Rhetorically speaking, how many mansions does one celebrity couple actually need? Add this Santa Barbara stunner to the real estate portfolio of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi. Public records don't yet say what they paid for it, but it had been listed at $26.5 million.
The 13-acre estate, which some media outlets put in Montecito although public records have it in Santa Barbara, is a restored Tuscany villa with mature gardens that include olive and eucalyptus trees.
Think large scale here. The two-story, 10,500-square-foot home was built in the late 1920s using locally quarried stones and sits on 9.8 acres of land. The living room is 800 square feet; there are nine fireplaces and a Roman column that dates from 200 B.C. stands in the gardens.
Lookie-loos needn't bother making the trip because the house, gated of course, has a quarter-mile driveway and you can see nothing -- nothing -- from the road. Property records also show that the couple purchased a 3.8-acre plot right next door, although we can't imagine they have plans to expand the villa. The extra land is more likely another attempt to ensure their privacy.
The popular talk show host and her actress wife also own homes in Beverly Hills and a ranch in Hidden Valley that was affected by the recent Camarillo Springs wildfire. And this isn't the first time they've owned in the Montecito area either. In 2006, they bought a 1926 estate for $15.75 million that they sold in 2008 for about $20 million to multi-billionaire Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google. Let's see how fast DeGeneres flips this new one.
Photos courtesy of Realtor.com
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