Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

A beach house once owned by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Palm Beach, Flordia has hit the market for $48 million.

The couple purchased the Florida residence in January 1980.

Lennon had first visited the area on a 1974 Christmas vacation with son Julian Lennon and then-girlfriend May Pang.

“I really like it here,” Lennon informed local newspaper the Palm Beach Daily. “I really don’t want to leave Palm Beach. I’d like to own a piece of it.”

Six years later, Lennon and Ono purchased their ‘El Solano’ property for $725,000.

“John made the tea, while Yoko hammered out the negotiations,” a local realtor from Cutter Real Estate recalled in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

The pair had rented the property for a month-long the year before, an occasion notable for being the site where Lennon’s sons Julian Lennon and Sean Ono Lennon first met.

With over 20 bedrooms, more than 10,000-square-feet of floor space, two swimming pools, a beachfront cabana and a 1.3 acre property on which to roam, calling the property a mansion would be no understatement.

Lennon and Ono would also find themselves in the company of America’s wealthy elite, with current President Donald Trump living only a mile up the road.

“John was very impressed by the ‘wealthy atmosphere’ and ‘squeaky-clean’ streets,” the Beatle‘s former assistant Freddie Seaman wrote in 1991 book The Last Days of John Lennon, “but also complained about the preponderance of well-dressed, clean-cut and tanned men and women. He said that ‘a little sleaze’ might give the place much-needed ‘color’ and would no doubt liven up the ‘disgustingly wholesome environment’.”

John and Yoko had grand designs for the property, planning extensive renovations.

Unfortunately 11 months after the couple had acquired the property  Lennon was fatally shot outside of New York residence The Dakota December 8, 1980.

Yoko Ono would later sell the home in 1986 for $3.15 million.

“I sold the house because it’s just very painful, because it’s a reminder of a beautiful time we couldn’t have together,” she later shared in 1990.