Ant Anstead Confirms He's Decided Not to Sell Laguna Beach Home After Listing It in October: 'It's a Special Place'
Ant Anstead/Instagram
Ant Anstead has decided he's not ready to let go of his stunning Laguna Beach, Calif. home.
Despite listing the home for $3.3 million in October 2022, the Celebrity IOU Joyride host, 43, is no longer looking to sell the beachfront property that he nicknamed "Temple House," PEOPLE can confirm.
"I decided to stay," he tells PEOPLE exclusively. "It's a special place."
Fans speculated he'd had a change of heart about selling the house after he posted a photo of his 3-year-old son Hudson, whom he shares with ex-wife Christina Hall, in front of a breathtaking sunset on his balcony on Wednesday. "Staying put 🥰," he captioned the Instagram post.
Ant Anstead/Instagram
Several of Anstead's followers headed to his comment section to try and decode the simple caption. "Staying at the Temple? Hard to leave that view," one user questioned, with another adding, "Does that mean you're not selling? 👏🙌😬"
Another follower commented: "I hope this means you aren't selling after all. Not sure you could get much better than that plus with all the work you've put into it what a labor of love❤️," referring to the renovations he did to the home when he first purchased it in June 2021.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE at the time, Anstead revealed all the work that needed to be done to the 1929 property.
"There's no heating system, there's no air conditioning, half the wiring doesn't work, the plumbing is really bad, there's no insulation, there are multiple broken windows… so I've had to make some quick temporary changes to make sure it's safe for Hudson," he said. "But the bones of it are perfect. In fact, I don't want to change that at all. I just want to update the house in a really sympathetic way."
Ant Anstead/instagram
Anstead — who has two older children, daughter Amelie, 19, and son Archie, 16, from his first marriage — revealed how Temple House was the "house of his dreams" for him and Hudson after 10 months of living in a rental studio apartment following his split from Hall in September 2020.
"A home is, for me, the foundation of a life, and I've got so much coming up in the next few months, the next few years, that I need a solid base, and the timing of it all is just so perfect," he explained.
Since moving in, Anstead has enjoyed spending time there with his girlfriend, Renée Zellweger, who he met on the set of Celebrity IOU Joyride in 2021. During the holidays, he even added a sweet nod to their romance to his Christmas tree: British flags for his homeland and Norwegian flags to represent Zellweger's heritage.
