You don’t get to be known as media mogul Tyler Perry without being a little extravagant sometimes. Perry treated himself to a pair of private islands for his 40th birthday in 2009, purchasing the 25-acre White Bay Cay and an adjacent seven-acre island in the Bahamas to ring in his landmark year. The larger of the two islands was listed for $7 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, though it’s unclear how much he ended up paying in total for the purchase of both islands. Perry built a Balinese-style villa and neighboring bungalows on the island, which was previously uninhabited, and even took flying lessons just so that he could take his private plane to and from his new pad, People reported. “There was nothing there when I bought it,” he told Architectural Digest of the Exuma property. “I had to bring in the water and electricity—even my own palm trees from Miami.”
Tyler Perry studios
Six years later, in 2015, Perry purchased a 330-acre lot on a historic former military base in Atlanta with the intentions of creating his most ambitious endeavor yet: Tyler Perry Studios. “At heart, I’m a frustrated builder,” Perry told AD during a tour of the space. “I think I would have been an architect if I hadn’t gone into entertainment.” His studios are built on the grounds of Fort McPherson, a former military base that served the Confederate Army, a fact of immense significance to Perry. “When I built my studio, I built it in a neighborhood that is one of the poorest Black neighborhoods in Atlanta so that young Black kids could see that a Black man did that, and they can do it too,” he said while accepting his 2019 BET Award. “The studio was once a Confederate Army base, which means that there were Confederate soldiers on that base, plotting and planning on how to keep 3.9 million Negroes enslaved. Now that land is owned by one Negro.” Black Panther was one of the first films shot at the studios, and the impressive lot includes a near-exact replica of the White House, an airport terminal, two baseball fields, a strip mall, a residential neighborhood, and a golf course.
Sleek Beverly Hills glass house
Perry’s next purchase had a decidedly different aesthetic: In 2017, he purchased a sleek glass Beverly Hills pad with stunning views of Downtown Los Angeles. He paid $14.5 million for the 4.5-acre estate, previously owned by billionaire physicist, philanthropist, and inventor Alfred E. Mann, who built the property in 1992. The pad measured 17,245 square feet, with 10 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms throughout. Perry reportedly only bought the home as an investment property. He flipped it back onto the market for $17 million just five months later without many renovations or improvements, selling it to fellow multihyphenate Pharrell Williams for $15.6 million. The home featured pyramid-shaped skylights, stone marble stairs, a koi pond, and a resort-style swimming pool with a slide and grotto. The former mentor for The Voice held onto the glass house for a few years before selling it for $14 million in 2020.
Sprawling Atlanta estate
As chef Joshua Weissman welcomes AD into his Austin home in the latest episode of Open Door, he jokes that he doesn’t actually live in a kitchen.
Two years after selling off his record-breaking Atlanta estate, Perry bought another plot of land just outside the city in 2018. Though it’s unclear how much the billionaire spent on the 1,200 acre property, he is in the process of constructing a 35,000-square-foot Gilded Age–style mansion there, as well as a second, smaller structure, possibly to be used as a guesthouse. There is also an enormous lap pool under construction, and what appears to be an airport runway, which makes sense given Perry’s pilot skills. Other plans for the property include an organic farm with horses and other animals; TMZ reports that Perry wants his young son to grow up appreciating the land and the animals. As an added perk, the new estate is located very close to the mogul’s 330-acre Tyler Perry Studios for an easy commute.
Hilton Head helping hand
In 2023, Perry extended his generosity to 93-year-old Josephine Wright, who was reportedly in a legal battle with a property development company that was suing her over land that had been in her family since the Civil War. After hearing that Wright was at risk of losing her Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, home, the media mogul stepped in and pledged to help ensure she could stay on the property, which she called “a sanctuary of my family.” He had a five-bedroom modular home built and then transferred to a part of Wright’s 1.8-acre estate. According to TMZ, the residence includes plenty of leisurely living spaces, including a game room, a great room, and a porch.
