Oprah Winfrey's House

Oprah Winfrey ran The Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. She was nominated for an Academy Award for The Color Purple, released a year before the show went national.

Santa Barbara County assessor records date the main residence to 1959 and its parcel at 40.17 acres. A smaller parcel of 1.6 acres, deeded with it in 2001, carries a house from 1938.

Robert and Marlene Veloz owned the estate before her and were partway through a renovation of their own. It was never on the market, and she talked them into selling.

Bob Greene, her trainer, was scouting Southern plantations for her when he found this land between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific. She bought it in 2001.

She called it Tara II until Greene told her Scarlett O’Hara never lived like this. He came up with the Promised Land, then managed 5 years of building and landscaping.

A grove of 12 live oaks on the estate is named the Apostles, and the cobblestone path to them is Hallelujah Lane. She reads under her favorite one.

In 2017 she opened the gates to about 300 guests for the launch of The Wisdom of Sundays, drawn from her Super Soul Sunday interviews. BeBe Winans sang in the stone amphitheater.