Less than a year after Hollywood icon Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead inside their secluded Santa Fe compound, the storied property is already moving toward a sale.
The 53-acre estate, which spans two parcels in the gated Summit neighborhood, entered contingent contract just days after being listed for $6.25 million on Jan. 16, according to Realtor.com.
A contingent offer signals that a buyer has been secured, though inspections and other conditions must still be satisfied before the deal closes.
The swift interest comes despite the home’s tragic recent history, which listing agents acknowledged could narrow the buyer pool.
“There will be some buyers that are just averse to purchasing a property where a death has occurred,” Tara S. Earley of Sotheby’s International Realty previously told the Wall Street Journal.
“There are other buyers for whom that doesn’t matter. We are selling the property on its virtues and all of the positives.” Earley added, “We just priced it based on what we felt was the fair market value.”
Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65, were discovered at the home on Feb. 26, 2025. Investigators later determined Arakawa died days earlier from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, while Hackman succumbed to heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s.
The couple had lived quietly at the compound for decades after Hackman purchased the land in the 1990s, expanding it over time to include a primary residence, a guesthouse and a studio.
The roughly 13,000-square-foot estate has since been cleared of personal belongings and professionally staged. While some maintenance is required, including a new roof that will be paid for by Hackman’s estate, the home reflects years of thoughtful updates overseen by the actor himself.
“The Hackmans embraced Santa Fe, and Santa Fe embraced them,” Earley said. “You would see them in town and they were not treated as celebrities.”
The compound itself reflects decades of careful expansion and renovation, anchored by a roughly 13,000-square-foot primary residence set across two adjoining parcels on 53 acres of wooded land.
Over the years, Hackman and Arakawa added a three-bedroom main house, a separate three-bedroom guesthouse and a dedicated studio space, along with amenities that include a lap pool, a hot tub and a putting green.
The estate features large expanses of glass, including floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the surrounding landscape, a hallmark of renovations Hackman undertook with architects Harry Daple and Stephen Samuelson of Studio Arquitectura.
“The house was horrible. It was a 1950s block building that had sat empty and had deteriorated,” Samuelson previously told Architectural Digest. “But it was a great site, and the foundation had been well placed on the land.”
Rather than replicate traditional pueblo architecture, the couple opted for something more elemental.
“It’s not purist at all,” Samuelson said. “It’s more primitive, like a barn converted into a house, massive and cozy at the same time.”
Hackman once explained his deep connection to the area, telling Architectural Digest that Santa Fe had “a kind of magic in it,” and describing his renovation philosophy as an act of interpretation rather than reinvention.
“It’s like being an actor. I interpret what’s already there,” he said. “I guess I like the process, and when it’s over, it’s over.”
