Michael Keaton is a country boy at heart. Despite major Hollywood success, including an Academy Award nomination for playing a washed-up film star in 2014’s Birdman, the actor prefers the open air of mountainous Montana. “Ever since I was a small, small, small kid I’ve always felt like I kind of belonged here,” Keaton told Architectural Digest for a June 1997 cover story highlighting his Western ranch.
The actor, who will haunt movie screens around the world when the highly anticipated Beetlejuice Beetlejuice arrives in theaters September 6, came from humble beginnings. He grew up in small homes just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before relocating to Los Angeles in the late 1970s to pursue a career in TV and film. These days, he enjoys the winter and early spring seasons at his Pacific Palisades house and spends the summer and fall in Big Sky Country, which, he told The Wall Street Journal in 2016, “is the best place on earth.” Here’s a look at the properties Keaton has owned in California as well as the Montana ranch he fondly calls home.
Pacific Palisades mansion
As Keaton’s film career took off in the early ’80s, the actor planted roots in Los Angeles. In 1987, he purchased a 3,584-square-foot, sprawling single-family home in LA’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood for $1.3 million. Built in 1951, the four-bedroom, four-bathroom home includes a two-car garage and sits on approximately 0.57 acres. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Keaton spent time quarantining in the Palisades, presumably to be close to son Sean Douglas from his eight-year marriage to ex-wife Caroline McWilliams, who died from multiple myeloma in 2010.
Santa Barbara cottage
Keaton once said that if he could ever “afford a second place,” Santa Barbara would be the spot. He reportedly purchased a 2,292-square-foot cottage in Montecito, a celebrity enclave in Santa Barbara County, California, in 1989 for $1.5 million. But when he first visited the Golden State in the late 1970s, “I didn’t have any money,” he told Santa Barbara Magazine in 2021. “I may have had $280 when I came to California. So my brother loaned me some money, and I bought a car for $700 and came up here. I thought, ‘What a beautiful place.’” At the time, Keaton said, he and a few friends took the trek in his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle and slept on the beach. What he remembers most from the road trip is how the horses walked along the streets and through the town. “Once I could move my horses here, it became even better,” he said of residing on the central California coast. His former property, which sits on about 1.7 ocean-view acres, was quietly sold in 2011 for $3.1 million. Though Keaton rarely spoke about his real estate in Santa Barbara, he told the magazine, “I’m a California fan, actually,” adding, “I’ve had a few places here and there and kind of kept it under the radar.”
Summerland horse ranch
In 2016, Keaton purchased another property just a few miles south of Montecito for $5 million. Located in Summerland, the 19-acre ranch was used as a weekend getaway when he stayed at his Pacific Palisades home, according to listing agent Sandy Stahl, who put the property up for sale with Sotheby’s International Realty for $8.72 million in 2018. The idyllic 2,000-square-foot cottage featured a two-car garage, patio and enviable ocean views—and Keaton had plenty of room for his horses to stretch their legs too. Not only did the property boast a stable and various fenced-off areas, it was located near Montecito’s riding trails, allowing Keaton easy access to the beach for a trot along the coast. “One of the most impressive things I find up here is the Montecito trail system,” Keaton told Santa Barbara Magazine. “I’m amazed that they continue to keep it going.” In the two years he owned the tranquil retreat, Keaton made quite a few changes to the property, including some landscaping and the addition of a new fence. He also designed and obtained permits for a second home on the property but ultimately decided to focus on expanding his Montana ranch, which has become his primary residence.
