Bolinas, the tiny coastal enclave in Marin County, is well-known for its reputation as an artistic hideaway and notorious for its mistrust of outsiders and onlookers.
But a rare opportunity to buy into the community has come on the market in the form of a 65-acre farm owned by legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz, whose portraits of celebrities like John Lennon, Demi Moore and Tom Cruise have become iconic.
The property at 605 Horseshoe Hill Road—which is listed at $8.995 million—offers expansive views of Mount Tamalpais, the Pacific Ocean and the Bolinas Lagoon. In line with its centurylong legacy as a farm and ranch, the property includes an equestrian facility with a 20,000-square-foot riding area and a seven-stall barn. Additional horse and livestock stalls and pastures dot the land.
Marketing materials tout the property’s potential for “plentiful and sustainable agricultural production” as well as the recent addition of stone planting terraces with new drainage and irrigation.
The residential facilities on the farm include a 1920s-era four-bedroom single-family home, a guest house with a workshop, a two-bedroom caretaker’s residence and a converted garage.
Although Leibovitz has spent most of her life in New York City, she attended the San Francisco Art Institute and said in a statement that she always “dreamed about returning to California.”
“I’ve spent many holidays with friends in Bolinas,” Leibovitz said. “When the children were born we would go together and they would surf and pick up shells and stones along the shore. And I would occasionally look for ‘the place.’”
Leibovitz purchased the property in 2019 for $7.5 million when it appeared that one of her daughters would go to college in the Bay Area, later investing more than $2 million into improving its facilities. She had plans to partner with a farmer to restore the property but eventually put those on pause when all of her daughters decided to go to attend school in the Northeast.
“Things don’t always go as planned,” she said.
Leibovitz isn’t the only photographer to garner inspiration from the property. Ansel Adams snapped a picture of a weathered dairy barn on the property during a swing through the West Coast in the 1930s.
Prior to Leibovitz’s purchase, the property was owned by the family of Warren Hellman, the San Francisco investor and philanthropist known for starting the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park.
During his ownership, Hellman converted an unused farm building into a music studio and another into a music venue to host private concerts.
Compass agent Alexander Fromm Lurie, who is co-listing the property with Nick Svenson, said that during Hellman’s ownership, the property served as a gathering place for musicians and other cultural figures
“The site of many special events, concerts, and weddings over more than a century, The Hideaway has an indelible place in history—both for the SF Bay Area as well as globally—this special space has served as a launching pad of creative inspiration for renowned musical and visual artists of international repute,” Lurie said in a statement.