Where did Michael Jackson grow up and live?

📍Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California, USA

1988 – 2005

“I bought Neverland in 1988 because I wanted to create the childhood I never had — a place where children could play and feel safe and experience the magic that had been taken from me when I was put on stage at five years old and told that performing was my purpose. I built the amusement rides and the zoo and the movie theatre and the train that circled the property, and I filled the house with the most beautiful things I could find: art, books, antiques, the entire imagination of someone who had never been allowed to be a child. Neverland was three thousand acres in the Santa Ynez Valley, and when I stood in the middle of it I felt a kind of peace that I almost never felt anywhere else. Whatever the world said about me and Neverland, the place itself was made entirely of love.”

👍 LovedThe absolute freedom of three thousand private acres — the space to breathe and move without the world's eyes on me. The joy of creating a place that brought happiness to children who visited. The beauty of the Santa Ynez Valley landscape.

👎 DislikedThe isolation that such an unusual life created. The way the property became entangled with controversy that overshadowed everything I intended it to be. The impossibility of maintaining such a vast estate sustainably.

Map showing where Michael Jackson lived — Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California, USA

🗺️ Approximate location today

Location associated with Michael Jackson

📷 Location image · via Wikimedia Commons

Sources: Taraborrelli, J.R. Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story (2009), Grand Central Publishing; Sullivan, R. Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson (2012), Grove Press