James Cameron’s 100-Acre California Ranch Lists for $33 Million

Director James Cameron’s vast California ranch—where he penned the blockbuster movie “Avatar”— is coming on the market for $33 million.

The roughly 100-acre property is located on the Gaviota Coast of Santa Barbara County. Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, have owned the property since the late 1990s, when the Canada-born director purchased it for $4.375 million, records show.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker said he used an ocean-facing room upstairs in the house as his library and office, where he wrote parts of “Avatar,” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The ocean views provided visual inspiration, he said.

When the Camerons bought the home, they were living in a large compound in Malibu and wanted a more rural, agricultural property to escape to, they said. They would leave Malibu listening to rock ’n’ roll in the car, and by the time they arrived at the ranch, they would be listening to Enya, according to Suzy Cameron, an environmental advocate and educator.

“As you drive along that coastal road, the cares of the world go away,” the “Titanic” director said.

The Camerons’ Hollister Ranch property includes a roughly 8,000-square-foot main house with five bedrooms, according to Emily Kellenberger of Village Properties/Forbes Global Properties, who shares the listing with Jeff Kruthers of Hollister Ranch Realty. The wood-and-glass home has views of the ocean, as well as two offices, a gym, a game room and a media room.

After buying the house, they spent a year remodeling it, the Camerons said, installing quartzite flooring and restoring the original, natural woods, which had been stained and painted.

The estate also contains a 2,000-square-foot guesthouse and a tennis court. A large, lagoon-style pool, surrounded by palm trees, has “almost got a Hawaiian resort kind of feel to it,” James Cameron said.

The estate has a roughly 24,000-square-foot equestrian barn, which the director said he has used to store a helicopter and various other vehicles, sometimes working on submarines there for his various underwater expeditions; he is an avid deep-sea explorer and has helped design submersible vehicles. The property also has a helicopter landing pad.

The Camerons, who live much of the year in New Zealand, are both keen environmental advocates who founded a Los Angeles “green” school and operate several plant-based food ventures.

Ref: James Cameron’s 100-Acre California Ranch Lists for $33 Million (wsj,robbreport)