Neverland Ranch

Michael Jackson purchased the 2,700-acre estate in the Santa Ynez Valley near Los Olivos, California, in 1988 for approximately $17 million, and spent the following years transforming it into the most elaborate private residence in American popular culture. He named it Neverland Ranch after the island in Peter Pan, a reference that was entirely sincere: the property included a private amusement park with rides, a zoo with exotic animals, a movie theatre, a train station, and the elaborate gardens and statuary of someone who had decided to build, in the hills above Santa Barbara, the childhood he had not been allowed to have. He was twenty-nine years old when he bought it.

Neverland Ranch was simultaneously Jackson's most personal creation and the site of the most damaging controversies of his life. It was at Neverland that he received children as houseguests, and allegations of sexual abuse that arose in 1993 and again in 2003 centred on the property. Jackson maintained his innocence and was acquitted on all criminal charges in 2005, but the charges damaged his reputation permanently and he left Neverland in 2005 and never returned. The ranch, which had cost tens of millions of dollars to maintain, fell into disrepair after his departure.

Jackson died in 2009 without returning to Neverland. The estate — renamed Sycamore Valley Ranch by its subsequent owners — was sold in 2020 to billionaire Ron Burkle for approximately $22 million. It is a private property not open to the public. The surrounding Santa Ynez Valley, with its wine country and horse ranches, is a place of considerable natural beauty, and Neverland's gates and the road leading to the estate remain a point of pilgrimage for Jackson's fans from around the world.