Bing Crosby’s French Chateau-Style California Mansion Lists for $40 Million

When the famed crooner Bing Crosby and his second wife, actress Kathryn Grant, started their family in the late 1950s, they were eager to keep their children out of the Hollywood spotlight. The pair decamped from Los Angeles to California’s San Mateo County, about 18 miles south of San Francisco, where they eventually bought a grand, French chateau-style home to raise their three children. Sitting on over 5 acres, the ornate circa-1920s home fulfilled Kathryn’s “childhood fantasies,” she wrote in her autobiography.

The Hillsborough estate has been in the family ever since, according to the late singer’s son Harry Crosby, 66. Kathryn continued living there after Bing’s death in 1977, and his former office is still decorated with golf trophies and his Oscar for the 1944 film “Going My Way,” which sits on the mantel, his son said.

Now, following Kathryn’s death in 2024, the 11-bedroom residence is going on the market for the first time in roughly six decades. The asking price is $40 million, a potentially record-setting number for Hillsborough, said listing agent Jennifer Gilson of Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty.

With frescoes, ornate fireplaces and hand-carved woodwork, the roughly 14,000-square-foot home is rare for the area both in scale and opulence, Gilson said. A smoking room has a built-in bar. A library with a large fireplace and built-in bookcases is decorated with paintings of desert landscapes, reflecting Bing’s love of the western U.S., Harry said. In the dining room, there is a Venetian-glass chandelier and hand-painted rose detailing on the walls. A separate wing contains staff housing.

The house was commissioned around 1929 by local businessman Lindsay Howard as a wedding gift for his wife, Gilson said. To design the house, Lindsay hired architects Ernest Weihe and John Bakewell Jr., who is known for his work on San Francisco City Hall.

Lindsay was the son of horse racing entrepreneur Charles Howard, who owned the legendary horse Seabiscuit. Bing, a horse-racing enthusiast, knew the Howard family and became familiar with the property through them, his son said. In the early 1960s, he purchased the estate as a gift for Kathryn. The Crosbys moved into the house with Harry and his siblings Nathaniel and Mary Frances.

The Crosbys made significant changes to the property, said Harry, who works in finance in New York. It once had a pool, but they had it filled in for the safety of the children. They added a large, 17th-century wooden staircase banister and antique wood paneling, much of which came from the collection of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, a longtime friend of Bing’s. Hearst had procured the materials from estates in Europe and brought them over by the boatload to be used in Hearst Castle in San Simeon, and had plenty left over in storage, Harry said.

The Crosby children benefited from having a normal childhood away from Hollywood and attending local schools, Harry said. Bing loved the area and frequently golfed at the Burlingame Country Club, sometimes driving further to Pebble Beach and playing at Cypress Point Country Club. 

Harry said one of the family’s favorite spots was in the living room around the grand piano, which was once featured in the movie “High Society.” Harry and his siblings all took lessons on the piano, and during the holiday season, the family gathered around it to sing Christmas carols; one of Bing’s most famous songs was “White Christmas.”

The Crosby children grew up with labradors, said Harry, and there were always dogs running around the property. The family’s staff included butler Alan Fisher, who worked for the British royal family before joining the Crosbys. Afterward, he returned to the U.K. to work for Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  

Bing owned a number of homes over the years, including properties in Palm Springs and Palm Desert as well as a ranch near Elko, Nev. In addition to his three children with Kathryn, he had four sons with his first wife, Dixie Lee. 

Harry said selling the property after his mother’s death was an “inevitable decision,” since he and his siblings are spread across the country. “It’s difficult to turn the page emotionally, but all good things come to an end,” he said.

While the affluent Hillsborough area is known for its multimillion-dollar estates, no sale has come close to the $40 million asking price of the Crosby estate. The current $30 million record for the area was set in 2021 by the sale of a house then owned by billionaire Elon Musk, Gilson said.