John Travolta’s homes have never been ordinary.
Over the years, the actor and his late wife, Kelly Preston, created properties that reflected both their family life and some of their biggest passions.
One of those homes was a sprawling Maine retreat the couple transformed together in a frantic decorating push shortly after getting married. Years later, the property would be put on the market following Preston’s death.
The other was even more unusual. Travolta, 72, wanted something most homeowners could only dream about — to have his airplanes practically in his backyard. So he built a family home around that dream.
The photographs reveal just how extraordinary the result became.
The Maine home Travolta and Preston made their own
Travolta and Preston bought their home on Islesboro, Maine, in 1991, shortly after getting married and while they were expecting their first child, Jett.
The couple first discovered the island while visiting Travolta’s Look Who’s Talking co-star, Kirstie Alley, who owned a home there.
Travolta had been looking for a property large enough to accommodate their extended family, and the house immediately stood out.
Built in 1903 by architects Peabody and Stearns for a prominent Philadelphia banking family, the traditional Maine “cottage” was an impressive Shingle Style estate with distinctive Tudor Revival touches.
By the time Architectural Digest photographed it in 1999, it contained 42 rooms and 22 bedrooms.
The Saturday Night Fever star remembered being shown several large houses by Alley before finally seeing the one that captured his imagination.
He called it a ”fairy-tale house,” and when you see the photos, it’s not hard to understand why Maine has earned its nickname, “Vacationland.”
Preston was just as quickly convinced.
She later recalled that the moment they drove beneath the trees lining the driveway, she knew they had found the right place.
The inside, however, needed plenty of work.
Preston described the original interiors as ”almost spooky” before explaining how she and Travolta immediately began changing the carpets and furniture. They initially settled on a palette of cream and eggshell.
”If you need to do it quickly,” she joked, ”go white.”
And they certainly needed to move quickly.
After closing on the property in September, the couple planned to host 55 relatives there for Christmas. They had only a few months to turn the old house into a comfortable family gathering place.
The kitchen was renovated, a hotel-size heating system was installed, and the attic was completely transformed.
Instead of leaving it as unused storage space, they turned it into a children’s area complete with a stage, schoolroom, playroom and themed bedrooms.
There was a Princess Room, an Airplane Room and a Peter Pan Room.
Travolta and Preston also went shopping throughout New York and Boston, searching for furniture and decorations during what Travolta described as a “sixty-day marathon.”
One particularly chaotic decorating trip
For part of the project, they stayed in a small farmhouse on the property with nothing more than a pot-bellied stove for heat.
The work became a true hands-on project for the couple.
”We did everything, just the two of us,” Preston said.
She remembered one particularly chaotic decorating trip when they flew in for only a day carrying 30 fabric samples they had numbered.
”There was no electricity, the sun was going down, and there we were, looking at all the furniture we’d bought piled in the living room, saying, ‘What do you think about the couch? How about number three? And four, no, maybe sixteen for those two chairs.’ Everything had to be decided before it got dark. It was madness—but so much fun.”
Travolta later recalled that the schedule sometimes meant getting only three hours of sleep. He would still be walking around the house at 4 a.m., hanging pictures and making last-minute changes.
Even when Christmas arrived, they weren’t quite finished.
As their relatives approached through the snow, Travolta and Preston were still lighting fires and making final adjustments. When everyone finally arrived, however, the couple opened the door as if everything had been perfectly prepared all along.
Deeply involved in the home’s design
The Maine project also brought out a side of Preston that Travolta hadn’t fully appreciated before.
She developed a real passion for decorating and design, and the couple eventually moved away from the original white interiors.
They brought in designer Christopher B. Boshears, who helped create the feel of an English country house throughout the enormous property.
The rooms were filled with linen, damask, velvet, antiques and other traditional furnishings. The goal wasn’t simply to make the house look impressive — they wanted it to feel warm and comfortable whether the family was there alone or hosting dozens of guests.
Preston said she and Travolta would give Boshears photographs, fabric samples and examples of furniture they liked, allowing him to work their ideas into the finished rooms.
She also took charge of much of the holiday decorating.
According to the Architectural Digest feature, Preston could spend as many as nine days preparing the house for Christmas, including putting a tree in each room.
Travolta had his own passions to incorporate, particularly airplanes, cars and machinery. When it came to shared spaces, however, the two would negotiate until they agreed.
The resulting photographs offer a glimpse into a home the couple spent years shaping together.
But eventually, the property would become part of a very different chapter in Travolta’s life.
Listed after Preston’s death
Preston died in July 2020 at age 57 after a two-year battle with breast cancer.
The following February, Travolta put the family’s Maine estate on the market for $5 million.
At the time, the property was described as an approximately 10,830-square-foot home with 20 bedrooms spread across 48 acres of oceanfront land.
