Ted Turner House Atlanta: Where Does Ted Turner Live Now?

Some celebrities homes impress with size. Others tell a story. The Ted Turner house in Atlanta does both in the most unexpected way. Hidden above the former CNN Center, this remarkable home measures just 800 square feet.

It features one bedroom, one bathroom, a wood-burning fireplace, a small kitchen, a built-in fish tank, and even an ivory telephone beside the toilet. While Turner owned nearly 2 million acres of land and estates worth hundreds of millions, he chose this modest rooftop apartment to stay close to work.

I’m Ramon. Join me as we uncover its incredible story. Let’s have a tour.

Quick Snapshot of Ted Turner Property Atlanta

Who Was Ted Turner?

Ted Turner built one of the most influential media empires in history. After taking over his father’s advertising business in 1963, he expanded into television and launched CNN on June 1, 1980, the world’s first 24-hour news channel.

He also owned the Atlanta Braves, created TBS and TNT, won the America’s Cup in 1977, and donated $1 billion to the United Nations. Turner later became America’s largest private landowner, raising about 45,000 bison. He died on May 6, 2026, at age 87.

Ted Turner House Location & Google Maps

When I had the chance to visit the Ted Turner house with a friend who knew the right people, I realized just how unusual its location really is. Instead of sitting behind gates in an upscale neighborhood, the apartment is hidden on top of the former CNN Center in downtown Atlanta.

After taking the elevator to the 14th floor, we walked through a quiet hallway, opened an unmarked door, and climbed a narrow spiral staircase. Within moments, I was standing inside the private rooftop residence where Ted Turner created the shortest commute imaginable.

• Building: Former CNN Center (now The CTR)
• Address: 1 CNN Center, Atlanta, GA 30303
• Neighborhood: Downtown Atlanta, beside Centennial Olympic Park
• Floor: 14th-floor rooftop level
• Access: Elevator → former marketing hallway → unmarked door → spiral staircase

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, former CNN executive Steve Korn described it simply: “It was pure Ted. It was convenient and it was modest.”

Ted Turner House: A Visual Tour

Inside the Ted Turner Home: Full Tour

Let me take you up that spiral staircase. Me imagining this for the first time — I kept thinking about the contrast. A man worth billions of dollars. An 800-square-foot apartment. A fish tank in the wall.

Getting There: The Spiral Staircase

You don’t walk in through a grand entrance. There is no lobby. No doorman. No polished marble floor.

You take the elevator to the 14th floor of CNN Center. You walk through what used to be a marketing department hallway. You find an unassuming door that looks like it leads to a utility space. You open it.

Behind it is a narrow spiral staircase — the same one Jane Fonda described in her 2005 autobiography “My Life So Far” as the “take-your-life-in-your-hands spiral staircase.” Green-blue carpet lines each step. You climb.

At the top, you arrive at one of the most unusual residential spaces I’ve ever encountered in all my years covering celebrity homes.

Living Area

The apartment’s most striking feature was a single wall that divided the space into two halves. It held a saltwater fish tank on one side and a wood-burning fireplace on the other. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed sweeping views of downtown Atlanta, including Bank of America Plaza, Westin Peachtree Plaza, and Truist Plaza.

Two modern televisions, impressive for the 1990s, completed the living room. Decades later, old Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper scraps were still found inside the fireplace hearth.

The Kitchen: Minimal and Functional

The kitchen sits at the back left corner of the living space. Small. Fully functional. Nothing more than what was needed.

The kitchen appliances hadn’t functioned in years by the time CP Group photographed the space in 2026. But they were still there — a time capsule of early 1990s Atlanta domestic life sitting above one of the most important news operations in the world.

Me standing in front of those photographs, I kept thinking about what breakfast looked like up here. CNN anchor voices filtering up from below. The Atlanta skyline getting brighter with every passing hour.

Bedroom

The bedroom reveals one of the home’s most unexpected details. Its walls are painted bright pink, and the same bold color continues into the bathroom. It is a personal design choice rather than a staged luxury feature.

