Maria Sharapova buys Summerland ranch for $8.6M

Recently retired tennis star Maria Sharapova has picked up some new digs in Santa Barbara County.

Sharapova paid $8.6 million for a five-acre ranch on a hilltop in the city of Summerland, according to Variety.

Summerland sits adjacent to popular celebrity haunts Carpinteria and Montecito. It will be a change for Sharapova, who’s owned a home in Manhattan Beach since 2006.

Sharapova’s new ranch has three bedrooms, each in a standalone structure. The main house is Balinese in style with a stone terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The second bedroom is in a Dutch-style guesthouse and the third bedroom is set up as a caretaker’s residence. It’s attached to a five-stall horse barn and near the other equestrian facilities.

The rolling lawns and gardens take up much of the rest of the property. There’s also a planted bamboo forest and a small studio.

The listing for the property says there’s also a private well, a water purification system, and storage for as much as 15,000 gallons of water (enough for 882 showers at the U.S. average of 17 gallons apiece).

The property last sold for $4.8 million in 2011 and was listed for just under $10 million in late June before getting a price cut to $8.8 million in August.

The area has seen a lot of activity in recent months. Just recently, billionaire Riley Bechtel bought a 237-acre estate near Sharapova’s new property for $63.3 million.

Ellen DeGeneres recently listed an estate there for $40 million. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt paid $31 million for a compound in Montecito in September.

Citing injuries and near-constant pain, Sharapova retired at age 32 in February with five grand slam titles and just under $39 million in career prize money — a small fraction of what she earned from endorsements. The former No. 1, known for her steely resolve and booming ground strokes, had been unable to return to the top of the game after being suspended in 2016 for using a banned substance. [Variety] — Dennis Lynch