For years, Oprah Winfrey’s promised home base has been a 66-acre compound in Montecito’s prestigious Hedgerow District. Now word has it that the media titan has quietly sold a chunk of its multi-structure property, notably a historic four-acre Spanish Revival ranch that it picked up from Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges for $6.85 million in 2019, the same price it originally paid for it five years earlier. Seattle’s Santa Barbara first reported the off-market transfer, which was signed for around $17.2 million.
Next door to his Semier Farm outpost designed by architect Cliff May, Bridges Ranch was first listed for sale in late 2013 for $8.5 million. Winfrey waited nearly six months to buy the place, after the price tag was bumped up to $7.5 million, and then eventually paid even less.
Restored and renovated over the years, the bucolic spread dates back to 1919 and was originally designed by respected local architect James Wisborne Craig. The main stucco and terracotta-roofed house has two bedrooms and four baths on one level with rich wood floors, soaring exposed beam ceilings, leaded windows and five curved fireplaces.
An aerial view of the four-acre property, which sits in the Santa Barbara County enclave of Montecito.
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Highlights, according to the recent listing, include formal living and dining rooms, as well as a spacious family room that connects to an eat-in kitchen outfitted with quartz countertops, green ceramic tiled backsplash, and high-end appliances. A spacious fireside primary suite comes with a bay-fronted sitting area, dual walk-in closets, and a sleek bath sporting warm teak floors, a pedestal soaking tub, and a marble and glass shower.
French doors open to the bucolic grounds, which host grassy lawns surrounding the gardens, an expansive red-brick courtyard centered on a boulder-lined fire pit, and a pool with a splash spa, as well as several guesthouses, a barn and horse stables.
Winfrey, who became the first black woman to appear on Forbes’ billionaires list in 2003, maintains an estimated $150 million real estate portfolio spanning from California to Hawaii and beyond. In 2021, she sold another Montecito property to Jennifer Aniston for $14 million, but she still owns dozens of homes, including several in the Montecito area alone. The Mississippi native also has a chalet-style ski retreat in the town of Telluride, Colorado, and controls nearly 1,000 acres on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
The identity of the buyer is under wraps, but rumors are swirling that Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi may be looking to dip their deep-pocketed toes back into the waters of American real estate after selling most of their holdings and decamping to England last year. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
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Wendy Bowman