The space also includes a large walk-in closet with built-in filing cabinets, keeping important documents close at hand. Former employees often saw Turner walking downstairs from the apartment throughout the day, sometimes in a bathrobe and other times in a business suit, reflecting his practical daily routine.

Bathroom

The bathroom has an oversized vanity. A tub and separate shower with a window view. And mounted on the wall next to the toilet: an ivory-colored telephone.

I sat with that detail for a moment. Ted Turner had a phone mounted next to his toilet so he could take calls without interrupting his workflow.

That’s not eccentricity. That’s a man who genuinely never stopped working.

The View: 360 Degrees of Atlanta

The floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the apartment provide a 360-degree view of downtown Atlanta from the 14th-floor rooftop position. The city stretches out in every direction.

Former CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin — who snuck up to the apartment in 2012 out of pure journalistic curiosity, setting off silent alarms and getting confronted by security guards in the process — described standing at those windows and being overcome by the symbolism: “Just imagine this newsman, this pioneer of ‘Chicken Noodle News,’ wandering around this space. The king of Atlanta at the top of this building with this killer view of the city.”

Ted Turner’s Second Atlanta Address: Above Ted’s Montana Grill

The rooftop CNN Center apartment wasn’t Turner’s only modest Atlanta address.

Years later, Turner maintained an apartment above the original Ted’s Montana Grill on Luckie Street — the restaurant chain he co-founded in 2002 with restaurateur George McKerrow Jr. Former employee Patrick Shanley, speaking to Atlanta News First in May 2026 after Turner’s death, recalled visiting the space.

“It struck me at the time because here’s a guy who was worth billions of dollars at the time and he ended up owning most of the western United States. And he spent most of his nights in this modest apartment above the empire that he built.”

Two Atlanta apartments. Neither more than functional. Both chosen deliberately to keep him close to whatever he was building at the time. That’s the Ted Turner Atlanta housing philosophy in full.

Where Does Ted Turner Live Now?

Ted Turner passed away on May 6, 2026, at the age of 87 after a period of declining health from Lewy body dementia. He is no longer living.

In his later years — before his health declined significantly — Turner split his time primarily between:

• His Snowcrest Ranch in Montana (his primary personal residence in later years)
• Avalon Plantation near Tallahassee, Florida (his official tax residence, in Lamont, Florida)
• His various other ranches, visited according to his conservation work

He had not maintained a permanent Atlanta residence for many years before his death.

Ted Turner’s Additional Properties

The Atlanta apartment is the most personally revealing address in the Turner story. But the broader real estate picture is where the true scale of the man becomes clear. At his death, Ted Turner was the fourth-largest private landowner in the United States, with approximately 2 million acres across 13 ranches.

Let’s have a look at some of the Ted Turner additional properties details.

Ted Turner House in Lamont, Florida (Avalon Plantation)

Ted Turner’s Avalon Plantation near Lamont, Florida, is one of his most important private estates and his official tax residence. He purchased the property in 1985 with about 8,000 acres and later expanded it to nearly 25,000 acres.

The estate includes a 15,000-square-foot Colonial Revival mansion built in 1938. Once a cotton plantation, it is now known for quail hunting and wildlife conservation. Turner also restored longleaf pine forests, making the land a model for habitat preservation.

Ted Turner House Montana

Montana became one of Ted Turner’s most important homes after he bought the 22,000-acre Bar None Ranch in 1987. He expanded his land by purchasing the 113,000-acre Flying D Ranch in 1989, where he and Jane Fonda built a private house.

Turner also owned the 13,000-acre Snowcrest Ranch, which later became his favorite retreat. Together, his Montana properties covered nearly 127,000 acres. The ranches supported large bison herds and protected wildlife through long-term conservation efforts.

Ted Turner House in South Carolina

Turner’s Ted Turner house South Carolina holdings represented a significant chapter in his real estate story.

He began building his South Carolina footprint in 1978 with Hope Plantation — roughly 5,000 acres dating back to 1799. The following year he added St. Phillips Island, a 4,600-acre barrier island he kept largely undeveloped except for two homes he built there.

