In her first interview in over a year, Ellen DeGeneres spoke to The Lib magazine, where she graced its spring cover, about her passion for home renovation, design, and real estate. According to the magazine, DeGeneres has personally bought and sold more than 50 homes and mansions in the Southern California area. Her extensive real estate portfolio keeps the comedian busy. Last year, her syndicated talk show also ended after 19 years on the air, during which it won more than 60 Daytime Emmy Awards. DeGeneres shared some background on her housing situation growing up, offering a possible origin story for her obsession with homemaking. “We were always moving, we never owned a home. I always thought we were looking for the right home, but we just hadn't found it,” she explained to writer Les Fierstein. “I didn't realize we were poor and we weren't going to buy a home. I think my parents took us to the open house caravan for the vegetable platter.” After the talk show ends, it seems she's in a position to get even more involved in homemaking-related programming if she so chooses.
She and Portia de Rossi share the burden
When asked how involved his wife, Portia de Rossi, is in their home design projects, DeGeneres said she's not too interested in her partner's house-flip frenzy. “We don't really step into each other's silos,” she said of her wife, an avid equestrian. “I don't really get her to go to furniture stores with me very often, unless there's a horse somewhere.”
Her “Go Races” approach
DeGeneres takes extra measures to ensure the project's timeline is on point. She estimates that because she has all the resources she needs on hand to complete the work, it takes about a third of the time it would take most people to complete it once she's decided on her new home. The comedian's contractors said working on the “Ellen House” requires an all-hands-on-deck mentality, sometimes involving hundreds of hands on a single project. “We employ a few strategies to speed up construction. One, of course, is pure manpower; other contractors call it 'hands on the ground,'” says Lance Lentz, who has worked with DeGeneres for 30 years. “And yes, I've been known to put 700 men on one job at the same time.”
Ariana Grande's wedding venue renovation
Following a DeGeneres-led renovation of the historic Montecito mansion, Ariana Grande purchased the Tudor-style mansion for $6.75 million in June 2020. The pop star held a private wedding to real estate agent Dalton Gomez at the mansion in May 2021. The mansion, known as the Porterhouse, was originally built in Surrey, England, but was dismantled and moved to California.
She has a deep attachment to her project.
DeGeneres' longtime real estate agent, Kurt Rapaport, recalled a time when the comedian was looking at a particular project, but had it “snatched away from her” by a developer before she could make an offer. Distraught, she and Rapaport reached out to the developer long before he finished on the house because he “couldn't stand the desecration.” Rapaport further explained that she ended up buying the house in order to finish up the renovations. “She took over the house and told the developer, 'You can't do anything more to this house. Put your tools down. I'll have you stop today and pay me.'” Having made good on her emotional and financial investment in the property, the comedian “immaculately restored it.”
She never starts from scratch
Rather than starting from scratch, DeGeneres prefers to work with the blueprints of existing homes and infuse the structure with her own flair. She sticks to resales and not new builds because she wants “instant gratification and an adrenaline rush.” ”If it takes a year and a half to plan, that's a killer for me,” she says. “No matter how nice the chair is, I can't sit still for that long.” The Hollywood legend and home flipper also makes sure to keep at least one nod to the project's former self, which she calls an “homage.”