You can live like a coastal grandmother in Diane Sawyer's 20-acre Martha's Vineyard estate for $24 million — see inside

Sat, 08/19/2023 - 05:45

Tech Insider

diane sawyer martha vineyard estate — Inside one of the property's guest pavilions.
Bob Gothard/ Wallace and Co. Sotheby's International Realty

Journalist Diane Sawyer is selling two Martha's Vineyard properties she combined into one estate.
The estate's original home, called Chip Chop, was built in 1937 for actress Katharine Cornell.
Sawyer has transformed the property into one befitting of a 21st-century coastal grandmother.

Broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer is parting ways with her Martha's Vineyard estate. She listed the property for $24 million this week.

diane sawyer martha's vineyard home for sale chip chop — An aerial view of the property.
Bob Gothard/ Wallace and Co. Sotheby's International Realty

The 20-acre property in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, has private beaches, a main house, two guests houses, and two additional oceanside suites.

From the breezy interiors to the florals throughout, the whole property screams "coastal grandmother."

diane keaton martha's vineyard home for sale chip chop — A view of the property's deck.
Bob Gothard/ Wallace and Co. Sotheby's International Realty

The coastal grandmother aesthetic started as a TikTok trend, and has been all the rage since last summer. It's inspired in large part by Diane Keaton's character in the Nancy Meyers movie "Something's Gotta Give."

Diane Keaton in the Nancy Meyers movie "Something's Gotta Give."
Warner Bros. Pictures/Columbia Pictures

The coastal grandmother trend is defined by light-filled, bright interiors; neutral colors; beaches; and florals.

Fans of Nancy Meyers movies including "The Holiday" and "It's Complicated," which are often praised for the aspirational homes they depict, may be particularly drawn to the property.

Sawyer's estate comprises two properties. The first property, which she paid $5.3 million for in 1995, includes a house dating to 1937.

diane saywer martha's vineyard home for sale chip chop — The main house, which was built in 1937.
Bob Gothard/ Wallace and Co. Sotheby's International Realty

In addition to the main house, there is also a caretaker's house, two detached one-bedroom suites, a pool, and a tennis court on this property.

She purchased the second plot of land sometime in the late 2000s, and has since constructed two houses on it she calls the east and west shacks, real-estate agent Mark Jenkins told Insider.

east shack on Diane Sawyer's Martha Vineyard property — A look inside the east shack.
Bob Gothard/ Wallace and Co. Sotheby's International Realty

Altogether, the property is lined with 3,600 feet of private beach...

...and has plenty of room for meandering.

a layout of Chip Chop estate, Martha's Vineyard, Diane Sawyer — An aerial map of the property.
Courtesy of Mark Jenkins

Here's what the buildings on the property look like inside and out, starting with the main house.

the front of chip chop, the home that Diane Sawyer is selling on Martha's Vineyard for $24 million — The entrance to the main house.
Bob Gothard/ Wallace and Co. Sotheby's International Realty

The main house on the property — a three-bedroom house called Chip Chop — was built in 1937 for actress Katharine Cornell. Cornell won a Tony Award for her performance of Cleopatra in the Shakespeare play "Antony and Cleopatra."

She was the "Meryl Streep of her day," Jenkins said. Cornell hosted some of the most important people of the mid 20th-century at the property — including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Inside the main house, there is a 1,200-square-foot great room.

There are sliding glass doors on both sides of the room. On one side, there is a view of the sound and the mainland, and on the other there is a view of Lake Tashmoo, a shallow lake on the island.

This room is one of Jenkins' favorite parts of the property, he said. It's a "huge, incredibly elegant space, but it's all open to the outside," he added.

There are two fireplaces in this room as well.

Cornell used to sleep in this room. It has one of the property's 10 fireplaces as well as a covered porch.

The main house's kitchen has extra-high ceilings and a breakfast bar.

The main house's primary bedroom has French doors that open up to views of the Vineyard Sound.

"You have a sense that there's been so much thought given to every single thing," Jenkins said about the property. "Whether it's a rug, or it's a flower arrangement, everything's just perfect."

A pool overlooking the Vineyard Sound is situated between Chip Chop and the east and west shacks.

There is also a tennis court on the main property.

Nearby, there are two one-bedroom suites for visiting guests dubbed the pavilions.

"They sort of feel like something out of the Bahamas," Jenkins said of the two suites. These structures were added after the original house was built, but before Sawyer purchased the property.

One of the rooms is called the ocean pavilion.

The other is called the pond pavilion.

Down the way from Chip Chop, there are two beach houses dubbed the "shacks." Sawyer purchased them and the 2.6 acres they sit on sometime in the 2000s.

They were originally fishing shacks, but Sawyer renovated them into guest suites.

Here's a peak inside the west shack, which is the larger of the two.

It's a two-bedroom unit.

The kitchen of the west shack is rather modern, in contrast to Chip Chop's historic flair.

The east shack has one bedroom and a living room that overlooks the bucolic, grassy dunes.

diane sawyer, martha's vineyard east shack. — The living room in the east shack.
Bob Gothard/ Wallace and Co. Sotheby's International Realty

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You can live like a coastal grandmother in Diane Sawyer's 20-acre Martha's Vine…