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Pioneering chef Julia Child is widely credited with bringing French cuisine into American households through her best-selling debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and breakthrough television series, The French Chef. Combined with her relatable personality and unfussy approach, Child catapulted to stardom in the early 1960s.
Two decades later, the chef and author had firmly cemented her status as a culinary icon—and debuted Dinner at Julia’s, a distinctly American, 12-episode PBS series filmed at a rented ranch in Southern California. Though extensively remodeled, the property is now on the market for just under $22 million.
Blake Bronstad for Sotheby’s International Realty
The remodeled chef’s kitchen, with a framed photograph of Julia Child on the right.
Dubbed “Four Oaks,” the three-acre estate is located in the coastal Santa Barbara community of Hope Ranch. Designed by architecture firm Edwards & Plunkett, the six-bedroom residence dates to 1934 and was originally home to Clarence B. Mitchell, the heir to a prominent Chicago banking family. Later homeowners included actor Fess Parker, who played the lead in TV series Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.
Blake Bronstad
The wood-paneled study.
By the time Child filmed Dinner at Julia’s there, the brick-walled kitchen featured a fireplace, butcher-block island, and wood-beamed ceilings. At the end of each episode, after she prepared an elaborate feast, Child would speak with various vintners in the wine cellar before greeting her dinner guests in the formal parlor. They would all then sit down to eat in a dining room lined with floral wallpaper.
However, those hallmarks are now gone. The renovated interiors include a bright, open-plan kitchen with a pair of expansive islands, top-of-the-line appliances, and a butler’s pantry. (The listing photos do show a framed photograph of Child prominently displayed in the kitchen.)
Blake Bronstad for Sotheby’s International Realty
Four Oaks comes with an outdoor pool with fountains.
Elsewhere in the 9,700-square-foot main house is a formal dining room, wood-paneled library, fitness studio, and upstairs primary suite equipped with two closets and a covered terrace. The grounds, meanwhile, include manicured gardens, a tennis court, a swimming pool, a citrus allée, and a detached guest house with an additional bedroom.
Blake Bronstad
The property is just moments from the Pacific.
Though Child never owned the estate, it occupied a special place in her story. Despite Dinner at Julia’s airing for just one season, Child eventually returned to the area in 2001, following the death of her husband, Paul. She spent the final years of her life in nearby Montecito, where she found a landscape that reminded her of the French coast she loved. “The climate and the atmosphere recall the French Riviera between Marseille and Nice,” she wrote in National Geographic Traveler. “Very often, being there on the Riviera, where we used to have a little house, I’d… say, ‘Well, I’d just as soon be in Santa Barbara.’”
Four Oaks is listed for $21.95 million with Dusty Baker and Greg Moss of Sotheby’s International Realty.
Geoffrey Montes is an associate editor at ELLE Decor with a serious love for all things real estate and design. Before that, he worked at Architectural Digest, Galerie, and Preservation magazines, covering everything from jaw-dropping listings to world-famous architects and design events like Salone del Mobile and Homo Faber.
Dining and Cooking