Gov. Gavin Newsom has always seemed to adore his home state, California, but his feelings about its capital were once lukewarm at best.
“It’s just so dull,” Mr. Newsom said in 2012 of Sacramento, a generally pleasant, family-oriented city that lacks the flash of San Francisco or Los Angeles. “Sadly, I just, ugh, God.”
Now, with about 130 days left before he is termed out of office, the governor is putting Sacramento behind him by selling his house in the capital region — or trying to, anyway. He listed his property in Fair Oaks, a suburb, on Monday.
It was another sign that Mr. Newsom is getting ready for his next chapter after running California, which could include a campaign for president.
Mr. Newsom is testing the real estate market with his home sale, considering that his asking price, $7.5 million, would set a record in Sacramento County, according to Ryan Lundquist, a residential appraiser in the region.
That figure is nearly 14 times as much as the $540,000 median sales price for a single-family home in the county.
“It’s not the same as New York, but this is what luxury looks like here,” Mr. Lundquist said. “This is a unicorn property, and it requires a unicorn buyer.”
The sprawling home sits on 8.2 acres near the American River, the same waterway where a sawmill discovery upstream in 1848 touched off California’s Gold Rush. It includes 12,000 square feet of living space, seven bedrooms, a four-car garage, a swimming pool, a tennis court and a wine cellar that can fit 5,000 bottles. Animals like owls, goats and rabbits have been spotted there.
“Some homes are beautiful in photographs,” the listing proclaims, “but this is one you truly have to see with your own eyes.”
You cannot do that, though, unless you get past the front gate, the security vehicle and the signs warning “Private Property. No Trespassing.”
The Newsoms bought the home in December 2018 for $3.7 million, meaning they hope to nearly double their investment. Willie Brown, who knows Sacramento from having spent three decades there as a state legislator, helped Mr. Newsom find the property. (Mr. Brown, a former San Francisco mayor, is also credited with launching Mr. Newsom’s political career by appointing him to the city’s parking and traffic commission.)
The Newsom family briefly lived in the historic governor’s mansion, an 1877 white Victorian in downtown Sacramento, but moved to the suburbs for something a spokesman described as “more kid-friendly” at the time.
“Wherever the governor lived was important,” Mr. Brown said in an interview on Tuesday.
Asked whether he thinks Mr. Newsom ever came to like Sacramento, he quipped, “I doubt it.”
Gov. Ronald Reagan lived in the official governor’s mansion briefly in the 1960s before he and his wife, Nancy, left in 1967. For nearly 50 years afterward, all of California’s leaders opted for other accommodations.
Mr. Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, directed a multimillion-dollar renovation of the governor’s mansion in 2015 and then moved in.
Since leaving for Fair Oaks, Mr. Newsom has mostly used the mansion to host dignitaries and social events. He has spent election nights there watching returns with his political aides and, in recent months, converted one of the rooms into a studio where he records his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.”
The next California governor could be a Sacramento native. Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate, grew up in Sacramento and currently lives there. His spokesman declined to say where Mr. Becerra would live if he won, saying it was a question to consider after Election Day. Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate, grew up in England and now lives in Atherton, in Silicon Valley. If Mr. Hilton wins, his spokesman said, he will keep his family home in the Bay Area and stay in Sacramento when necessary.
The home sale, in some respects, represents a formal end to Mr. Newsom’s time in Sacramento and a return to his Bay Area roots. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Mr. Newsom’s wife, and their four children moved two years ago to Kentfield in Marin County, close to where Ms. Siebel Newsom grew up. The children attend schools in Marin and Mr. Newsom lives there when he is not in Sacramento for work.
The family bought that property for about $9 million two years ago. It, too, has a swimming pool and walk-in closets, but it sits on a comparatively measly one acre of land.
Izzy Gardon, Mr. Newsom’s spokesman, described the Fair Oaks home listing as the next step in the Newsom family’s gradual transition out of Sacramento.
But Mr. Gardon said that it was not true that the governor disliked Sacramento, pointing to the prologue of his memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” which had appreciative words for the region and was written from his home there. Mr. Newsom and his family lived in the Sacramento home during the Covid pandemic, and the governor hosted socially distanced meetings in the expansive backyard.
It also became a meeting spot for other Californians. The front gate was often the site of numerous MAGA protests by people who despised Mr. Newsom for imposing strict lockdowns, among other grievances.
The property sits on a bluff overlooking a stretch of the American River frequented by rafters and paddlers. At the nearby Village Park in Fair Oaks, known locally for the roosters and chickens that wander around, Rachel Du Four, 23, said she appreciated that the Newsoms had lived in the area for as long as they did.
“He could live in downtown Sacramento. He could live in L.A. or San Francisco,” she said. “The fact that he chose Fair Oaks was nice.”
Polly Marcroft, 69, said she never expected Mr. Newsom to stay in the Sacramento region for very long.
“He’s just going back to where he came from,” she said as she waited for her lunch at the Sunflower Drive-In cafe, a popular vegetarian spot.
Next door, a handwritten note from Ms. Siebel Newsom hung on a wall inside the Fair Oaks History Center. “Thank you for the warm welcome,” she’d written on a piece of personalized stationery.
Mr. Lundquist, the appraiser, said he was not sure whether the home would sell for more or less because Mr. Newsom had lived there.
“At the very least, the new buyer has bragging rights whether they like the governor or not,” he said.
Patrick Heij, the author of a satirical Marin County news site called Marin Lately, said he welcomed the governor back to Marin full-time and looked forward to seeing how his expected presidential campaign would play out with pricey Kentfield as its home base.
“If he becomes president that means, ipso facto, Marin will be running the country,” he said. “Finally, I might add.”