Thank You for Your Service! Inside the Homes of Celebrity Veterans—From Tom Selleck to Morgan Freeman
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Veterans Day is upon us, and we’re honoring friends and family who have served. But, there’s also a range of celebrities who have helped protect the country in the U.S. Armed Forces.
It’s much easier to picture stars like Tom Selleck, Morgan Freeman, and Pat Sajak in sumptuous, king-sized beds with gazillion-thread-count sheets than it is to think of them sleeping on tiny cots in shared spaces.
And yes, while it’s true that most of them eventually went on to purchase rather glamorous spreads, it’s nice to know that before that, they dedicated a chunk of their lives to keeping us all safe and sound.
To help celebrate the national holiday with a real estate twist, we looked up the portfolios of five stars who served in the U.S. military.
1. Pat Sajak
U.S. Army, Vietnam
Few people know that before his 43-year-stint as the beloved “Wheel of Fortune” host, Sajak used his engaging voice as a DJ on the American Forces Vietnam Network while serving in the U.S. Army.
Remember the 1987 movie”Good Morning, Vietnam,” where Robin Williams portrayed real-life DJ Adrian Cronauer? Sajak followed Cronauer, hosting the same “Dawn Buster” radio show and using the same catchphrase, “Good morning, Vietnam!”
Now that Sajak is retired, he can spend more time enjoying his two impressive homes—one on the East Coast and another on the West Coast.
He and his wife, photographer Lesly Brown-Sajak, have a sprawling mansion in the gated Bluff Point neighborhood in Severna Park, MD, near Baltimore. They purchased the house in 1991 for $1.275 million—Brown-Sajak hails from Maryland, not far from Severna Park, according to Virtual Globetrotting.
Sajak also owns another comfy mansion in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles, The U.S. Sun reports. Worth about $5.5 million, the two-story home features six bedrooms and six bathrooms in 7,500 square feet of living space. The Sajacks purchased the property in 1988.
It sits on a leafy, 4-acre hillside lot, mostly surrounded by mature trees and greenery that provide ample privacy. The posh home has two domes with a glass-covered atrium in between, and a T-shaped swimming pool with elevated, wooden decks. A pergola and a pool house, plus a rooftop lounge area, are connected to the home via a skywalk.
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2. Mel Brooks
U.S. Army, World War II
Actor, comedian, and filmmaker Mel Brooks was drafted in 1944 at age 18, eventually serving in Germany, France, and Belgium. Toward the end of the war, Brooks joined the Special Services as a comic touring Army bases and was put in charge of entertainment. He was honorably discharged from the Army as a corporal in 1946.
As he ascended the ranks in Hollywood, the 98-year-old actor and his wife, Anne Bancroft, have also enjoyed the luxe life on both coasts. They bought a lovely, $1.5 million home in South Hampton in the early 2000s, then turned around and sold it less than a year later when they found another place they liked better and paid $3 million for in Water Mill, NY. Their South Hampton home more recently sold for the full ask of $4,995,000.
Before that, Brooks and Bancroft purchased a stellar midcentury modern home in Los Angeles, originally built in 1958. They sold it in the 1980s, and it changed hands most recently in 202o for close to $3.85 million. Nestled on a hillside, it has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms as well as an open floor plan, a three-sided fireplace, oversized windows, and glass doors.
Bancroft died in 2005, and now Brooks is reported to be living in a fancy six-bedroom, nine-bath, 13,055-square-foot home in Santa Monica, just off San Vicente Blvd. The place is estimated to be worth nearly $11 million.
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Credit: Nils Tim
3. Tom Selleck
California Army National Guard
After seeing him for 14 years on the CBS series “Blue Bloods,” we all know how fine Tom Selleck looks in a uniform. But he wore a real one for six years, as a member of the California Army National Guard. He served in Company C, 1st Battalion, 160th Infantry from 1967 to 1973 and attained the rank of sergeant.
