the shower in a black Calvin Klein T-shirt and faded Levi's, "L.A. is always go, go, go."

With a tiring production schedule, he never sees as much of the women in his life as he would like, so weekends are for them. "A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man," says Elliott, smiling at the cheesy line borrowed from Marlon Brando in The Godfather. (Over the course of the afternoon, he'll provide an aphorism for every occasion, tossing off quotes from Nietzsche, Tennessee Williams and golf sage Harvey Penick.) Elliott's determination to savor every weekend moment is a source of amusement on the JAG set. "I've seen David hop in his car at 3 A.M., after we've wrapped on a Friday night, to drive to Palm Desert," says Catherine Bell, who plays Lieutenant Colonel Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie. "I've told him he's insane, but I know he's thrilled to go."

"The moment I come out here," he says, "stress vanishes."

Cultivating tranquility was a priority when Elliott and Chambers began planning their desert getaway. And from the soothing earth tones of the tumbled marble floors to the multilayered color schemes throughout the house - celadon and apple greens in the living room, aqua blues in the bedroom, subtle shades of purple in Stephanie's room, and raspberry in the music room - the ambience is determinedly mellow. The couple have been visiting the Palm Springs area since moving to L.A. from their native Canada more than 10 years ago. "Coming from Toronto, this was an oasis," says Elliott. "The first place we stayed at was a cockroach-infested motel, but we were so enthralled, we didn't care. We would see a two-star hotel and say, 'Maybe one day we'll be able to stay there.'"

Although they considered buying what Chambers calls "a groovy Palm Springs house," they eventually opted for an award-winning country club development. "It was a safer environment for Stephanie to play outside," says Elliott. The two championship golf courses, swimming pools, tennis courts, health club and spa, as well as the ample space for biking, jogging and in-line skating, didn't hurt either. Despite the amenities, friends teased the couple about buying property in a retirement community like Palm Desert. "But when they saw the house," says Chambers, "they all went, 'Wow!'"

Determined to avoid the cookie-cutter uniformity of so many golf course communities, Elliott and Chambers agreed that the 3,500-square-foot house should feel different from their homes in L.A. and the Bahamas (where the family of Elliott's late father has owned land since emigrating from Scotland in the early 1700s). So instead of traditional country or tropical influences, they looked to Africa, where they've been on safari several times. The guest suite, inspired by the Tau Game Lodge in Botswana, boasts Chambers' collection of indigenous masks, baskets and rugs. In the main house are wall-mounted tribal spears, photos by African wildlife lensman Peter Beard, and sculptures of elephants - a favorite animal of theirs, even though the couple were once nearly stampeded by an angry herd. "Nanci's very good at decorating," says Elliott. "I weigh in on some things, but for the most part I don't really care."

Interior design is one of the things about which Elliott has such an easygoing attitude. "I'm an obsessive-compulsive maniac," he says. "With work, exercise, lots of things."

"With David," says Chambers, "more is always better." Once he began buying guitars, for example, he quickly amassed 28. On their last visit to Africa, he snorkeled alongside great white sharks. Determined to perfect his golf game, he installed a portable driving range on the JAG set. And with the triathlon looming, he hired a trainer to put him through an Olympics-worthy regimen of hills, sprints and distances. "Being obsessive-compulsive can be a good thing," says Elliott. "If you harness that energy, you can be productive. But it can turn on me. I've always been a wild man; I just try not to be self-destructive."

Elliott once dreamed of a career in music. At 17, he dropped out of high school in Milton, Ontario, and left for Toronto to sing in a punk band. "It was a nightmare," he says. "We were all living in this boarding house along with drunks and burned-out guys. We were always squabbling, and one day I just said, 'What am I doing?'" He returned home at age 19 to finish high school, where a teacher encouraged him to pursue acting after hearing him read King Lear in class. He went on to Canada's prestigious Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, followed by two seasons with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario.

Elliott's break came when he was cast in the Canadian TV drama Street Legal. He met Chambers when she guest-starred on the show, and shortly after they began dating he decided to give Hollywood a try. Elliott gradually found TV work - including guest spots as Carl the moving guy on Seinfeld, Courtney Thorne-Smith's sex-addict beau on Melrose Place, and a lead on the short-lived crime drama The Untouchables - all of which culminated with JAG's première season on NBC in 1995. Unfortunately, despite respectable ratings, the show, set in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps, was canceled after just one season. "David was disappointed," recalls Chambers, "but other offers came in the next day. The day after that, we found out that CBS had picked up the show." Elliott insists that the hit series is bigger than any one person. "It's got a life of its own," he says. "You just try to nudge, pull and push this thing as it rolls along. There's no real path."

As for Elliott's own path, he'd love to do more movies. He's still stinging from having to bow out of the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro because of JAG, but he's philosophical: "Someone once told me, 'God's got three answers: Yes, no and not right now.'" Such modestly pragmatic comments have convinced many JAG viewers that Elliott shares his character's abundant virtues, a phenomenon he neither resists nor relishes. "I have no dark side," he says, "but I'm not Harm either. I'm me. Just a guy trying to do the right thing."

He pauses and smiles. "And trying to do this Ironman triathlon, which is why I'm riding 75 miles tomorrow morning. I can't wait until this thing is over so I can relax and start training for the Boston Marathon."