The asking price was later reduced to $4.25 million before the listing was eventually removed. The property was relisted in 2022 for $5 million, but the listing was removed again in early 2023.
Since then, the sprawling estate has remained off the market, with no public word on what Travolta ultimately plans to do with the property.
The Florida home built around airplanes
The Maine mansion was an incredible property, but it wasn’t the only home where Travolta and Preston made one of their shared dreams come true.
In Florida, they took that dream to another level.
They built their home around Travolta’s lifelong love of aviation.
His fascination with flying began when he was a child. Years later, he became a pilot himself and eventually qualified as a first officer on the Boeing 747.
But simply owning and flying planes wasn’t enough for Travolta.
He wanted to keep them right at home.
That dream eventually led him to Jumbolair Aviation Estates near Ocala, Florida — a private community built with aviation enthusiasts in mind.
Travolta and Preston bought one of the early lots in 2001.
The development offered something almost unheard of in a residential neighborhood: direct access to a runway large enough to accommodate a major aircraft.
Travolta purchased eight acres within the larger property, which already featured a 7,500-foot runway. A taxiway was extended toward his home, and the surface was designed to support the weight of his Boeing 707.
The resulting house covered approximately 8,900 square feet and was built with both family life and aviation in mind.
Most remarkably, the aircraft weren’t tucked away somewhere out of sight.
They were positioned roughly 100 feet from the house.
The airplanes were part of the view
Travolta and Preston deliberately designed the home so the planes could be seen from inside.
Large windows in the bedroom, great room and dining room looked toward the aircraft outside. At the time the home was featured in Architectural Digest, Travolta had two jets there — a 1964 Boeing 707-138B and a Gulfstream II.
The 707 alone was enormous, measuring around 135 feet long with a tail roughly 30 feet high.
Travolta wanted the architecture of the house to reflect the era that had inspired his love of aviation. The design drew on influences ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright to Eero Saarinen’s airport architecture and Morris Lapidus’ Miami hotels.
The home featured blue-tinted glass, dramatic windows and plenty of midcentury-inspired details.
The bedroom windows stretched approximately 18 feet high, while those in the dining room reached around 15 feet.
Travolta was involved in the design process himself, even creating the floor pattern in the entrance hall.
The property also included two airplane pavilions and taxiways leading almost directly to the residence.
This wasn’t simply a celebrity showing off an expensive hobby. It was the realization of a dream Travolta had carried since childhood.
Kelly Preston explained why they built it
Preston once described just how important the aviation setup was to her husband.
”It was always John’s dream to have planes in his front yard—to practically be able to pull up to the house—so that when you wanted to go to dinner, all you’d have to do was step out the door, get on the plane and whisk off,” she said.
And for the family, the planes became part of everyday life.
”And we fly in and out a lot. Last year when Johnny was shooting a movie in Tampa, he flew to and from work every day. Each night the kids and I would go out in the golf cart, watch the landing, then bring Johnny to the house while the plane taxied in. It was very exciting.”
It was an unusual family routine, but Preston’s description makes clear that the runway wasn’t simply a spectacular feature of the property.
It was something the children actually experienced with their father.
Travolta had once imagined that people might eventually have airplanes sitting in their own backyards. At Jumbolair, he came remarkably close to making that childhood vision real.
A family home hiding behind the aviation spectacle
Despite the planes and runway, the Florida property was designed to function as a family home first.
The residence had six bedrooms, while a separate 6,500-square-foot garage contained eight efficiency apartments.
Travolta and Preston began planning the interiors around the kitchen and eventually created two separate cooking areas — one for serious food preparation and another for simpler meals.
There were also three dining areas.
The great room featured curved windows, low sofas and Italian chairs, while the dining room took inspiration from the Art Deco era.
The family also had plenty of space outside, including a swimming pool, slide and golf course.
For the children, the house was less about architectural grandeur and more about having somewhere fun to grow up.
They could even sleep aboard their father’s 707.
Travolta once said Jett would sometimes remain on the plane after flights, watching videos while the crew cleaned up.
At one point, Preston recalled that Ella was asked by Barbra Streisand what she wanted to be when she grew up.
Her answer was simple: a pilot like her father.
The family even had a golf cart routine built around Travolta’s arrivals, with Preston and the children heading outside to watch him land.
It was a very different kind of family life from most people could imagine.
Extraordinary history before Travolta arrived
Jumbolair itself was unusual long before Travolta and Preston moved in.
The land had originally been a large horse ranch owned by Muriel Vanderbilt Adams, a horse breeder and socialite who was a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
In 1980, exercise-equipment inventor Arthur Jones acquired the property and began developing it.
He constructed a paved runway for his Boeing 707, along with a huge warehouse, manufacturing facilities and a banquet hall.
The estate even became home to exotic animals, including elephants, crocodiles, rhinos and a gorilla named Mickey.
After Jones and his wife divorced, she eventually developed Jumbolair into a residential community for aircraft owners.
