{"id":434679,"date":"2025-09-18T23:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T23:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/434679\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T23:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T23:04:12","slug":"the-montecito-mansion-prince-harry-and-meghan-markle-made-famous-and-its-unending-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/434679\/","title":{"rendered":"The Montecito Mansion Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Made Famous and It’s Unending Saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated3 min read<\/p>\n

A celebrity pedigree can turn an ordinary listing into a bidding war. But that’s not always guaranteed. Take the sprawling Montecito mansion<\/a> made famous by Meghan Markle<\/a> and Prince Harry. The 12,800-square-foot residence\u2014where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shot their tell-all 2022 Netflix series\u2014has struggled to find a buyer ever since it hit the market more than four years ago.<\/p>\n

With the average Montecito listing spending just 93 days on the market, per data from Redfin,<\/a> why has this home lingered so much longer? To understand the full scope of the real estate matter, we\u2019re going back to the beginning.<\/p>\n

2013: House Sells to Current Owner<\/p>\n

In April 2013, businessman Mark Schulhof<\/a> bought the palatial property, located at 888 Lilac Drive, for a reported $14.6 million.<\/a> The two-acre compound includes a lavish Mediterranean-style main residence and matching guest house, both built in 2006 and designed by architects Don Nulty<\/a> and J.F. Brennan. Los Angeles designer Natasha Baradaran<\/a> (whose clients include Kate Hudson) oversaw the interiors, which total 13,600 square feet across both structures. <\/p>\n

At this point, Montecito had been established as a haven for ultra-wealthy celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, who bought a $50 million estate<\/a> in 2001, and Ellen DeGeneres, who picked up a four-acre compound<\/a> in 2006. (Kim Kardashian<\/a> would hold her 2011 wedding at the latter property after DeGeneres sold it.)
<\/p>\n

2021: The First Listing<\/p>\n

In August 2021, the home hit the market<\/a> for the first time with Riskin Partners Estate Group for $33.5 million. The listing was taken down a month later, with no sale being reported.
<\/p>\n

\"aNetflix<\/p>\n

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in the Montecito home. <\/p>\n

2022: Harry and Meghan\u2019s Netflix Show
<\/p>\n

The property was re-listed for the same price ($33.5 million) in March 2022.<\/a> This came roughly a year after Meghan and Harry\u2019s bombshell interview with Oprah about leaving the royal family. By May, Page Six<\/a> revealed that the couple was in the midst of filming a documentary-style<\/a> series for Netflix. The streamer had just signed them to a reported $100 million deal in 2020. <\/p>\n

The Montecito estate was not revealed as the filming location for the six-part series, titled Harry & Meghan, until after the show premiered in December 2022. \u201cHarry and Meghan did [the documentary] there, and I got bombarded by every newspaper in the world,\u201d Ryan Malmsten, the co-listing agent on the house, told SFGate<\/a>. \u201cIt was supposed to be hush hush, and then the Daily Mail<\/a> got wind of it, and it went ballistic.\u201d <\/p>\n

2024: Price Reduction <\/p>\n

In May 2023, following the docu-series and whirlwind of press, the estate was pulled from the market<\/a>\u2014only to return in April 2024 with a $3.5 million price cut, a discount of more than ten percent. The new asking price of just under $30 million is where it still stands today, listed with Riskin Partners Estate Group<\/a> at Village Properties and Ryan Malmsten <\/a>of Santa Barbara Brokers.<\/p>\n

2025: The Meghan Markle Effect<\/p>\n

The Duchess of Sussex’s solo Netflix show,<\/a> With Love, Meghan, premiered in March 2025 and sparked a new wave of interest in the Duchess. A second season<\/a> followed in August, and a holiday special is forthcoming. Coinciding with the series, Meghan launched a lifestyle and food line called As Ever.<\/a> Many of the products\u2014such as cookie mix, jam, and ros\u00e9\u2014quickly sold out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The show was filmed at a different location<\/a> from the prior Netflix docu-series. And the Lilac Drive property is still on the market. On September 9, broker Ryan Malmsten told SF Gate:<\/a> \u201cWe\u2019ve come close on several occasions to selling it. For whatever reason, that particular buyer chose something else.\u201d He posited that despite increased interest in the affluent coastal enclave, which some have called the \u201cMeghan Markle Effect,<\/a>\u201d real estate in Montecito is trending on a smaller scale. \u201cBuyers today are wanting way less square footage,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ll pay the same amount, but they want a smaller home. That\u2019s a big challenge.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Montes is an associate editor at ELLE Decor with a serious love for all things real estate and design. Before that, he worked at Architectural Digest, Galerie, and Preservation magazines, covering everything from jaw-dropping listings to world-famous architects and design events like Salone del Mobile and Homo Faber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3 min read A celebrity pedigree can turn an ordinary listing into a bidding war. But that’s not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[2083,147534,1331,1381,5105,7710,519,448,147533],"class_list":{"0":"post-434679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-content-type-default","9":"tag-contentid-27cac3e4-fffa-4dd9-9e6d-7f244d22a3e7","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-locale-us","12":"tag-royal","13":"tag-royal-families","14":"tag-royal-family","15":"tag-royals","16":"tag-shorttitle-the-saga-of-meghan-harrys-netflix-famous-home"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115227805854372037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}