Harry and Meghan’s eight-acre Montecito estate challenged by drought, reports says

Maybe one of the reasons Harry and Meghan are reportedly looking to sell their Montecito estate is that they learned that it’s costly and not environmentally friendly to maintain a large home and garden during a drought, especially one featuring rolling lawns, a lush garden, a swimming pool and an artificial pond.

News last week that the couple were dissatisfied and “not over the moon” with their sprawling $14 million, nine-bedroom, 16-bath mansion came as the State Water Resources Control imposed mandatory restrictions on Californians’ outdoor water use.

Yes, even with all the inches of rain pouring down on California’s coastal areas, and feet of snow piling up in the Sierras, California still is in a drought, with Santa Barbara County in a state of “extreme drought,” according to Santa Barbara County authorities.

The state regulators made the move as Californians failed to meet Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call for a voluntary 15% reduction in water use compared to last year, the Associated Press reported.

The new rules are fairly mild — no watering lawns for 48 hours after a rainstorm or letting sprinklers run onto the sidewalk, AP also said. Scofflaws could face $500 daily fines, though regulators say they expect such fines will be rare, as they were in the last drought.

The Montecito Water District in July also imposed a list of other restrictions for its residents. For example, they can only water between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. and need special permission to drain or refill a pool or pond,and can only use recirculating water in fountains.

The town is known for being the home to celebrities and other wealthy homeowners, who, like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, maintain large estate-style homes, as a new report by the Telegraph pointed out. These homes are said to consume much of the region’s water supply, with 85% of the town’s water used for landscaping, according to The Telegraph and the Santa Barbara Independent.

In 2014, amid California’s last drought, Oprah Winfrey, the Sussexes’ media mogul friend and Montecito neighbor, was forced to truck in thousands of gallons of water to her 40-acre estate, the Telegraph reported. That summer, 837 residents also had to pay more than $532,000 in penalties because of their excessive water use.

The Telegraph said that the Sussexes’ property may be particularly vulnerable to drought because it’s built on land with no natural creeks. A well was installed in 2016, which may help provide water to the lawn and garden, but private wells, which pull water from Montecito’s groundwater aquifers, are controversial. Among other things, there is concern that some of these wells could run out of water.

As the Montecito Journal reported in September, increased water prices and calls for conservation have prompted the town’s biggest water users to drill more and deeper wells to draw water from the aquifers. “The disaster scenario” for Montecito would be to have its aquifers run dry, leaving private well owners without water, the Journal reported.

The Sunday Mirror reported earlier this month that Harry and Meghan have become less than enchanted with their Montecito home, just 18 months are buying it. The Mirror said that the couple have begun to make private enquiries about selling the estate.

While they are said to like the Santa Barbara area, they were not particularly “thrilled” with their house and its location in the community, even though it is surrounded by pine and cypress trees and therefore offers them the privacy they were looking for. It’s reasonable to wonder if the environmentally-conscious couple could also be interested in a home surrounded by native plants that are more drought-tolerant and consume less of local, natural resource like water.

A source told the Sunday Mirror that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have begun to show interest in other houses in the area and are open to private offers.

The Sussexes purchased the house in June 2020 from Russian businessman Sergey Grishin, five months after announcing that they were leaving royal duties. They arrived in California at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and stayed for three months in the luxury Los Angeles mansion of producer and actor Tyler Perry, who also provided the couple with a full security detail, as they told Winfrey in their interview last year.

In addition to nine bedrooms and a swimming pool, their Montecito estate also has a tennis court, tea house and private playground. There also is a spa with a dry and wet sauna, a private movie theater, an arcade and games room, a wine cellar and a five-car garage.

It was reported that the Sussexes chose to move up to Santa Barbara County to gain some distance from invasive paparazzi and to be close to celebrity friends including Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. They also were looking for a more family-friendly area to live. They are parents to Archie, 2, and Lilibet Diana, 7 months.