The 79-year-old actor has been living with his family on the 68-acre ranch in Ventura County’s Hidden Valley that he purchased in 1998, when he was still flush with proceeds from “Magnum, P.I.” It was once owned by Rat Pack crooner Dean Martin.
The expansive property features a Spanish Colonial-style home surrounded by a tennis court, a pool, and a golf green. The grounds also include acres and acres of crops, several of which died after getting hit with a severe drought. Among the lost vegetation were most of the valuable avocado trees and more than 20 oaks.
In fact, Selleck was famously accused of stealing water for his ranch, from the adjacent Calleguas Municipal Water District, when a private detective was hired to find out what was up with the water tanker that would continuously fill up at a fire hydrant in the Calleguas District Municipal Water District and truck the invaluable liquid up to Selleck’s ranch.
While he says recent rains have brought back some of those crops, the cancelation of the popular “Blue Bloods” series earlier this year concerns Selleck. He says he’s worried about being able to keep the ranch.
“Hopefully I keep working enough to hold on to the place,” he told CBS News. “Am I set for life? Yeah, but maybe not on a 63-acre ranch!”
Some fans point out that the famously mustachioed actor could solve his problems by getting a reverse mortgage—particularly since he’s long been a spokesperson for American Advisors Group’s reverse mortgages.
But Selleck would prefer that the show could continue. He told “CBS Sunday Morning” in September, “I will continue to think that CBS will come to their senses. We’re the third-highest scripted show in all of broadcast. We’re winning the night. All the cast wants to come back.”
4. Morgan Freeman
U.S. Air Force
Morgan Freeman, 87, was raised in Mississippi and graduated from high school there in 1955. He turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. He served as an Automatic Tracking Radar repairman from 1955 to 1959, rising to the rank of airman first class. After that, he moved to Los Angeles, took acting classes, and his legendary professional acting career began.
But once he’d made it, rather than purchasing a splashy spread in Beverly Hills or Malibu, Freeman went back to the site of his happy childhood. He bought a 124-acre ranch near Charleston, MS, from his parents in 1991 and built a beautiful hacienda-style house on the site, with a pool, tennis courts, and lavish gardens.
He also keeps horses and bees. He imported bee hives and planted lavender and Magnolia trees to create a honeybee sanctuary, according to Virtual Globetrotting. And get this: The entire place is sustainable, with solar panels, rainwater harvesting systems, and organic gardening practices.
That’s not all, though. In nearby Clarksdale, he and a friend are the proprietors of the famous Ground Zero Blues Club. And not far away, he previously owned an upscale restaurant called Madidi. Freeman also owns a residence in New York.
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5. J.D. Vance
U.S. Marine Corps
We’ve heard a lot about the military background of Vice President-elect J.D. Vance lately. After graduating high school in 2003, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served as a military journalist. During his four-year service, he was deployed to Iraq for six months in a non-combat role, writing articles and taking photos for publication.
He attained the rank of corporal and received decorations including the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. He then used the GI Bill he earned to attend and graduate from Ohio State University.
Vance’s real estate portfolio grew with his professional stature. He was raised in a two-story frame house in Middleton, OH. The 2,000-square-foot home was built in 1900 and has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The property’s current estimated value is $223,400.
He’s come a long way from those middle-class beginnings. He and his wife, Usha, now appear to own three residences: a three-bedroom Colonial townhouse in Washington, DC, that they bought for $590,000 in 2014 after he graduated from Yale Law School; a Gothic/Victorian Revival, two-story home in Cincinnati that has served as Vance’s base for his constituents in the Buckeye State; and a chic Virginia farmhouse, originally built in 1925. His family has been using this place as a home base near the U.S. capital.
Looks like the Vances will be moving out of the latter early next year and into the gorgeous, white 19th-century house on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory, where all U.S. vice presidents have lived since Walter Mondale.
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The Realtor.com Mission Zero campaign, in partnership with Veterans United, provides information on Veteran homebuying benefits, including zero down loans.
