Samuel L. Jackson’s Homes: Exploring the Prolific Actor’s Real Estate Portfolio

Samuel L. Jackson knows a thing or two about the makeup of a good home. The actor, who stars in The Piano Lesson, releasing this month in theaters and on Netflix, briefly majored in architecture at Morehouse College before graduating with a degree in drama. But despite being one of the highest-paid actors of all time, the Academy Award winner likes to keep things “traditional” when it comes to his homes, he told Architectural Digest during a tour of his Tudor-style California dwelling in 2000.

“The house I grew up in was relatively small, but we had a front room I couldn’t enter unless we had company,” he explained. “The good rugs were there, and the curtains that got stretched and starched, and the three-tier tables with the little figurines. But I guess we have a few things our parents didn’t have.” The Avengers star and his wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who is also an actor and directed The Piano Lesson on Broadway, have been able to afford spacious and luxurious property on both the East and West Coast. Here’s a look at the Jacksons’ real-estate portfolio.

Harlem brownstone

Early in Jackson’s career, following his graduation from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1972, he immersed himself in New York City’s vibrant theater scene. So it is only fitting that he and wife LaTanya, whom he married in 1980, purchased a brownstone at 522 West 143rd Street in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Harlem in 1981. The New York Times reported that the couple paid $35,000 for the property, according to a deed filed with the city, and sold it for $125,000 in 1997. “One reason for the move [to the West Coast] was the weather,” he told the Times in 2002. “We came back to New York after a year and a half in LA, and we went to our brownstone in Harlem. I had to chop the ice off the steps. I still love New York, I just didn’t love being a brownstone owner in Manhattan anymore.”

Tudor-style Encino home

When the Jacksons’ respective careers brought them out to Los Angeles for work in the early 1990s, the Pulp Fiction actor and his wife rented property in Encino, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region. But he and LaTanya, who welcomed daughter Zoe in 1982, craved something more permanent for their family. “We wanted our daughter to live in a homey environment,” Jackson told Architectural Digest in 2000. “My wife and I are essentially just very Southern people raised in middle-class households.”

As LaTanya drove through the valley one day, she came across a half-timber house with mottled brick and thought, That’s the house. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1995 that they purchased the Tudor-style home for $1.1 million. Built in 1981, the gated estate reportedly featured a four-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot main house, including a two-story family room with a bar, and a three-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot guest house with green velvet walls and a full kitchen. The Jacksons enlisted the help of designers, including decorator Cecil N. Hayes, who also worked on Wesley Snipes’s house, to make the home their own.

The woodwork was stained, and walls were knocked down to expand a few rooms inside the house. Outside, Jackson—an avid golfer—had a putting green put in where a swimming pool once lived. “I get up early in the morning and go out and play golf,” Jackson told AD, adding that when he usually arrived home by 10:30 p.m., he liked to settle in. “I’m in the screening room watching a movie or outside hitting balls on the green.”

Hayes put finishing touches on the estate, which featured antiques, family heirlooms, and African artwork by acclaimed painters including Jacob Lawrence and Samuel Akainyah, as well as a portrait by their daughter, Zoe. “The house speaks for LaTanya and Sam as a total spirit,” said Hayes. “What you see is exactly who they are. I approached the job almost as an artist would approach a collage. You have all these collections, and your job is to place them on the canvas with a sense of balance and rhythm.”

The Jacksons listed the home for $2.8 million in 2001, and it sold the following year for $1.95 million.

Beverly Hills home purchased from Roseanne Barr

Jackson and his wife reportedly paid comedian and actor Roseanne Barr and her then husband Ben Thomas $8.35 million in 2000 for their Beverly Hills mansion. While not much is known about the estate’s interior, the Los Angeles Times reported it features nine bedrooms and 10 bathrooms with over 11,000 square feet of space, including a two-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom guest house.

Built in 1987, the home was reportedly first owned by a British lord who paid more than $7 million and spent an additional $3 million in remodeling. Located in a gated community in the mountains above Beverly Hills, the property boasts enviable cross-canyon views and includes amenities such as a pool, spa, tennis court and rose garden, as well as a 2,300-square-foot synthetic putting green.

Upper East Side condo

In 2005, the Jacksons purchased a condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan from retired NBA basketball star Greg Anthony for $4.8 million. Located in the Leonori, a prewar condominium close to Central Park at 26 E. 63rd Street, the home—which combined what was once three separate apartment units—includes four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms with beamed ceilings and herringbone floors. Spanning 3,000 square feet, the eighth-floor home has 10-foot-high ceilings and city views. The open living-dining space, which features a black-crystal chandelier, leads to an eat-in kitchen as well as a wet bar, and the home includes two walk-in closets.

The couple listed the home in 2018 for $13 million. However, they eventually took the property off the market, and in 2023 it was reported the Jacksons were renting the space out for $15,000 a month (they initially asked for $18,000 a month in rent). The building, located in the chic Lenox Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, comes with a doorman and spans 13 floors.