Richard Gere strikes $40 million deal for his New York country mansion

Hollywood icon Richard Gere has banked USD $28 million ($39.4 million) for his enormous New York country estate after 36 years of ownership.

The 72 year-old star waited about five months for the deal on the Pound Ridge address, which was listed as “one of the great American family compounds” and is surrounded by lush, protected forest.

Gere bought the property in 1986, four years before the release of his cult classic flick Pretty Woman, opposite a young Julia Roberts.

The estate, about an hour by car from Manhattan, includes a private lake with a beach and an island, stables, a pool with a guest house, and a soccer field.

Double doors around the eight-bedroom, eleven-bathroom home unfold to greenery, matching the traditional provincial interiors.

For ultimate privacy, the property is encircled by 1740 hectares of hills and dense foliage.

Gere was asking USD $28 million ($39.4 million), spinning a monumental profit on the USD $1.51 million ($2.13 million) he paid in the 80s for what was then a vacant block of land, according to Mansion Global.

With multimillion-dollar paychecks from movies including American Gigolo and An Officer And a Gentleman, Gere took ten years to build the mansion across 12,000 square metres, with custom joinery to match the bucolic location, several living areas, a breakfast nook with an open fireplace and a handsome library.

Pound Ridge is a dairy-farming town of about 5000 residents near the Connecticut border.

He listed the home with agent Muffin Dowdle from Ginnel Real Estate, who has slipped it under contract.

The offer completes a family move for Gere and his wife Alejandra Silva, who in February inked a contract for another upstate New York home, this time on 14 hectares in North Salem.

They paid USD $9.8 million ($13.9 million) for the red-brick house, built to mirror a grand English country home, with seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms – a downsize by celebrity standards.

North Salem has been dubbed “Billionaires’ Dirt Road” for its wealthy influx. Gere’s new neighbours include media mogul Michael Bloomberg and Jenna Gates, the daughter of tech goliath Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda.

Residents reported that Gere and Silva had moved into North Salem, also about an hour from New York City, after spotting Buddhist prayer flags strung up at the property. Gere is one of Hollywood’s most high-profile Buddhists.