Taylor Swift, Jay Leno, Conan

For a small state, Rhode Island has a lot of great real estate.

A playground for the rich and famous during the Golden Age, the shorelines are dotted with mansions. Some of them are tourist attractions, others are still functioning (holiday) homes for today’s elite.

From mansions in Newport to casual homes in Watch Hill and Warwick, here are five homes owned by some well-known celebrities.

$400,000 is the median selling price in RI:But what kind of house is it actually buying?

1. Taylor Swift’s $17 million Westerly home

A big star with a big reputation, Taylor Swift is arguably Rhode Island’s best-known celebrity. Dubbed the “Holiday House,” Swift purchased the Watch Hill mansion in 2013, complete with an Olympic-size swimming pool and a past that links it to Standard Oil fortunes. The songwriter weaved the story of the house’s past — and the ex-wife Rebekah Harkness who lived there — into the song “Great American Dynasty” on her eighth studio album, Folklore.

During this period, the house often pops up on social media in the summer. It was the site of her much-discussed Fourth of July parties from 2013 to 2017, and last summer, Blake Lively posted photos of herself and Ryan Reynolds attending them.

2. Conan O’Brien’s vacation home in Westerly

It’s well known around here that comedian Conan O’Brien is a New Englander, with a Boston Irish Catholic background and a Harvard degree to boot. A little less well known is that his family owns a vacation home in Watch Hill that the Conan host bought in 1997.

In 2014, there was a kerfuffle in which Westerly auctioned off his home because he owed $8,000 in back taxes, but it was quickly resolved when the taxes were paid. O’Brien’s publicist said it was due to a clerical error. At the time, the house was worth $723,000.

Nowadays people sometimes see him walking around Westerly in the summer.

3. Jay Leno’s Gilded Age mansion on Ocean Drive in Newport

Comedian Jay Leno isn’t exactly known for being some sort of gilded mansion, but he does have one — Seafair on Ocean Drive in Newport.

Leno lives primarily on the West Coast, but like Conan, he was born and raised in Massachusetts and has family on the East Coast. On a visit to Newport in 2017, he was driving down Ocean Drive with his wife, saw the home they once admired 30 years ago, stopped, found it was for sale, and bought it with everything in it for 15 million dollars. Telling this story to a reporter on the USA Today network in 2019, he said that getting the house with everything in it was a big selling point, as it ensured he never had to spend time thinking about fabric swatches he called a nightmare.

He estimated he spent 19 days at Seafair in 2019, but when in town he is often spotted out and about. He has tested new material at the Firehouse Theatre, competed in Audirian’s Concours + Motor Week and is known for having lunch downtown.

Move over Tesla:The Newport-based company wants to get into the electric car game

4. Newport Mansion by Judge Judy Sheindlin

In 2018, after 25 years as television queen, Judge Judy Sheindlin bought a title-worthy home for her and her husband, Judge Jerry Sheindlin. The Newport mansion called the Bird House on Beacon Hill Road has six bedrooms, six bathrooms and great exterior views.

Front and center is of course the ocean view, but so is the garden, which was meticulously tended by the home’s previous owner, the late Campbell Soup heiress Dorrance H. Hamilton, who was known for her love of gardens and helped establish the Newport to start Flower Show .

Sheindlin seems to like the Ocean State. Last year, she received permission from the General Assembly to marry her grandson in the state. Interestingly, the wedding didn’t take place on their 3.67-acre property, but at the Weekapaug Inn in Westerly.

5. Vanessa Carlton’s Architectural Digest-worthy home in Warwick

It’s not a mansion, but the 223-year-old home Vanessa Carlton bought in Warwick in 2020 is stunning.

The “A Thousand Miles” singer has been posting snapshots of her family’s colonial house from 1803 on Instagram since 2021. The singer closed the house in April 2021 after “seen the house on Zillow in the winter and decided to give it a go. After a year of renovations, she’s created a truly magazine-worthy home, with an article in Architectural Digest to prove it.

The studio space, for which she has had to apply for planning permission from the City of Warwick, forms the backdrop to her announcement of her 2023 Future Pain Tour, which begins in March.

6. James Woods’ estate in Exeter

75-year-old actor James Woods is from Rhode Island and still resides in his home state.

Unlike those who have opted for a sea view, Woods lives on the edge of Coone Lake in Exeter. Not far from the Arcadia Management Area, his family has owned the land for decades.

The property has been as controversial as the two-time Oscar nominee’s politics. He put the home up for sale in 2017 but found himself embroiled in trouble with the city last December when he challenged his neighbor’s plans to build a home on the edge of Boone Lake.