According to Michael’s step daughter, Cheryl, the family moved to the house in Encino, in the San Fernando Valley, in the mid 1960s. The house included an Hawaiian lava pool and waterfall and a badminton court.

After about ten years, the family moved to a house in Beverly Hills. According to Cheryl, the house had a two-story formal entryway and a double-curved staircase. The entranceway had a stained glass window that Lynn had made, it was inscribed with the words – “I Love You More Than Yesterday But Less Than Tomorrow, Pumpkin.” Pumpkin was the nickname Lynn called Michael.  

There were parquet floors, wainscoting, and a crystal chandelier. The step down living room had raised wood-panelled walls, a marble fireplace and a Chippendale chandelier. The dining room had a fireplace.

There were seven bedrooms in the main house and adjoining quarters for the housekeeper. Michael and Lynn’s master suite was in it’s own wing and had a fireplace, an adjoining study, dressing rooms, walk in closets and his and her baths.

There was also a heated swimming pool with cabanas and a tennis court. The special recreation room called “The Bonanza Room” was wood panelled and had a beamed ceiling, leaded glass windows that overlooked the gardens and a fireplace made of copper.

According to ‘American Home’ magazine: When Bonanza finally ended, in January 1973, Mike insisted on taking home with him the two-hole wooden privy that was one of the studio sets. He had it installed, along with modern plumbing, in a corner of the “Bonanza Room.”

Michael & Cindy - From The Beach To Tranquillity>

After his marriage to Lynn broke up Michael bought a house on Malibu beach, living there with Cindy and having his children come to stay on the weekends.

Michael had not lived in the beach house long when Malibu was hit with fierce storms. Five beach homes were swept into the ocean, many others, including Michael’s, were badly damaged. A few days after the storm, on Valentine’s Day 1983, Michael and Cindy wed in a ceremony at the house.

Michael later sold the beach house. He had a house built in the Malibu mountains, saying, “It’s a ranch not a resort.” Michael said one of the reasons he sold the beach house was because, “It’s not much fun to have to wipe off windows from people pressing their noses against the glass. Summers on the beach were really looky-loo time. I’m about as easygoing as you can get with fans, but when they start using your Jacuzzi and walking in the door…” (Then it’s time to go.)

The Landon family moved into the newly built house in late 1989. The following pieces are from an article in 1990 about Michael’s last house. It’s a shame he got to spend so little time there, it hadn't long been completed when he died.

On weekends, the Landons and up to thirty members of their extended family headed for “the ranch,” an undeveloped ten-acre spread north of Malibu . Nestled within a semi suburbanised patch of rolling canyon country, the ranch overlooks a fifty-thousand-acre state park full of waterfalls, horse trails and bobcats. "At first, the ranch wasn't going to be a place to live in," Michael Landon says. "We'd sleep in Malibu and just use the ranch for family sporting events, such as horse riding, tennis, touch football, croquet and kickball. Then we moved a camper onto the property and slept in the camper on weekends. After a while we built a modular house with three bedrooms, and lived there on weekends for about a year. But the more time we spent at the ranch, the less we liked going back to Malibu ."

 "Michael provided me with what he considered to be the most important details. The Landons wanted the place to look like it was a hundred years old, but they didn't want it to have the imposing appearance of a formal residence. They wanted it to have a feeling of warmth and informality - they wanted it to look like a ranch." (Architect Robert L. Earl)

Surrounded by a caramel coloured Santa Barbara - stone wall, the old recreation ranch has been transformed into a self-contained compound whose acreage now includes a two-story stable, a large gazebo, tennis courts and a glass-enclosed aviary, as well as the old modular house now used as quarters for the caretaker. But the centrepiece is the 17,000-square foot main residence, which combines contemporary with traditional influences in a tastefully aged and casually sophisticated look that, in keeping with the Landons’ most heartfelt desire, makes the new house appear old. The main entrance to the ranch is through a redwood gate, bolted with antique decorative iron, which slides back to reveal a stone-paved front motor court. Beyond the motor court, a colonnaded passageway leads to the central courtyard, a three-sided enclosure that overlooks a tiled swimming pool whose guarded privacy and open-air grace provide the principal themes of the main house.

