Oprah Winfrey to Buy $50 Million Estate - Report
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Television talk show host and media entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey has agreed to buy a mansion near Santa Barbara for $50 million in one of the most expensive residential property deals in California, the Los Angeles Times said on Sunday.
The 42-acre estate in Montecito includes a 23,000 square-foot Georgian-style house, a swimming pool and tennis court, a barn, an orchard, two ponds and a lake, the Times reported.
The previous owners had bought the property, about 90 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles and looking out across the Pacific Ocean, for $14 million in 1998 before renovating it, the newspaper said.
Winfrey, 47, who visited Santa Barbara in April for a photo shoot for her magazine, O, reportedly was charmed by the area and made an offer to buy the estate.
A spokesman for Winfrey's Harpo Productions, the company that produces her Emmy Award-winning daytime talk show, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Winfrey is one of the five founders of Oxygen Media Inc., which produces Internet sites and cable television programming targeting women. She already reportedly owns a Chicago penthouse and a 160-acre farm in Indiana.
The only residential real estate deal more expensive in the Los Angeles region last year was the purchase of a Bel Air mansion by Global Crossing Ltd. chief executive and telecommunications mogul Gary Winnick.
That transaction, which had been valued at up to $95 million, is not directly comparable to Winfrey's purchase because it also included a land swap, the newspaper said. |
