It's never easy leaving home. Page Six reported that celebrity chef Sandra Lee was spotted
at her Westchester, N.Y. home packing boxes into a moving van on Dec. 14, 2020, and she
confirmed the move the same day with a touching tribute on Instagram, she wrote,
"Today will be one of the saddest days of my life. Today is the day that I do the final
move out from Lily Pond. I love that house and I have a personal relationship with every
single room of that home. I hope the new owners take care of it as well as I did and I will
love it forever."
Lee purchased the Mount Kisco home in 2009 for $1.3 million. It has four bedrooms, but
"lives like a six-bedroom home," according to its real estate listing. It boasts 4,129
square feet on a 2.89-acre lot, and comes with a gazebo, a creek, and a pond, per The
New York Post. Lee and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo shared the Colonial-style house during
their 14-year relationship before listing it in May 2019 and subsequently calling it
quits in September 2019, after months of breakup speculation.
While breakups are usually not easy, Lee was open to sharing the sadness she felt from
a different separation. Keep scrolling to learn the real reason Sandra Lee was crying
while moving out of the home she shared with Andrew Cuomo.
Sandra Lee shared with her Instagram followers how much her home, Lily Pond, meant to her,
and detailed her "bittersweet" last moments on the property. The author and chef walked
through each room to say a proper farewell and also strolled around her whole yard, taking
it in from every angle possible and letting herself feel her emotions. She confessed,
"I stopped at the top of the hill where I planted one of 6 tree lines of evergreen trees
and 200 daffodil bulbs — I just looked at the house, I prayed the next owners would
be kind to it and love it as I did — I cried and cried."
Despite her worries, Lee noted that Lily Pond seemed to speak to her and tell her everything
would work out. In her post, she explained that as she walked down the hill and looked
at her home "one final time," she felt a random gust of wind push against her back. She said,
"It was as if the property was saying 'you have the wind at your back now' and with an
absolutely broken heart I said 'thank you.'"
This isn't the first time Lee has shared how much she adores the home. She opened her doors
to People for a tour just a month before it was listed in 2019.
People published a home tour of Sandra Lee's Lily Pond estate, guided by Lee herself, in
2019. In the video, she radiated with pride for her cozy home, which is filled with hand-picked
antiques, family photos, and crystals, which Lee says help make the energy of the home
so positive.
The celebrity chef has spent years searching through antique shops worldwide to make her
home feel just like that. She beamed,
"I am an avid antiquer. I antique every weekend. I know all the best antique shops all over
the United States of America and most of the ones in Europe. That is my jam."
Her favorite room is her office, which features her antique desk, which was the first item
she purchased for the entire house.
She also showed off her dining room, dubbed the "Founding Fathers dining room" because
it holds copies of letters written by George Washington, James Madison, and other U.S.
founding fathers. Finally, she brought viewers into her kitchen, where she showed off her
collection of "beautiful white things," saying the room smells like "cookies and feels like
heaven."
It is clear Lee has spent years perfecting her dream kitchen, and now she will have a
new chance to fill a new home with her old finds. So, what is next for the chef?
People reported Sandra Lee's Westchester County home was listed for $2 million in May 2019,
and it sold in October 2020 for $1.85 million, according to Page Six. While Lee is heartbroken
to leave her house, she is ready to start her new life post-Andrew Cuomo in Los Angeles.
She already owned a $7 million Beverly Hills estate which, according to The New York Post,
sits among the homes of billionaire Ron Burkle and designer Tom Ford. Plus, in January 2020,
she purchased a new 1,719 square feet, $3.38 million home in Malibu, which offers "spectacular
coastline views," as reported by Variety.
The permanent move to California is a return to Lee's roots, as she was raised in Santa
Monica and worked in Malibu as a waitress before she built her cooking empire. She told
People in a February 2020 interview,
"My sister Kimber and I picked out houses on the Pacific Coast Highway and I promised
myself that if I ever made it I would go back and buy myself a house on the water. [...] What
I believe more than anything is living just an OK life is not OK — we should all live
our best lives together. Malibu is just that for me!"
While leaving her cherished New York estate has been hard, it seems like Lee will settle
into the West Coast just fine.
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