Inside Steven Spielberg’s Real Estate Portfolio—Including His Mega-Yacht

Though he’s been in the movie business for more than 50 years, Steven Spielberg only recently shared his own story through the award-winning autobiographical drama The Fabelmans. The iconic director has largely kept his private life out of the spotlight, preferring his professional accomplishments to take center stage, but what is known about his off-screen pursuits is that he has a deep love for real estate and luxury vehicles.

“The only difference between redoing the house and making a film is that I paid for it,” he once told Architectural Digest of turning his Pacific Palisades estate into his dream home. In other words, the intentionality and attention to detail that the director is so well-known for onscreen extends into his vast real estate portfolio. Over the years, he has bought and sold properties in Malibu, New York City, East Hampton, and Naples, Florida (though details on his homes there are scarce), among other locales. Here, we’ve rounded up a few of the places he’s called home.

1983

In the earlier years of Spielberg’s career, he and his then wife, Amy Irving, lived between an apartment in Manhattan and a summer cottage in the Hamptons. Spielberg had reportedly purchased the main property for the 3.9-acre Hamptons compound at the recommendation of his mentor, media mogul Steve Ross. The director worked with architect Charles Gwathmey to reimagine the main house from an 18th-century Dutch barn (the family later dubbed the house Quelle Barn). Spielberg’s favorite feature of the home? “The statement of the staircase,” he told AD in May 1988, of the zigzagging stairs that run through the middle of the barn.

In 1991, Spielberg called upon Gwathmey to construct an additional cedar-shingle modern guesthouse, which was featured in AD. “Working with Steven is great because he is visual, yet he also believes in collaboration,” Gwathmey told AD at the time. The building is single-story and features two primary bedrooms that each have their own fireplace, window seat, and outdoor terrace. At the opposite end of the skylit gallery are the children’s bedrooms, outfitted with bunk beds. Several years later, the director and the architect collaborated again after Spielberg purchased several more acres, this time constructing a second guesthouse, a garage with staff rooms above it, and stables. Spielberg still owns this property.

Spielberg’s longtime Manhattan apartment is located in the San Remo building, easily one of the most expensive and coveted apartment co-ops in the world. Though it’s unclear when and for how much the director purchased his home in the prewar Beaux Arts building designed by Emery Roth, what is known is that he owns a pad on the 17th floor measuring 6,000 square feet and overlooking Central Park West. In 2000, the Times reported that fellow residents in the 27-floor luxury building were unhappy with the “jackhammering and renovation” that was going on, so it is safe to assume that Spielberg has made some upgrades to the unit since his purchase. Other celebrities who have lived in the San Remo include Steve Jobs, Bono, Diane Keaton, Bruce Willis, Mary Tyler Moore, and Tiger Woods.

1985

Before Spielberg purchased the five-bedroom, six-bathroom Pacific Palisades property that would become his primary residence, he already owned two other places in LA—a bachelor pad in Coldwater Canyon and a beach house in Malibu. When he and Irving decided to look for a more permanent home on the West Coast, however, they went with something slightly larger: a 10,000-square-foot tile-roof stucco mansion situated on three hillside acres overlooking the city. “It was like going to Hawaii and finding the perfect cove,” he told AD of the residence’s prime location. The Mediterranean-style mansion, which was previously owned by Cary Grant and David O. Selznick, among other Hollywood luminaries, was already impressive, but Spielberg took it upon himself to further reimagine parts of the property, enlisting the help of architect Harry Newman.

He doubled its size to 20,000 square feet; created a hobbit-themed TV room with mushroom-shaped windows, a retractable television screen, and curved walls; and installed a 14,000-gallon curved aquarium in the primary bathroom. In the mid-’90s, he added two important structures to the property: a guesthouse and a study, which he wanted to integrate “as if they had always been there,” he told AD in April 1994. The three structures are connected via a spiral ramp reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright’s late work. Spielberg also added a vineyard to the property in 2013. The director and his current wife, Kate Capshaw, still consider this compound their primary residence, and it has been estimated to be worth upwards of $100 million by the website Celebrity Net Worth.

1989

Spielberg purchased the first of two Malibu properties that would become a mega-compound for $3.375 million this year. More than a decade later, in 2000, he would buy the second for $3.2 million. The two-parcel spread comprised 1.41 acres with a 7,237-square-foot main house and a separate, self-contained guesthouse. Built in the Arts & Crafts style, the seven-bedroom, eight-and-a-half bathroom residence included a media lounge with a fireplace, a dining area with a bay window, and a spacious home theater. The second-floor primary suite boasted an oceanside terrace, a massage room, and a private library. Spielberg and Capshaw put the sprawling residence up for rent in 2013, asking $125,000 a month (later, it rose to $150,000 a month) before finally selling it in an off-market deal for $26 million in 2015.

2008

Spielberg next expanded his East Hampton holdings with the purchase of a 1900s home for $20 million. The Hollywood icon promptly razed the existing house and planned to build a new mansion in its place on the three-acre pond-front lot, but nothing came of the building plans for years. Finally, in 2014, he quietly listed the empty Georgica Cove lot for $24.5 million. It sold for $21.25 million several months later.

2010

Spielberg then turned his attention from land to sea, commissioning the construction of a 282-foot mega-yacht he named Seven Seas after his seven children and his wife. The oceanic behemoth was built by Netherlands-based company Oceano, and featured four decks, a swimming pool, multiple spas, full cinema, and helipad. It could easily accommodate up to 20 guests in its nine staterooms, as well as up to 28 crew members, and with its 77,000-gallon fuel tank, could potentially make a transatlantic trip. The main suite on the upper level featured a private study, a walk-in closet, and a spacious bathroom with spa. Spielberg listed Seven Seas for $160 million in spring 2021 and sold it several months later for a reported $150 million, to billionaire steel baron Barry Zekelman. The yacht has since been appropriately renamed to Man of Steel. It has been rumored that in 2019, Spielberg commissioned Oceano to build a new, even larger yacht measuring 358 feet.