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