He later sold Hope Plantation for $15 million in 2014. St. Phillips Island — a designated National Natural Landmark — was sold to the State of South Carolina in 2017 for $4.9 million. Kinloch Plantation, a 5,800-acre hunting preserve with a 1920s 15-room lodge north of Charleston, changed hands most recently in 2025 for $18 million.

Ted Turner House Savannah, Georgia

When people search “Ted Turner house savannah ga,” they’re looking for his roots rather than a current property. Turner grew up in Savannah, Georgia — the city that shaped his Southern identity and competitive instincts. His father’s outdoor advertising business was based there.

He doesn’t maintain a publicly documented primary Savannah residence as an adult, but the city remains central to his personal story.

Ted Turner House Avalon — Clarification

Searches for “Ted Turner house avalon” refer to Avalon Plantation in Lamont, Florida — not a separate property. Turner named the Florida estate “Avalon” himself, inspired by Arthurian legend. It’s the same property listed under his Florida holdings above.

The CNN Center Apartment in 2026: Preservation and Restoration

In 2026, the former CNN Center apartment of Ted Turner entered a careful restoration instead of being remodeled. CP Group chose to preserve its history while updating worn features. Workers replaced the faded green-blue carpet, repainted the original blue and pink walls, restored the fish tank, and repaired the rooftop deck with a new glass guardrail. The bedroom became an office, the kitchen became a bar, and Turner-inspired artwork was added. Today, the apartment serves as a private event space and tour stop.

Ted Turner Net Worth

Ted Turner net worth was $2.2 billion. His wealth came mainly from media businesses, especially CNN, TBS, TNT, and Cartoon Network under Turner Broadcasting System. He also gained value from the MGM film library, which generated long-term revenue through licensing.

In 1995, his company merged with Time Warner in a deal worth about $7.5 billion in stock value. At his peak, Turner was among the richest media entrepreneurs in the United States. He built wealth through cable expansion.

Fun Facts About the Ted Turner Atlanta House

• The CNN Center apartment is being preserved in 2026 as a private event space by CP Group — the new building owners — so future generations can experience the space Turner lived in.
• Former CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin set off silent alarms sneaking up to see the apartment in 2012. Security confronted her at the top of the stairs.
• Jane Fonda described the spiral staircase in her 2005 autobiography as “take-your-life-in-your-hands” steep.
• Turner previously slept on a Murphy bed in his CNN office before the apartment was built.
• The fish tank wall divider and wood-burning fireplace are the two most distinctive interior features of the 800-square-foot space.
• An ivory telephone was mounted next to the toilet in the bathroom.
• The bedroom wall is painted bright pink — a personal color choice that has survived decades.
• Turner once said his commute was nothing more than “walking up a flight of stairs” while millions of Atlantans sat in highway traffic.
• At his death, Turner’s total land holdings made him the fourth-largest private landowner in the United States with approximately 2 million acres.
• His bison herd of 45,000 head was the largest private bison herd in the world.

Conclusion

The Ted Turner house in Atlanta tells you more about Ted Turner than any mansion ever could. It tells you about a man who measured value in utility, not square footage. Who cared about proximity to the work, not distance from the noise. Who owned 2 million acres and chose to sleep where the news was being made.

He’s gone now — died on May 6, 2026, at 87 years old. But that rooftop apartment above what used to be CNN Center is being preserved and restored. Future visitors will climb that same narrow spiral staircase. Stand at those same floor-to-ceiling windows. Look out over Atlanta.

And hopefully understand, for a moment, what it meant to be the kind of man who built an empire and chose to live above it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the CNN Center apartment like? 

It was modest — about 800 square feet, with a fish tank wall, wood-burning fireplace, small kitchen, bright pink bedroom wall, 360-degree city views through floor-to-ceiling windows, and an ivory telephone next to the toilet in the bathroom.

Is the Ted Turner Atlanta apartment open to the public? 

Not fully — it’s being restored by CP Group as a private event space and building tour stop. Access will be controlled due to the steep spiral staircase, which doesn’t comply with ADA accessibility standards.

What was Ted Turner’s biggest property? 

Vermejo Park Ranch in northern New Mexico — approximately 560,000 acres straddling the New Mexico-Colorado border. He purchased it from Pennzoil in 1996.