Shortly after tying the knot at Jay-Z’s Tribeca penthouse, the newlyweds snapped up a property in Miami on the exclusive Indian Creek Island, where neighbors included Julio Iglesias, billionaire Carl Icahn, and Adriana Lima (more recent residents include Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, as well as Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner). Their Mediterranean-style villa (one of only 35 homes on the island) was built in 1991 and boasted seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms, plus its own private boat dock. The couple was believed to have paid a little over $9 million for the compound, but they didn’t hold onto it long, selling it for $9.3 million in 2010.
2012
The powerhouse pair paid a casual $400,000 a month to rent a 31,000-square-foot New England–style mansion in Bridgehampton, New York, outfitted with all the necessities of a perfect summer getaway. In addition to a two-lane bowling alley, the home also offered a rock climbing wall, a skateboard half-pipe, a full bar, a pool, a tennis court, and an outdoor kitchen.
The couple also famously rented a home in nearby Wainscott located just off Georgica Pond with friend and Roc-A-Fella Records CEO Damon Dash for two weekends that July. “I felt like a little kid in a big haunted house there,” Jay-Z told New York magazine at the time. The Italianate stucco house sat on 8.5 acres and featured an indoor-outdoor pool and a 120-seat screening room, which was used for an intimate yet star-studded premiere of End of Watch starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Celebrities like Madonna and Jennifer Lopez have also been known to rent the property.
2014
The pair then began their search for a home base in Los Angeles, but they had a surprisingly hard time locking one down. They were outbid on a number of properties (once by Minecraft creator Markus Persson), so they opted to rent instead. The superstars shelled out $150,000 a month for a newly built, contemporary Holmby Hills estate with floor-to-ceiling glass sliders, an infinity pool, a wine cellar, a 75-foot-long art gallery, and a home theater. When the property sold in 2015, the couple had to vacate the premises, meaning that their search for the perfect West Coast pad continued.
2015
Rumors buzzed in New Orleans that Jay-Z and Beyoncé were behind the purchase of a historic home in the Garden District, and it was later revealed that the pair had indeed picked up a former church turned ballet school turned residence through an LLC linked to the Renaissance singer. Though it’s unknown how much the couple paid for the unique 13,300-square-foot mansion, it was listed for $2.6 million at the time of their purchase. Built in the 1920s in the Spanish Baroque style, the three-story building, known as La Casa de Castille, was divided up into a main residence and three separate apartments, with seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms between the spaces. The place made headlines again in 2021 when a fire broke out at the property; several months later, the couple listed it for $3.5 million and then a more ambitious $4.45 million. The home didn’t appear to sell, as it was later pulled from the market.