Inside Cher’s Eclectic Real Estate Portfolio

Cher’s decades-long career has been defined by her ability to repeatedly shed her skin and reinvent herself, a characteristic that is also evident in the singer’s expansive and eclectic real estate portfolio. No two properties are exactly the same, and this is intentionally so. “I don’t know where people go to get that rule, ‘Thou shalt be one thing and one thing only for thy entire life,’” she told Architectural Digest in 1989. 

Cher bought her first house in Aspen in the 1970s, but ultimately had to sell it. Since then, she’s snapped up spots in NYC, Hawaii, and throughout the greater Los Angeles area. With each home, she’s worked hard to make the spaces feel unique to her taste and aesthetics. Los Angeles–based designer Ron Wilson, her longtime collaborator and friend, told AD in 1989, “She stretches me to the limit, and then some. I’ve tried every trick in the book, used every drapery treatment, every floor material. She’s had everything—and she still insists I do something new.” Here, we’ve rounded up just some of Cher’s most memorable homes, from subdued sanctuaries to Egyptian-inspired interiors and beyond.

1974

One of Cher’s most well-known properties was the Owlwood Estate in Holmby Hills, California, a sprawling property that she and then husband Sonny Bono picked up for $750,000 (or around $4 million in today’s currency). The Italian Renaissance–style home was built by architect Robert D. Farquhar in 1936, and comprised a historic 12,201-square-foot main house with nine bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, an elevator, and a dramatic spiral staircase. Marilyn Monroe was believed to have spent considerable time at the place when her rumored boyfriend, 20th Century Fox founder Joseph Schenck, lived there. (Actor Tony Curtis and oil baron William Keck were also previous owners.) It’s unknown how much Sonny and Cher ultimately offloaded the home for, but it most recently sold for $88 million in 2020.

Also in the ’70s, Cher owned a Beverly Hills pad that was known as her Egyptian fortress for how it was decorated. The 20,000-square-foot main house had stone flooring, brick accent walls, and wood-beamed ceilings. There was also a 7,000-square-foot Moroccan-style guesthouse featuring hand-carved wood doors, arched windows, and coffered ceilings, as well as five stables, two riding rings, and a tennis court. “That was the only house I ever had any real emotional ties to,” Cher told AD in 1992. The singer ultimately sold the place to Eddie Murphy for an unknown amount in the ’80s. It was last listed for $85 million in 2016.