Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [263]
TV/DVD: Oprah Winfrey interviewed by Fred Griffith, The Morning Exchange, fifteenth anniversary, WEWS-TV, aired Jan. 1987; The Barbara Walters Special, ABC, aired Apr. 11, 1988 (viewed at The Paley Center for Media, New York); The Oprah Winfrey Show 20th Anniversary Collection (DVD set); “A Special Presentation: Oprah and Elie Wiesel at the Auschwitz Death Camp,” The Oprah Winfrey Show, aired May 24, 2006.
INTERVIEWS: Cheryl Reed, Oct. 11, 2007; confidential source, Apr. 15, 2009; confidential source, Nov. 9, 2007; Blair Sabol, July 28, 2007; confidential source, Jan. 28, 2008; confidential source, Mar. 13, 2009, and Apr. 24, 2009; correspondence with Daniel Ruth, Apr. 13, 2009.
REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS: In addition to her Harpo properties cited in this chapter, Oprah also owns real estate in:
California: Oprah purchased her forty-two-acre estate in Montecito in July 2001 through The Promised Land LLC for a reported $50 million. The Santa Barbara News-Press (5/10/2006) estimated that improvements to the property raised its value to $64.2 million.
Connecticut: Oprah’s Overground Railroad LLC bought Gayle King’s house at 37 Richmond Road, Greenwich, in 2000 for $3.6 million. The assessed value in 2008 was $4.8 million. In 2009 the house went on the market for $7.45 million, and later the price was dropped to $6.95 million.
Georgia: Oprah’s Overground Railroad LLC bought a five-bedroom house in Douglasville, in 2005 for $825,000. She had purchased a penthouse condo for Coretta Scott King in Atlanta’s Buckhead area for $1,515,000 in 2003. After Mrs. King’s death, Oprah sold the property for $1,800,000 in 2008.
Hawaii: Oprah’s Yellow Brick Road LLC, Kingdom Come LLC, and O.W. Ranch LLC paid a total of approximately $23 million in 2002 and 2003 for properties on the island of Maui, including a vacation home in Hana and a twelve-bedroom vacation rental in Kula.
Illinois: Her Chicago residence consists of three condominiums in the Water Tower, 180 E. Pearson Street, purchased through Restoration LLC. According to Cook County assessment documents of 2008, the market value is between $2.7 million and $3.5 million. Oprah’s Overground Railroad LLC also purchased a house in the Chicago suburb of Elmwood Park in 2001 for $298,000.
Indiana: Oprah’s Overground Railroad LLC purchased a house at 5585 Jackson Street, Merrillville, appraised at $133,500. The occupant is Joni Jacques, the woman who appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1997 after buying a pair of Oprah’s shoes that were too big for her, saying it gave her hope just to stand in them.
New York: Oprah bought Penthouse 36 at 270 East Fifty-seventh Street, New York City, through Sophie’s Penthouse LLC in 2008 for $7.1 million.
Tennessee: The Oprah Winfrey Trust bought Vernon Winfrey a home in Franklin, in 2000, including an empty lot next door, for $1.5 million. Overground Railroad purchased a house at 9219 Sawyer Brown Road, Nashville, for $191,500