MovieChat Forums > The Millionaire (1955) Discussion > 60,000 Acre Estate?

60,000 Acre Estate?

posted 9 years ago by CaperGuy
8 replies | jump to latest

The size of the Tipton estate is the most unbelievable part of The Millionaire series.

During the opening monologue for each episode, Secretary Anthony stated that he lived with Tipton on multi-billionaire Tipton's 60,000 acre estate.

When I think about it, I find it questionable that even a billionaire would want to own an estate of that magnitude. This seems unmanageable from a practical point of view.

The idea of a wealthy person giving away million dollar cashier's checks is fathomable and practical for a multi-billionaire and it provides the impetus for great story lines.

[–] madman58 9 years ago

i wonder if poor Micheal had to cut all that grass.

[–] bmovies 9 years ago

Newspaper publisher william randolph hearst whose enormous home was in san simeon, was 268 thousand acres.

[–] CaperGuy 9 years ago

Good point about Hearst. I read a lot about him in the past and I was aware of his immense wealth but I did not know that his estate covered so much area. On your prompting, I found articles that confirmed what you say. That only goes to show that I'm out of touch with the billionaire lifestyle. 😀

I guess when you're a multibillionaire, you don't have to be concerned about maintaining anything. You just hire as many people as it takes to get the job done.

My standpoint is that I would prefer to do something else with the money if it were mine. Yet I can understand the billionaire's desire to build a monument to himself and his business prowess. The downside is that such a large estate would be more difficult to secure and the result could be less control over one's privacy and thus less peace of mind. I like the way Warren Buffett maintains his home.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. - Proverbs 23:7

[–] kevin-bergin 9 years ago

Guaranteed Hearst, and others, would dedicate a great amount of these properties to agriculture. As a farm the taxes are a lot less. FDR,his estate was ONLY 2000 acres, put down "farmer" as his profession. Hey, it saved on taxes.

"It's the system, Lara. People will be different after the Revolution."

[–] mwmtampa 8 years ago

Regarding the Hearst estate, even though it was 250+ thousand acres, the vast majority of it was "undeveloped". So although a huge amount of land was owned, all the maintenance was concentrated in a comparatively very small area.

Likely the same situation would apply in the case of the fictitious John Beresford Tipton's estate.

[–] drexelgal-07682 8 years ago

FDR: Save on his taxes, while raising those on all others, to pay for failed social programs. Hillary Clinton is his direct descendant, in that regard.

[–] roysfire 8 years ago

Not only that, but he goes on to say that Silverstone is Tipton's favorite of his (many?) Estates.

[–] MAGolding (1096) 6 months ago

As another answer says, William Randolph Hearst (1963-1951) had an estate of 250,000 acres at San Simeon in California.

On Phoebe Hearst's own death in 1919, Hearst inherited the ranch, which had grown to 250,000 acres (1,012 km2)[3] and 14 mi (23 km) of coastline,[25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Castle#History

William Randolph Hearst also owned another vast California estate, Wyntoon.

William Randolph Hearst bought Wyntoon outright from its 99-year lease in 1929,[11] and in 1934 bought all of Wheeler Ranch and The Bend, a combined total of 50,000 acres (20,000 ha).[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyntoon

Hearst also owned The Beverly House at 1011 North Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA, though today the estate has only 3.5 acres and probably never was very large.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-global-properties/2021/09/14/william-randolph-hearsts-grand-la-mansion-sells-at-auction-for-631-million/?sh=6badbf6559a7

Hearst also owned and largely rebuilt St Donat's Castle in Wales, though the estate was only 111 acres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Donat%27s_Castle

George Washington Vanderbilt II (1862-1914) bought over 700 properties to form the Biltmore Estate of 125,000 acres or 195 square miles or 510 square kilometers, in near Ashville, North Carolina. His descendants still own Biltmore House, the largest house ever built in the USA, and 8,000 acres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Donat%27s_Castle

This list https://www.farmlandriches.com/largest-ranches-usa/ lists the 12 largest ranchs in the USA in 2023.

The smallest is the Howard Mesa Ranch in Arizona, with "only" 58,561 acres of land. The 10 largest ranches each have over 100,000 acres. The largest in the King Ranch in Texas, with 825,00 acres, larger than the state of Rhode Island. Many of those ranches should have ranch houses where the owners reside.

The island of Lanai in Hawaii has an area of 140.5 square miles or 364 square kilometers, or 89,920 acres. The entire island was the largest pineapple plantation in the world for decades. Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation has owned 98 percent of Lanai, or about 88,121 acres. Ellison sometimes lives on Lanai, though I don't know how much of his part of the island counts as his estate.