Francis Ford Coppola is broke. At least that’s what the “Godfather” director told the New York Times in October (opens in new tab)to explain why he was auctioning off a collection of rare watches after his self-financed, $120 million opus “Megalopolis” flopped. One watch sold for nearly $11 million. For box office scorekeepers, that’s nearly $4 million more than the movie made in the U.S.
“I need to get some money to keep the ship afloat,” he told the Times.
The auction came after Coppola sold off his namesake winery in 2021 for about $650 million to finance the poorly-received film’s nine-figure budget.
The sales underscore a familiar truth about Coppola: few filmmakers have tied their personal finances so tightly to their art — or to their real estate. From San Francisco landmarks to Napa vineyards and far-flung hotels, Coppola has spent decades borrowing against property to fund his movies, amassing a global portfolio even as his cash has sometimes run dry.
Coppola took out a loan on the historic Sentinel Building in North Beach related to its conversion into a hotel property. | Source: Robert Alexander/Getty Images
That boom-and-bust cycle has defined much of Coppola’s career. He famously mortgaged everything from his Napa home to his car to pay for “Apocalypse Now” in 1979 — a gamble that paid off both critically and commercially. He did it again with his San Francisco properties while filming “One from the Heart” in 1981, a misfire that plunged him into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
If Coppola’s current claims of financial struggles are true, he may be the highest-profile example of the house-rich, cash-poor class. From San Francisco to the Hollywood Hills and wine country to the Caribbean, Coppola has bought and financed, but rarely sold, his apartment buildings, luxurious mansions, and far-flung retreats.
When asked about Coppola’s properties, an executive who works with him appeared to heed Michael Corleone’s advice to “keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.”
Gordon Wang, CFO of Coppola Companies and a regular signatory on its real estate transactions, said via email that “we would prefer not to detail our real estate holdings.”
What Francis Ford Coppola owns in the Bay Area
Although his timepieces hit the auction block, Coppola appears to have largely held onto his Bay Area properties — and is even moving forward with an office-to-hotel conversion at one.
Fresh off the success of “The Godfather” in 1973, Coppola bought one of San Francisco’s most recognizable buildings, the Sentinel Building on the edge of North Beach. The director purchased the flatiron building at 141 Columbus Ave. for $500,000 and made it the home of his American Zoetrope film production company. He opened Cafe Zoetrope on the ground floor in 1999.
Coppola nearly lost the building in a trustee’s sale in 1984, according to media reports from the time (opens in new tab), but paid off the distressed $1.7-million loan just before it hit the auction block. Now, he’s planning to convert several upper floors into a hotel.
Last month, Coppola took out a new loan for an undisclosed amount (opens in new tab) backed by the historic 11,000-square-foot copper-domed tower. It is currently assessed at just under $2.5 million, a figure that may seem low for such a prominent property — but roughly $250 per square foot is the going rate for similar nearby buildings (assuming they’re not being purchased by Jony Ive). Coppola gave the Wall Street Journal a tour last year (opens in new tab)as offices on some floors were being converted to hotel rooms.
Wang would not disclose how much Coppola had borrowed, but said the loan was connected to the office-to-hotel conversion. Construction to create a 12-room boutique hotel across three floors is expected to be completed next year, he said.
Coppola also owns a multifamily North Beach building a few blocks away. In 1991, he and wife Eleanor, a documentary filmmaker who died last year at age 87, bought 811 Filbert for $675,000. The 1909 building has 3,660 square feet across its three apartments. Property records show that Eleanor was often an integral part of Coppola’s real estate deals, and her name is on many of the deeds.
The family’s North Beach love extends to son Roman Coppola, who bought a modest home 1,250-square-foot home a block and a half away from Washington Square Park in 2012. The younger Coppola, a filmmaker best known for collaborations with Wes Anderson, received approval on a major expansion and renovation of the August Alley property in 2023, according to city records.
The 86-year-old director has not parted with his long-time primary home, which sits on the property for his Inglebrook winery.. He purchased the historic home and part of the vineyard in 1975, acquiring the remaining acreage two decades later after the success of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Today, he owns at least two large Napa parcels totaling 171 acres in Rutherford.
He bought a smaller wine country home in St. Helena in 2021, paying $3.2 million for the 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom home on over six acres. It’s a “French Country”-inspired estate with a pool, detached two-car garage, library with a fireplace, a wine cellar, and an elevator, despite only bring two stories, according to listing notes on the property.
