Yoko Ono Leaves NYC After 50 Years, Moves to Farm Purchased With John Lennon
Yoko Ono is the latest to say she’s done with New York City.
The 90-year-old is choosing to spend the rest of her life in a rural upstate New York farm that she and her late husband, John Lennon, purchased together in 1978, according to the Daily Mail.
In the last 50 years, Ono has called the exclusive Dakota building — located on West 72nd Street and known as the first-ever luxury apartment building in America — her home. Lennon was shot outside, in Dakota’s archway, on Dec. 8, 1980.
During the pandemic, Ono opted to move to her expansive 600-acre farm near Franklin, New York, in the Catskills, full-time — with no plans of returning to her Upper West Side abode, the outlet reported.
Ono and The Beatles legend had purchased the farm initially as a retreat — and to raise Holstein dairy cows.
Ono now lives a “peaceful life,” out of the public spotlight, sources say, adding that the small town has a population of just 340 people.
The main house on the sprawling estate has four bedrooms and two bathrooms — and outside, Ono grows her own vegetables. Nearby are a farmers’ market and a pizza restaurant.
Philip Norman, in his book, “John Lennon: The Life,” writes that the English singer bought a herd of 122 cows and 10 bulls for the farm at one point.
Back in 2013, the farm became a subject of contention, when Ono and her son, Sean, protested fracking in the state of New York. There was a rising threat to the farm that sits atop the Marcellus Shale — a rock formation geologists estimate holds trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.
“I have always felt lucky,” Lennon wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times, “to live on land [my father] loved dearly.”
Despite being wheelchair-bound with her health declining in recent years, Ono recently revealed that she goes for 4-mile walks to beat depression.
Ono never remarried following the assassination of Lennon.
In 2017, now 47-year-old Sean pushed Ono in a wheelchair to receive the National Music Publishers’ Association’s Centennial Song award.
“I’ve learned so much from having this illness,” Ono said during her acceptance speech. “I’m thankful I went through that.”
It still remains unclear what illness she was referring to, but in 2020, a source close to her staff told The Post that the avant-garde artist requires round-the-clock care. Before moving out to her farm, the source added that she rarely left her sprawling apartment in the Dakota.
Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1933, Ono was born into a banking family who suffered from starvation during World War II. They were often forced to barter household items for food while they sought refuge from Allied bombing raids.
“She is a particularly special being,” Elliot Mintz, a close family friend and publicist, told The Post back in 2020. “In these 87 years, she’s lived 400.”
The post Yoko Ono Leaves NYC After 50 Years, Moves to Farm Purchased With John Lennon was originally published on New York Post.
