50 Million an Oprah Estate

Celebrities don't just spend liberally on the design of their homes: They also spend significant sums of money on raw real estate, which may or may not last in their portfolio of homes. It's common for a celebrity to buy a home for several million dollars and upgrade a few years later to something more expensive. In comparison, according to the Federal Reserve, home ownership turnover for the average America is less than 10% annually.
Sometimes celebrities do decide to just stay put--in which case, they're like to gobble up the neighboring properties until their once-modest single-family home has been inflated into a gigantic estate, eating up several plots of land. Radio-show host Rush Limbaugh, for example, who made our list as the 20th most powerful celebrity, started collecting the real estate surrounding his West Palm Beach, Fla., house in 1996, and now he reportedly has amassed five lots, which collectively are appraised at upwards of $26 million.
Other celebrities start out big and live within their confines. Michael Jordan bought his Highland Park, Ill., mansion in 1999--his custom-built house is 25,000 square feet, with a basement theater and putting green--and he still hasn't grown out of it yet.
Every celebrity has different needs in different parts of the country. Billionaire Oprah Winfrey, who paid $50 million for an estate in Montecito, Calif., that wasn't even for sale, also has property in Hawaii and Chicago; until recently, she kept a home in Indiana as well, but it is currently on the market. When not on the road for her Fox (nyse: FOX - news - people ) television show The Simple Life, 23-year-old socialite Paris Hilton lives in a mansion while in California, but when in New York, she stays at her family's apartment in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel--which is owned by Hilton Hotels (nyse: HLT - news - people ), the company founded by Paris' great-grandfather Conrad Hilton in 1925.