Castles of Southern California by Guest Blogger

The following post was contributed by Sarah Scrafford:

California is famed as much for its long coastline, beaches and sunshine as for its celebrity homes, some of which are similar to castles because of their size and/or opulence. Celebrities are big spenders, opting at times for style over substance and size over convenience. Even though these homes are not the primary residences of many of their owners, they’re still huge buildings set in palatial estates. Here’s a list of Southern California’s better known “castles” and the celebrities who own them:

·        Oprah Winfrey: Set on a sprawling area of 42 acres in Santa Barbara, the house itself spans 23,000 square feet and comprises six bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms and ten fireplaces. The surrounding area is landscaped to perfection with the crowning glory being the manmade lake and the rare fish its home to. Oprah prides herself on being the owner of the home that has the most amount of green space in Santa Barbara.

·        Michael Jackson: Neverland Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara County has been in the news more for all the wrong reasons than the right ones. The flailing fortunes of its owner Michael Jackson and the controversial pedophilia cases that centered around this 2800 acre estate have kept Neverland in the public eye.Jackson purchased this huge space and converted it into more of an amusement park than a home – with its zoo and theme park, the estate was aptly named Neverland after the place where children never grow up in the Peter Pan books. It’s closed down now, and the exotic animals that once attracted celebrity guests from far and wide have now been sold to zoos and private investors over the world to help fund the aging pop star’s extravagant habits.

·        Aaron Spelling: Larger than most luxury hotels, this home sits on 56,000 square feet of prime property in Los Angeles. Housing an unbelievable 123 rooms, one of which is a bowling alley, this building is now home to one person – Aaron’s widow Candy Spelling. The successful producer of television shows allegedly purchased Bing Crosby’s home and tore it down completely to build this monstrosity that looks more like Richie Rich’s home than something out of real life.

·        Will Smith: Having had to shell out more than $20 million and wait for longer than seven years to move into this house, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and their children were forced to pack their bags and leave following a bushfire threat in 2005. Known as Calabasas Castle, this piece of property comes complete with a lake, a basketball court, a tennis court and a golf course.

·        George Lucas: Skywalker Ranch earned some sort of notoriety when the then president Ronald Reagan was denied permission to visit – that’s how much filmmaker and brain behind the Star Wars movies George Lucas values his privacy. Rumored to have cost up to $100 million, this 4700 acre estate is more of a retreat for Lucas rather than a primary home and comprises a barn for his menagerie of animals, vineyards, a fruit and vegetable garden, a manmade lake, an outdoor pool, a hilltop observatory, a theater that seats 300, multiple screening rooms, a fitness center with racquetball courts, and its own fire station. 

By-line:

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of luxury homes. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com

Comments

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Very interesting post!