FLIPPIN' ELL
Inside Ellen DeGeneres’ house flipping fortune from sprawling ranch she sold twice to clifftop estate worth £75MILLION
TV star Ellen's latest cliff top mansion sold for £75 million
JUST five months after selling one luxury mansion for a fortune, TV star Ellen DeGeneres has cashed in one of the biggest property sales in California.
The former talk show host, whose program ended two years ago following allegations that she bullied staff, 66, has bought and sold over 20 homes in two decades.
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They have fetched around £400 million in total, with the renovation expert normally turning a healthy profit by making high end houses even more sought after.
Ellen and her actress wife Portia de Rossi’s palatial properties have included sprawling manicured gardens, swimming pools with enviable views, spas, tennis courts or private beaches.
They have made a habit of flipping mansions - doing them up, selling quickly and moving onto the next purchase.
Often the deals include famous people, with the couple buying one pad from Brad Pitt and selling another to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
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When it came to the question of loving it or listing it, they always list.
All of the moves have taken place in California and among their neighbours in Montecito were Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle.
Here we go through the keyhole of Ellen’s incredible homes.
Cliff wedge
Set atop a cliff edge with views of the Pacific, this Tuscan-style mansion with its own private beach has just sold for £75 million.
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The canny couple only paid £54 million for the glorious five bedroom and eight bathroom house two years ago.
It is in Carpinteria, where the likes of Star Wars creator George Lucas and Hollywood star Kevin Costner have homes.
Dine of the times
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In 2018, Ellen and Portia bought a 1962 mansion designed by architect John Elgin Woolf.
The buyers got a spa, gardens, ceiling to floor windows and a sea view.
It was bought for £12 million and sold ten months later for £400,000 more.
Double dip
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Ellen and Portia were so taken by one ranch in Montecito, they flipped it twice.
The couple bought the sprawling four-bed property in October 2017 for £5.8m, charmed by the olive groves, rose gardens and equestrian stables and paddock.
The grounds also boast a 3,600-square-foot guest house with three bedroom suites and a three-car garage.
In May 2018, they sold the house to Tinder co-founder Sean Rad for for £8.9m, bagging a £3.1m profit.
He sold it back to Ellen in 2021 for £11.6m and she then flogged it to Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd for £17m, less than a year later, making another £5.4m profit.
So in total Ellen pocketed £8.5m from the double flip.
Branching out
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The starter home for Portia and Ellen was a bungalow nicknamed The Treehouse in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, which they bought for £1.1 million in 2004.
They sold the two bedroom pad, complete with a massive 2,500-square-foot outdoor decked area for relaxing on, just a year later.
It went for £600,000 more than they’d paid. Other owners include the late Dark Knight star Heath Ledger and Hunger Games actor Josh Hutcherson.
Garden leave
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In 2006 Ellen snapped up a Montecito mansion with gardens fit for royalty.
Bought for £12.8 million, one of its four bedrooms was a 1,300 sq ft master suite.
It was enough to tempt Google billionaire Eric Schmidt to part with £16.2million a year later.
Losing out
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Sometimes the property magnate’s made a loss on their real estate adventures.
Having splashed out £24 million for a Beverly Hills compound in 2007, where they got hitched a year later, they then spent another £40 million on surrounding properties.
But they only got £30 million when TV producer Ryan Seacrest bought it in 2012.
Brad’s pad
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Ocean’s Eleven star Brad Pitt sold his Pacific view Malibu beach house to DeGeneres at the end of 2011 for almost £10 million.
The 1962 modernist gem had bamboo floors, a lap pool and a bling chandelier in the living room.
Within six months Ellen was waving goodbye to the pad having made around £700,000 on the sale.
Dream beams
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A pair of Tudor style properties dating back to the 1700s were shipped all the way from Surrey in England over to Montecito in California.
The couple paid just over £2 million for the three bedroom historical home in 2020, which has its own orangery and a mediaeval-style chandelier.
They listed it for double the purchase price just four months later.
Palatial profit
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Said to be inspired by the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain, this 12,000-square-foot villa comes with a marble bathtub and Corinthian columns.
Ellen snapped up the Montecito seaview property for £17 million at the start of 2022 and shifted it for £29 million before the year was out.
The buyer was record industry giant Scooter Braun who fell out with Taylor Swift after buying the rights to her first six albums.
Bali style
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The couple paid four million less than the asking price for this Balinese style mansion that has an infinity pool, black marble kitchen, gym and walk-in wardrobe.
It was bought in 2019 for £22 million and sold a year later for five million pounds more.
They clearly know the Montecito market where this dream home sits.
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