In 1996 Jane Fonda and her then husband Ted Turner bought Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico, 578,000 acres of it. In 2000, as that marriage ended, she bought Forked Lightning Ranch on the Pecos River, 2,300 acres with a 9,600-square-foot main house, an equestrian centre and three further residences. She sold it in 2015 for $19.5 million.
Today she lives in a Los Angeles townhouse of 6,679 square feet, bought in 2017 for about $5.45 million. From 578,000 acres to a four-bedroom house on a city street is the most complete downsizing documented anywhere on this site, and she did it deliberately.
This guide follows the whole sequence.
Jane Fonda’s properties at a glance
| Property | Location | Key figures | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vermejo Park Ranch, 578,000 acres | New Mexico | Bought jointly with Ted Turner in 1996 from Pennzoil; price undisclosed | Retained by Turner after the marriage ended |
| Forked Lightning Ranch, 2,300 acres | Near Pecos, New Mexico | Bought 2000; listed and sold in 2015 for $19.5 million | Sold |
| House in Trousdale Estates | Beverly Hills, Los Angeles | Sold for $8.5 million; later relisted by others at $11 million and $13 million | Sold around 2017 |
| Mediterranean-style townhouse, 6,679 sq ft, four bedrooms | Los Angeles | Bought 2017 for about $5.45 million | Her home |
Who is Jane Fonda?
Jane Fonda is an American actress and activist, born in 1937. She has won two Academy Awards, for Klute and Coming Home, and her work runs from Barbarella and 9 to 5 to On Golden Pond and, in her eighties, Grace and Frankie. Her exercise videos in the 1980s were a cultural and commercial phenomenon in their own right.
She has been married three times, to Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden and Ted Turner, and was later in a long relationship with the record producer Richard Perry. She has been a prominent political activist throughout her life, and in recent years has focused on climate campaigning.
Each of the properties below maps onto one of those chapters, which is why her property record reads more like a biography than a portfolio.
Vermejo Park Ranch
In 1996 Fonda and Turner agreed to buy Vermejo Park Ranch from Pennzoil, at an undisclosed price. At 578,000 acres it is one of the largest privately held pieces of land in the United States, and they made it a home as well as a conservation project, setting out to restore the land and its wildlife.
It did not stay hers. The marriage ended in 2001 and Turner retained the ranch, which remains part of the very large land holding described in the account of Ted Turner’s properties. Fonda’s association with it lasted about five years.
Forked Lightning Ranch
In 2000, as her marriage to Turner was breaking up, Fonda bought Forked Lightning Ranch for herself. It sits on the Pecos River in northern New Mexico and runs to 2,300 acres.
The buildings are substantial: a main house of 9,600 square feet, an equestrian centre, a hacienda that serves as a guesthouse, a log house and a rancher’s house. She had learned to fly fish during her marriage to Turner, and the Pecos frontage was part of the appeal.
She kept it for fifteen years. It was listed at $19.5 million and sold at that figure in 2015 to an undisclosed buyer. Achieving the full asking price on a ranch of that size is unusual and a good outcome, since large western properties routinely sit for years and close well below the guide.
The Beverly Hills house
In Los Angeles, Fonda lived in Trousdale Estates, the hillside enclave above Beverly Hills, with Richard Perry.
The house was sold for $8.5 million after the couple parted. It has since been marketed by later owners at $11 million and at $13 million, which indicates it was renovated and repositioned after she left, and that the $8.5 million she received was well below what the property would later command.
The house she lives in now
In 2017 Fonda bought a Mediterranean-style townhouse in Los Angeles for about $5.45 million. It runs 6,679 square feet with four bedrooms and seven bathrooms, a private courtyard and a terrace on the third floor.
By any normal measure that is a large and expensive house. By the standard of what she previously owned it is a radical reduction. She went from a share in more than half a million acres, to 2,300 acres with five separate residences on it, to a townhouse on a city lot, across roughly twenty years.
The interiors have been described as functioning partly as a record of her life, with the living room in particular given over to photographs and objects from a career spanning six decades.
Where does Jane Fonda live now?
Los Angeles, in the townhouse she bought in 2017.
The evidence is straightforward. She bought it in 2017 following the end of her relationship with Perry and the sale of the Beverly Hills house, has been photographed and interviewed there since, and no sale, listing or subsequent purchase has been reported. She continues to work and campaign from Los Angeles.
She no longer owns property in New Mexico. Forked Lightning went in 2015 and Vermejo was never hers alone. No Georgia or Atlanta property of hers, dating from the Turner years, has been documented as remaining in her name.
The downsizing appears to have been deliberate rather than forced. She has been consistently outspoken on consumption and the climate, and a woman in her eighties choosing a manageable city house over a ranch requiring a permanent staff is a decision with an obvious internal logic. It is the opposite of the pattern documented in the account of Goldie Hawn’s Colorado log home, where the rural property is the one that has been kept longest.
Sources
- Deseret News on the 1996 purchase of the 578,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch with Ted Turner.
- E! News and Yahoo on Forked Lightning Ranch, its acreage and buildings, the 2000 purchase and the 2015 sale at $19.5 million.
- Robb Report on the Trousdale Estates house she shared with Richard Perry and its later marketing.
- Fox News and Hello! on the 2017 purchase at about $5.45 million and the property’s size and features.