Before preparing a formal plan, Earl (architect Robert L. Earl) spent several weekends observing the Landons’ active life at the ranch and at the beach. The architect then translated his firsthand research directly to the drawing board, and says that Michael Landon often modified or revised certain details. "I tried to provide facilities for all I had observed," he says. "I noticed, for instance, that family members enjoyed riding three-wheel vehicles on the ranch, and that they'd need a lot of terrain for that. Toward the end of the day, Michael would always prepare to cook for a large group, and I realized they'd need large indoor and outdoor cooking facilities similar to those in commercial restaurants.”

  "I also noticed that the pet birds, which were in cages inside the beach house, would need an enclosed aviary at the ranch." At Earl's suggestion, the Landons hired Los Angeles designer Ron Wilson to do the interiors. The couple did not provide Wilson with a similarly detailed outline for the interiors. Instead, Michael Landon candidly explained to the designer that although he had no specific style in mind, he wanted a setting that was luxuriously comfortable. But, says Wilson, "they were willing to be exposed to different ideas." Mindful of the couples recently inspired interest in European architecture, Wilson encouraged their growing appreciation of French and Italian antiques so that they could create an elegantly informal interior to complement the informal elegance of the exterior. (Architect Robert L. Earl)

Flanking one length of the pool is a gallery-roofed outdoor cooking area with a fireplace and a larger-than-life barbeque grill that can hold up to seventy steaks at a time. On the opposite side of the pool, three cabanas, each with its own entrance, separate bedroom, bath and dressing area, stand ready for visiting grown children and other relatives, allowing them to come and go without disturbing the rest of the family.

The three bedroom main house, which lies at the far end of the pool, sports a tile roof that was specially treated on the job site to give it a patina of age. 'The roof forms a gigantic part of the house," says Ron Wilson. "I told the workers to lay on the tile in an erratic way, as if they were drunk, so that this brand-new house would not look brand-new." A set of glass-panelled French doors guarded by a pair of antique stone lions at the main entrance leads into an airy, high-ceilinged gallery with exposed oak beams and the tile floors. "There is no formal foyer with winding staircase," the architect explains, "because we wanted to remain faithful to the ranch look. Instead, we placed the staircase on the side and designed one central great room, as you might have in a ranch house." The first floor also includes two of Michael Landon's favourite haunts: his office, filled with photographs and awards from his television shows; and a lounge area, which features a sunken fire pit and a stone-topped game table.

The second floor of the residence elaborates on the design themes established downstairs.

The master bedroom has a sloping roof supported by exposed pine beams, a fireplace, a carved low poster bed that is flanked by Spanish stone-topped night tables, a writing desk and an over scale sofa and chaise lounges.

Behind the main house are acres of open space for the children and their menagerie of seven dogs, two rabbits and two horses. The landscaping consists of luxuriant stands of eucalyptus, magnolias, fruit and pepper trees, some of which were transplanted fully grown. "If I were twenty-eight years old,” says Landon, who is in his mid fifties, "I would have planted baby trees. But at my age, I can't wait for trees to grow." Beyond the trees atop a steep hill are the stables, reached by a long driveway, which, Landon says, had to be built to accommodate the turning radius and weight of a fifty-thousand-pound fire truck, according to local ordinances. The stables feature a horse pen, covered stalls, a first-floor tack room and a second-floor private lounge with pine-panelled walls and French-tiled floors. It is only from the stables second-floor vantage point that the Landons can glimpse the ocean, which is less than a mile to the west of their secluded canyon. But, more important, they have a breathtaking and intimate view of their ranch house and the wilderness park nearby.

Michael Landon died at home on July 1, 1991 .

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