Talk of the town

Talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres is known for her real estate savvy, and last month she apparently made another move, purchasing a Montecito, California, home for $27 million.

The 8,188-square-foot home was purchased on January 10 with her business manager Harley J. Neuman listed as the trustee. Neuman has been the registered trustee on most, if not all, of the comedian’s recent real estate holdings—including a lavish Tuscan-style estate, also in Montecito, that DeGeneres sold last year for $34 million; a Carpinteria, California, beach house she snagged for more than $18 million in 2017; and a pair of condos she used to own in Beverly Hills.

The Balinese-style home sits on 8.24 acres of land, including an additional vacant parcel, should DeGeneres and her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, decide to build any additions to their newest property. The five-bedroom home has a cabana that doubles as a gym, a two-bedroom guest house and a basalt pebble infinity pool that overlooks the ocean.

The Valley Road house had been listed and delisted several times during 2017 and 2018 before it was most recently came back onto the market last September for $35 million.

DeGeneres, 61, and de Rossi, 46, previously owned a six-bedroom home in Montecito but sold the near 17-acre property in July 2018 to Netflix executive Ted Sarandos for $34 million.

Ivor Miskulin and Suzanne Perkins from Compass had the listing. Perkins, DeGeneres’s go-to real estate agent, also represented her in the deal.

The home’s previous owners were philanthropists Marsha and Jay Glazer, according to PropertyShark records.

This is DeGeneres’s first real estate transaction of 2019, but if recent history is any indication, it won’t be her last. Her last home purchase was only in September 2018—a $15 million Beverly Hills villa—a month before she sold a different Beverly Hills house she had bought in 2015.