A sprawling beachside mansion previously belonging to John Lennon and Yoko Ono has just hit the market. Known locally as El Solano, the Palm Beach, Florida, estate is situated close to homes owned by Rod Stewart and author James Patterson. Set on 1.3 acres, the property includes a roughly 14,000-square-foot Spanish-style main house, a three-car garage, two swimming pools, and a beachfront cabana, and it is currently listed for $47.5 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The seven-bedroom home was originally built in 1919 by famed architect Addison Mizner and has been substantially upgraded since then, though it still retains such noteworthy period details as hand-stenciled ceilings and coquina stone accents. Photos show a lavish living room anchored by an oversize, carved-mantel fireplace, with a wall of windows facing the water. One unusual architectural feature is that the property actually shares a wall with a two-story guest apartment towned by Patterson, which, in turn, is linked to Patterson’s main house by a second-floor bridge. It therefore appears as though Lennon and Ono’s former home and Patterson’s are linked, though they are not.
Robert Rosen, who penned Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, revealed that the Beatles singer and Ono never actually visited the Florida home before purchasing it, out of fear that their presence would “freak people out and drive up the price.” Instead, they would send people to various potential homes to take Polaroid pictures to show them. “The servant would tell the real-estate agent that he represented a businessman who preferred to remain anonymous,” Rosen wrote. “Yoko would then study the pictures with her Council of Seers.” According to the WSJ, the couple initially had plans to overhaul the home after purchasing it, but Lennon was shot and killed before they could actually move forward. Ono later did complete the work of updating and renovating the home, but sold the property shortly after in 1986 for $3.15 million. The current owners purchased the house for roughly $23 million in 2016.
