Robin Williams’s Napa Estate Sells for $18.1 Million — About Half of Original Asking Price
Villa Sorriso, the country home of Robin Williams, has finally been sold. (Photo: Joycerey.com; Getty Images, inset)
Robin Williams’s family is one step closer to finding closure.
The actor’s Napa estate, which has been on and off the market since 2012, has finally sold for $18.1 million. That’s a pretty penny for sure, but down from the original asking price of $35 million.
Williams built the home in 2003 when he was married to his second wife, Marsha Garces. (Photo: Joycerey.com)
Williams, who committed suicide in 2014 after battling depression and Lewy body dementia, built the home dubbed Villa Sorriso (or Villa of Smiles) in 2003. It is located atop the Mayacamas Mountains between Napa and Sonoma Valleys and is set on a tremendous 653 acres. The main house is 20,000-square-feet with five bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a home theater, elevator, three safe rooms, and an oak-paneled library with “Carpe diem,” or “Seize the day” in Latin, etched into a mother-of-pearl panel. (The actor memorably used the phrase in Dead Poets Society.)
The grounds include 18.4 acres of vineyards producing Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc wines for Robert Craig Winery and Rombauer Vineyards. There’s also a 3,200-square-foot guest house, seven-stall horse barn, tennis court, riding trails, and a spring-fed pond.
The original asking price for the home was $35 million. It sold for $18.1 million. (Photo: Joycerey.com)
The grand house, which was built during his second marriage to Marsha Garces, became a thorn in Williams’s side less than a decade after it was built. He first listed it in 2012 for $35 million but had no takers. In an interview the following year with Parade magazine, he openly spoke about how his divorces ate away much of his cash flow, which was why he was returning to TV in the failed comedy The Crazy Ones and unloading the home, which was about an hour north from the Tiburon, Marin County, home where he died.
“There are bills to pay. My life has downsized, in a good way,” the beloved funnyman said. “I’m selling the ranch up in Napa. I just can’t afford it anymore. … Divorce is expensive.”
Several months before he died, in April 2014, he put the house back on the market for $29.9 million. It was removed around the time of his passing. Then it was back on the market in Nov. 2014 at $25.9 million. The buyers are French winemakers Alfred and Melanie Tesseron, who intend to make wine on the property, according to People magazine. They paid $18.1 million — $4.8 million less than the current $22.9 listing price.
Williams’s third wife, Susan Schneider, and his three grown children became involved in a legal dispute over his estate and the separation of assets. However, according to a trust the actor established, the money from the sale of the Napa house goes to his kids, in trust, while Susan remains able to reside in the Tiburon for the rest of her life.
