Yoko OnoThe 90-year-old decided to retire from New York City to spend the rest of her life on the rural farm that she and her late husband, John Lennon, bought in 1978. The artist left behind the exclusive Dakota Building, which has been her home for the past 50 years. Ono lived in a nine-bedroom apartment she had bought with Lennon on the seventh floor of the luxury building on West 72nd Street.
During the pandemic, Ono decided to move to his sprawling 600-acre farm in the Catskill, near Franklin, New York. The couple had purchased it for about $178,000 and recently revealed that they plan to live full-time without returning to their Upper West Side residence, where Lennon was killed on the sidewalk as he arrived home early on December 8. from 1980 and being accosted by an armed fanatic.
The farm was purchased by the couple as a retreat and to raise Holstein dairy cows. In his book “John Lennon: The Life”, Philip Norman reveals that Lennon bought a herd of 122 cows and 10 bulls. for the farm at any given time. This detail highlights the couple’s relationship with their rural home.
Sources close to the artist have confirmed that Ono has found tranquility and a “peaceful life” away from the public eye in her new residence. The small town where the farm is located has a population of only 340 people, making it a quiet haven for the 90-year-old artist. The farm’s main house has four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and on her land, Ono began growing her own vegetables. In addition, the farm benefits from proximity to a farmers market and a pizzeria.
In 2013, the farm owned by Ono and Lennon was embroiled in controversy when she and her son, Sean, protested in upstate new york. The farm sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation believed to contain a large amount of natural gas. The couple had always valued their rural home, and in an op-ed for the New York Times, Lennon wrote: “I have always felt lucky to live on the land I [mi padre] loved a lot.”
In 2020, a source explained that Ono received 24-hour care and that while living in New York City, the artist rarely left her Dakota apartment. However, even though her health worsened in recent years, Ono still walks 80 blocks a day to beat her depression.
