The self-made media mogul paid
$50 million in 2001 for the 23,000-square-foot Georgian-style home she calls the “Promised Land.”
Last year the spread was appraised at just under $85 million. For such a
public persona, Winfrey ferociously guards the privacy of her home,
situated on 43 acres. At a Barack Obama
fund raiser last year, guests were strictly prohibited from entering
the house, and cameras were forbidden.
Oprah Winfrey is a savy business woman, as demonstrated in her success as a media mogul. She shows the same business acumen in
residential real estate
with her acquisition of her Santa Barbara estates purchase in
Montecito, a small affluent community included in the Santa Barbara
real estate market area. A luxury Montecito estate in Georgian design.
This Santa Barbara
real estate gem is her California residence which she has named "Promised Land."
The property was recently appraised at just under
$85 million but our www.RareEstates.com estimate would be above $90 million based on other
properties sold and now on the market in the Montecito
California real estate marketplace.
The talk show host, 56, has spent millions renovating this $50 million, 14,000-square-foot estate in Montecito, Calif.
(which has 14 bathrooms and 10 fireplaces!)
The teahouse is where Oprah comes to read, meditate, and enjoy a
cup of tea. She could listen to music at the touch of a button but
doesn't: "I don't want to affect the mood here."
She may not visit for months at a time, only stopping by when she can
really get away. "It's a commitment when I allow myself to come here,"
Oprah says. But whether she's in Montecito or Chicago or Johannesburg,
the existence of the teahouse—just knowing it's there—is essential to
her well-being. "It's my dream, having a place like this. Some people
ask, 'Why do you need more space?' And I tell them, 'I need it to
restore myself."
As she continues along a cobblestone road that winds its way through her property,
Oprah points out a path—Hallelujah Lane, she calls it—lined with thousands of white hydrangeas. She didn't have a garden when she was a
child,
she says. "All I had was the hydrangea bush that was in front of my
grandmother's porch." Hallelujah Lane is a living, blooming homage to
her grandmother. White-pink Sombreuil roses (above), which were
developed in the 1880s, climb the wrought-iron arches, while the newer,
pure-white Iceberg roses surround the statue.
"I can get excited over little things," Oprah says as she
walks past a patch of artichokes and green peppers. "I see a basket of
heirloom tomatoes from my garden, and it's so beautiful that I have to
take a picture. Just the bounty of it, the fact that this just came out
of the ground, the fact—oh, I can go on and on about the tomatoes until
people say, 'Hey, it's a tomato!"
source:
http://alachamyobiken.blogspot.com/2011/08/oprah-winfrey-house.html?showComment=1317925656057#c9048055177065064842
