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Pop star Ariana Grande has revealed an appreciation for historic architecture with the purchase of a 300-year-old house literally taken from the English countryside and rebuilt in Montecito, California.
A trust tied to Ms. Grande, 26, bought the timber-frame home, named Porter House, in late May from talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi for $6.75 million, property records show. The Los Angeles Times first reported the deal. Ms. DeGeneres and Ms. de Rossi-who have bought and sold an impressive portfolio of multi-million-dollar homes around Southern California-had spent several months sprucing the place up before selling it off to Ms. Grande.
More: Los Angeles’s Historic Homes: A Tried-and-True Investment Even in a Time of Uncertainty
Though Santa Barbara County is full of grand, revivalist architecture from the early 20th century, Porter House is no copy.
For centuries, it stood as two separate barns in Surrey, England, until the 1980s, when some ambitious Californian disassembled the structures and shipped them to be reconstructed side-by-side in Montecito, the property’s listing agent Robert Riskin told Mansion Global in May. He declined to comment on the sale.
Property gurus Ms. DeGeneres and Ms. de Rossi owned the unusual home for only a few months, snapping it up in January for $3.6 million with the intention to restore and flip it, Mansion Global previously reported.
Their work included integrating the two barns, previously known as “Porter Barn” and “Black Barn,” into a single house, while preserving much of the original character. The storybook house still has rows and rows of casement windows, hulking stone and brick fireplaces and vaulted timber-frame ceilings. It’s surrounded by a forest of trees and bucolic patios.
The renovations added a new modern kitchen, which is open to the dining and living rooms. Ms. Grande also gets a sleek new laundry room, snack bar and study.
The trust that purchased the home shares the same mailing address and officer as several companies set up to benefit the pop star. Publicists for Ms. Grande did not immediately return requests for comment.
The Montecito purchase comes on the heels of news that Ms. Grande also reportedly plunked down $13.7 million on a newly built contemporary pile in the coveted Bird Streets in Los Angeles’s Hollywood Hills neighborhood.
