Find Out How Much Old Hollywood Stars Paid for Their Homes
From Judy Garland's rustic Bel Air house to Jayne Mansfield's pink Mediterranean-style mansion.
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You know their movies, their songs, their relationships—but what about the places they called home? Back in the day, Old Hollywood stars took over the Golden State one mansion at a time, purchasing places in Encino, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Palm Springs, and more. Some had estates designed from scratch just for them, while others bought existing properties and made them all their own. We also included a few homes we were only able to find the selling prices on for good measure. Be prepared for some surprises!
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield reinvented the color pink when she purchased this Mediterranean-style home for $76,000 (around $650,000 today) in 1958. She and husband Mickey Hargitay transformed the estate into the Pink Palace, complete with a heart-shaped pool and bathtub.
Hargitay went above and beyond to make his wife happy: He hand-crafted a wooden fireplace and had the pool engraved with the phrase "I love you, Jaynie" in gold. Oh, and did we mention there was a Champagne fountain?
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe rented this Hollywood Hills home for $237 a month back in 1952. She was seeing Yankees baseball player Joe DiMaggio at the time, and the two spent a lot of time here.
Monroe and DiMaggio married and divorced, but reconciled before her 1962 death. Years later, a professional Marilyn Monroe impersonator and her husband bought their iconic home in 2019 for $2.7 million.
Marilyn Monroe's Brentwood home was the only property she ever owned. She first purchased the 23,200-square-foot property for $75,000 back in 1962.
Sadly, the same year she bought the home, Monroe was found dead inside of it just a few months later. In 2017, it sold for $7.25 million, with the deal closing one day before what would have been her 91st birthday.
Frank Sinatra
Ol' Blue Eyes had this gorgeous Palm Springs estate, called Twin Palms, specially designed for him in 1947. How much did it cost? Only $150,000, which is about $1.9 million today.
Celebrities from every aspect of the industry frequented Twin Palms in the Golden Age of Hollywood. In fact, Sinatra would often hang a Jack Daniels flag to signal to his famous friends that they should come over to party.
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford purchased this Brentwood, California estate for $57,500 in the summer of 1928. The actress named the house "El JoDo"—a combination of her name and the first name of her then-husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. She lived there for nearly three decades.
The starlet installed several features while living in the home, including a pool house, theater, and extra large dining room. Over the years, the historic home has been sold and purchased many times, with previous owners spending thousands on renovations. In January 1996, it sold for $1.5 million.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley was just 22 years old when he purchased the Tennessee mansion that's known as Graceland in 1957. He spent $102,000 on the estate—the equivalent of around $924,000 today.
Graceland's interior is just as grand as its exterior, as seen here in the living room. Fun fact: More than 500,000 people travel to see the estate every year, making it the most-visited home in the United States.
Judy Garland
Judy Garland's rustic Bel Air home was built in 1938, one year before she skyrocketed to fame in The Wizard of Oz. In 2011, it sold for $5.2 million, was flipped, and sold again the following year for $6.7 million.
Garland and her mother played a big role in planning the design of the home, working with professionals to create her own slice of New England in sunny California. A warm brick exterior and inviting front porch were both added. Her mom's touch? Yellow beach umbrellas in the backyard.
Clark Gable
Here's an interesting tidbit of Old Hollywood history: Clark Gable moved into Mickey Rooney's former Encino home in 1939. He and wife Carole Lombard bought the house for $50,000.
Gable lived happily in ranch home until his wife's passing in 1942. While he never sold it, he rarely visited due to grief. In October 1977, financier Michael Milken bought the property for $587,500.
Shirley Temple
When the young child actress was just 5 years old, her family bought this quaint Santa Monica bungalow. In 2014, the estate sold for $2.5 million.
However, as Temple's career began to take off even more, the family grew worried about their privacy and had kidnapping concerns. They moved again, this time to Los Angeles' Brentwood area, and installed a top-notch security system with sensors that linked to the local police station.
Jerry Lewis
In 1950, Jerry Lewis and his then-wife, Patti Palmer, dropped $65,000 on this Pacific Palisades home. It was nearly seven times the median home value at the time.
The home had plenty of room for the comedian's big family. It was also used as a space for him and his famous neighbors, including Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, to make home movies under the name of Gar-Ron Productions.
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