Get the latest scoop directly in your inbox.
Though they tied the knot in an intimate ceremony at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas last month, and already honeymooned in Paris, Hollywood has nonetheless begun to converge on Georgia’s ultra-exclusive Hampton Island Preserve for this weekend’s second, more elaborate wedding celebration of Tinseltown royals Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.
Guests, who will include Matt Damon, Jimmy Kimmel and Drea de Matteo, will gather at Affleck’s sprawling compound near Riceboro for the three-day event. According to Page Six, the rehearsal dinner will take place on Friday night and the ceremony on Saturday. The weekend will conclude with a barbecue and picnic on Sunday.
It only seems fitting that the couple would marry here; Affleck purchased the roughly 87-acre riverfront spread almost a decade ago, in 2003, when he and Lopez were engaged the first time around. He paid $7.11 million for the semi-remote property that’s about 35 miles south of Savannah, where the couple and some of their children were spotted out shopping earlier this week.
Affleck used the property as a vacation getaway for family and friends but in recent years has had the exceptionally private compound on and off the market a couple of times, initially in 2018 at $8.9 million and then again in 2019 with a hugely reduced ask of $7.6 million.
Secluded down a long, tree-shaded driveway, the picturesque property’s trio of residential buildings are connected by a series of oyster shell paths. Built in the late 1990s by timber executive John Morgan, the 6,400-square-foot main house, dubbed Big House, is faithful re-creation of an antebellum-era Greek-Revival-style plantation house.
Marketing materials from when the property was last for sale, which made no secret of the homeowner’s identity, show that beyond the Big House’s 24-foot-tall, fluted columns that stand sentry alongside deep porches are dark-stained heart of pine floorboards, ten-foot-tall sash windows and 18-inch plaster ceiling moldings. Opening off the central living room, with its 16-foot ceilings and two fireplaces, one at each end of the room, are a dining room, a library, and a country kitchen/family room clad in reclaimed wood planks. The primary suite is also on the main floor, and there are several additional bedrooms on the lower level for family and guests.
Dubbed Oyster Cottage, the 10,000-square-foot guest house comfortably sleeps more than twenty in three en-suite bedrooms and six bunkhouse-style bedrooms fitted with built-in beds salvaged from a merchant ship. Wide porches wrap around the rustic, barn-like building and there’s a small swimming pool near the snaking river’s edge.
With screened living and dining areas, and both indoor and outdoor fireplaces, a third structure, known as Summer House, was designed for Georgia’s wickedly humid summer afternoons and nippy fall evenings. A permanently moored 38-foot mahogany sport fishing boat christened “Pilar” provides even more space for guests.
Now that the vast compound has such a prominent role in their romance and wedding, it seems unlikely Affleck and Lopez will be so eager to sell the property. However, wild and unpredictable are the real estate ways of the rich and famous so stay tuned!
Back in Los Angeles, Bennifer is shelling out big bucks to rent Australian billionaire James Packer’s $60+ million Beverly Hills mansion — it previously belonged to Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito, while Affleck tries to sell his Pacific Palisades mansion with an asking price of $30 million and Lopez renovates her eight-plus-acre Bel Air compound to better accommodate their newly blended family and staff. Lopez also maintains a large estate in the Water Mill area of the Hamptons and a duplex penthouse in Manhattan’s NoMad neighborhood that she’s had on and off the market for about five years.
Get the latest scoop directly in your inbox.
Get our latest stories in the feed of your favorite networks
We want to hear from you! Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Sign up for our daily newsletter
Dirt is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2022 Dirt.com, LLC. All Rights Reserved.