Actress Drew Barrymore has put her 280-year-old historical Westchester retreat estate on the market for $5 million after owning it for two years. The six-bedroom, nine-bathroom property has spent the past year being extensively renovated by Barrymore, and now it’s ready to become someone new’s beautiful home.
Actress and daytime talk show host Drew Barrymore has officially put her 280-year-old historical retreat estate in Westchester on the market for $5 million. Realtor.com reports that Barrymore purchased the six-bedroom, nine-bathroom property for $4.4 million in 2024 and spent over a year extensively renovating it.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Barrymore explained that the estate was in a much rougher state than she had initially anticipated when the renovations began. In the beginning, she was just trying to do a complete cosmetic overhaul of the property, but that quickly turned into a “complete internal gut.”
The famous actress discussed how she had to replace a majority of the key systems in the home including the heating, plumbing, and the air conditioning. The property itself was originally built in the 1740s.
Specifically, the main level of the home had to endure a “drastic transformation,” due to the fact that Barrymore wanted to open up the kitchen to fill it with light, Charlie Lankston, the executive editor for Realtor, wrote.
That alone took Barrymore a “year of engineering to figure out.” Even though the house was essentially being worked on for the entirety of the time she owned it, she still opted to live there.
“I lived in the house in the most primitive of scenarios. It’s some of my favorite times and memories.”
Initially, Barrymore wanted to transform the property into a sanctuary that would serve as an escape from the city, where she shoots her talk show, for her family.
She also explained how she purchased the 12-acre property due to its location and accessibility from the city being more convenient than the Hamptons, where she also used to own property. Due to her own hectic schedules and her kids, she wasn’t able to make it out to the Hamptons as often as she initially wanted, hence the selling of that property.
The Westchester property, located in Harrison, NY, was a “much easier retreat for the star – accessible within an hour by car,” while her previous Hamptons home could take up to three hours to get to.
With all of Barrymore’s plans, it’s surprising that less than a year after all of the renovations were finally completed she wanted to sell, however, sometimes life changes and plans need to be adjusted.
She explained that the overall renovation obviously took a lot longer than she had anticipated, and during that time, the needs of her family and herself also shifted, so she no longer needed to own the property.
She doesn’t, however, view this need to sell as a failure, in fact it gave her the chance to truly dive into one of her many passions, interior design. Barrymore has stated multiple times that the process of renovating and designing a space to completely transform it is one of her favorite creative outlets.
When it came to all the design choices in the property, Barrymore was in charge. She selected a majority of the furniture, finishes, paint colors, and more. One of the main things she wanted to highlight was the vast landscaping and acres of nature surrounding the estate.
“I had desperately wanted a place outside the city because I had been working for years at this point inside of a studio with no windows. I’m from California, and I just had this urge to find nature.”
Barrymore was drawn to the Westchester house immediately after seeing the listing online, describing it as a “spiritual” moment.
“I came here and I walked around and I was like, I swear my family has been in this house. I don’t think I’m super woo-woo, but I had this really strong sense and feeling,” she says.
Looking towards the future, Barrymore is unsure if she’s going to take on another fixer-upper, focus on her life in New York City, find a furnished property outside the city, or what’s truly next for her real estate journey.
The Westchester estate is beautifully complete now, and ready to be sold to someone who will hopefully be connected to it the same way she was. It’s described as a “rare legacy estate where every room has been thoughtfully reimagined for the perfect moment.”
The property is over 7,200 square feet and brings the beauty of the great outdoors inside. It includes the large main house along with a finished pool house and separate guest cottage. The property is described as having “elegant design details, bright open spaces, and many communal living areas ideal for those with a fondness for entertaining,” Lankston wrote.
“The floor plan offers exceptional flexibility as the open spaces flow between the kitchen, dining room, sitting room, sunlit conservatory, cozy family room, expansive living room, and additional gracious entertaining spaces, all of which are enhanced by the multiple fireplaces, creating a sense of warmth, comfort and connection throughout,” the listing reads.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