In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, he bought a 42-acre winery in 2018 that he rebranded as Domaine Lumineaux, which he still owns.
Keep it in the family
The Coppolas have a history of buying neighboring homes. In 2015 they bought a Beverly Hills home for $1.3 million across from a two-bedroom, two-bath Mid-Century property they have owned since at least the 1980s. Their kids Sofia and Roman also bought homes across the street from one another near the Hollywood Bowl in the 1990s. Sofia, an Academy-award-winning director and screenwriter, sold hers in 2005.
Coppola and his wife went halfsies on a Hollywood Hills home in 2014 with their first grandchild, director Gia Coppola, hailed for her 2024 film “The Last Showgirl.” They still own the four-bedroom, 3.5-bath home — purchased for $1.475 million — with original tile, vintage lighting and hand-forged iron railings.
Until recently, Gia Coppola’s mother, Jacqui Getty, lived nearby in a Spanish-style home that she bought from — guess who — Francis and Eleanor in 2013 for $1 million. (Gia’s father, Gian-Carlo Coppola, died in a boating accident before she was born.) Earlier this year, Getty sold the home for $2.5 million.
During an earlier downturn in 1992, Coppola lost his 8.6-acre studio lot in Hollywood to foreclosure, but also released one of his most successful films, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” A renewed real estate buying spree followed, with a particular focus on bespoke hotels.
“The only risk is to waste your life, so that when you die, you say, ‘Oh, I wish I had done this.’ I did everything I wanted to do, and I continue to,” he said in a 2011 interview (opens in new tab).
High-end hotels
Outside California, Coppola’s portfolio also includes a New York City loft, several international high-end hotels — and, unexpectedly, a Days Inn outside Atlanta.
In 2015, the Coppolas bought into a co-op in a converted West Village warehouse where they are neighbors with Robert DeNiro, paying $2.5 million for the 1,300-square-foot 2-bedroom, 1.5 bath.
Most of Coppola’s known real estate purchases outside California fall under the Coppola Hideaways umbrella, which offers high-end vacation rentals and hotels amassed over the years. The new hotel rooms in the Sentinel Building are expected to join the collection.
The association with the filmmaker and his famous kin has garnered them glowing write-ups in Conde Nast Traveler and Forbes, citing Balinese-inspired woodwork and private butler service.
Coppola is the owner of two getaways in the Central American country of Belize. He bought the abandoned Blancaneaux Lodge in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve in the early 1980s and used it as a family retreat before opening the 20-room resort in 1993, according to the Hideaways website.
In 2001, the Coppolas added Turtle Inn near the fishing village of Placencia to their international roster. The 25-room beachside hotel has individual thatched cottages with private decks, including one where his daughter Sofia wrote her 2023 film, “Priscilla.”
Media attention followed (opens in new tab) the sale of a private island where Coppola had a third Belizean hideaway. Though the island sold for $1.8 million, Coppola was a long-time lessee, not the owner, and his tenancy ended just before the sale closed.
Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s real estate empire has ebbed and flowed alongside his film career. | Source: TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images
Outside Belize, his hospitality holdings include a 10-room lodge on a lake in Guatemala, and the nine-suite palazzo in a small Southern Italian town where his grandfather was born. His Italian offering, Palazzo Margherita, received a Michelin Key — the hotel equivalent of a star — this year.
Much less glamorous than an Italian estate is a Days Inn in Peachtree City, Georgia that Coppola purchased for $4.35 million in 2022. The budget lodging was used as a film production facility and crashpad for him and the cast while making “Megalopolis.”
Last year, it relaunched as the All-Movie Hotel, a combination hospitality and filmmaking venture. There’s original memorabilia from Coppola throughout the hotel and art by his friend, director Akira Kurosawa. Some of the 27 rooms also have quirky details like bunk beds or his and hers bathrooms with a shared shower, but Coppola also boasts in a promotional video that some suites are suitable for top Hollywood stars.
The property also includes a bluescreen stage, editing suites and a screening room — key amenities for productions looking to take advantage of Georgia’s generous tax credits.
In the video clip, Coppola explained the project was a useful distraction from the stress of making “Megalopolis.”
“When I didn’t want to think about the movie, I would think about this hotel, and when I didn’t want to think about the hotel, I would think about the movie,” he said.