The mystery behind the $49 million purchase of Dennis Miller’s Montecito estate in September has been solved. And the buyers are no surprise.
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, two of Southern California’s most active luxury residential investors and home flippers, closed on the estate in an off-market deal, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The deal for Miller and his wife Carolyn Espley-Miller’s four-acre estate closed two months before DeGeneres and de Rossi sold their Bali-inspired estate Montecito estate for $33.3 million.
DeGeneres and de Rossi’s new investment includes three parcels and a number of standalone structures, as well as a large lily pond and a swimming pool, the Journal reported. Espley-Miller wrote on Instagram last year that the garden “is heaving with lavender, protea, bottlebrush, sweet peas, & strawberries,” as well as an almond tree and a fig tree.
The $49 million purchase was among the priciest deals ever recorded in Santa Barbara County and that’s saying quite a bit considering the big-ticket deals that closed in recent months.
Actor Rob Lowe sold his 3.4-acre property in Montecito for $45.5 million in October. Later that month, a 240-acre estate known as Rancho San Carlos sold to construction billionaire Riley Bechtel for $63 million.
[WSJ] — Dennis Lynch