Ron Howard is the Hollywood guy everybody likes. (Maybe even more than Tom Hanks.) Not only did Howard winningly portray Opie and Richie Cunningham, iconic American TV characters, he also really meant it when he switched to the other side of the camera. He didn’t need to be in front of it for his emotional well-being, as so many actors do–and when he made the switch he stayed there. The result has been a line-up of popular, watchable, interesting movies to rival that of any American director over the last quarter century–including Stephen Spielberg. Along the way, Ron Howard has amassed a fortune. But even a man of Howard’s considerable net worth has to be happy with his latest coup. He just sold his country estate in New York’s affluent Westchester County for $27.5 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That’s a lot of money even for Howard, who is said to be worth $140 million. The house is where Howard and wife Cheryl–his high-school sweetheart, as she is invariably described–raised their four children. It’s a place where 400 children could be happy and even expect some measure of privacy. It’s that big. But it apparently felt like the proverbial “empty nest”–or probably more like an empty state–with the Howard kids all grown and off in their own palaces. Besides, his places in California are pretty nice, and the one in New York City, and Paris and… The Howards’ New York spread sold almost immediately to an undisclosed buyer.