The plan called for dozens of aviation homes, each with access to the runway system.
That unusual setup made it possible for Travolta to build the kind of house he had always imagined.
A runway large enough for a Boeing 747
The scale of the larger aviation community was just as remarkable as Travolta’s individual home.
When Jumbolair was put on the market in 2019, it carried an asking price of $15.5 million and covered more than 220 hectares.
Its main paved runway was roughly 2.3 kilometers long and large enough to accommodate aircraft as big as a Boeing 747.
There was also a separate grass runway, a historic mansion, a conference center and numerous estate lots with direct runway access.
The main runway reportedly cost around $10 million to construct and was approximately 64 meters wide.
Travolta’s Boeing 707 was once among the most recognizable aircraft on the property, famously carrying Qantas colors.
He eventually donated the plane to an Australian aircraft preservation organization.
Over the years, Travolta also owned other aircraft, including a Gulfstream II, DC-3 Dakota and Lockheed Constellation.
His 707 itself had been transformed into something resembling a flying home, with bedrooms, a television and recreation room, dining areas, office space and crew quarters.
And yes, Travolta was qualified to fly it himself.
There was even one mundane homeowner problem he wished he’d anticipated.
The gates weren’t wide enough.
Travolta once said he wished he had made them larger because maneuvering through them could be difficult.
Of course, most homeowners would be thinking about getting an SUV through the gates.
Travolta was trying to get a Boeing 707 through them.
Continues to fascinate people
Photos of the property have continued to attract attention online, with viewers often divided over the interiors.
Some have criticized the mix of colors and design eras, while others have been amazed by the sheer scale of the property.
One commenter wrote, ”His decorator is terrible. To many [sic] conflicting colours and eras.”
Another said, “Old. He need [sic] to update.”
But plenty of people were more interested in the feature that makes the property almost impossible to compare with a normal celebrity mansion.
One person summed it up simply:
“He does not have home, he has a personal AirPort.”
Others called it ”The Best Millionaire Mansion Ever” and ”The coolest house ever.”
One person who said they lived nearby wrote, ”I live about 10 mins from him, He’s such a humble and caring guy. Goes out in public and doesn’t mind talking to his fans long as you don’t bum rush him.”
For all the attention surrounding the planes, however, the property represented something much more personal to Travolta and Preston.
It was the place where their children grew up around their father’s passion for aviation.
Still living with her father
Today, John Travolta’s daughter, Ella Bleu Travolta, is reportedly still living with her father in Florida. The Grease star, 72, is particularly close to his 26-year-old daughter and even though Ella’s in her mid-twenties, John is still her guiding light.
”John is one of the most protective fathers I’ve ever known,” an insider told the Daily Mail in a report published June 21.
Travolta shares Ella and 15-year-old son Benjamin with his late wife, Kelly Preston.
The couple’s eldest son, Jett, died on January 2, 2009, at age 16 while the family was on vacation in the Bahamas.
”He’s had so many losses in his life that he holds on to Ella and Ben in a way I’ve never seen,” the insider said.
”It’s not like he smothers them. They’re just the center of his world. They have a bond that is something very special, beautiful and unusual.”
While Ella is rarely seen out and about, she and her father stepped into the spotlight together at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival to promote their movie, Propeller One-Way Night Coach.
The film marks Travolta’s directorial debut and stars Ella alongside Clark Shotwell, Kelly Eviston-Quinnett, Olga Hoffmann and Travolta himself.
Although Ella has ”met a lot of people through John,” the insider told the Daily Mail that she ”only has a small circle of close friends.”
”She’s a very private person,” the insider added. ”For the most part Ella lives at home with her father and when she travels, she usually stays with friends or family.”
A special connection
The pair also reportedly share a connection through Scientology. John has been involved with the Church of Scientology since he was 21, and the insider claimed that both he and Ella are followers.
In April, Travolta celebrated Ella’s success on Instagram, sharing a photo of his daughter from the 2026 Fashion US Awards pink carpet.
”So proud of my baby girl @ella.bleu at the 2026 fashion US awards pink carpet,” he wrote in the caption. ”Look out for Ella in my directorial debut, ‘Propeller One-Way Night Coach.”
Ella has always also spoken warmly about the role her parents played in supporting her dreams.
They never pressured her to follow a particular path, Ella said.
Instead, they gave her the freedom to decide what she wanted for herself and supported her either way.
”He was always very supportive,” Ella said of her father. “He and my mom were always supportive of whatever I wanted to do. So even if I decided to do something else in the end, they would have been supportive of that, too.”
Ella said she believes her parents were especially happy to see her pursue acting because they both loved the entertainment industry themselves.
”But I think that they were happy because they enjoy this job so much,” she continued, ”and I have an equal love for it. So I think that they were just happy that I enjoyed doing something that much.”
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