Actress Jennifer Esposito, best known for her work on Blue Bloods, says she had to sell her home in Springs after she mortgaged it to finance her film, Fresh Kills — a decision, despite the consequences, that she doesn’t necessarily regret.
The 52-year-old who also starred in Crash, Spin City and NCIS. put her 1,500-square-foot reimagined saltbox home, located on a quiet street, up for sale in November for $1,595,000. It went into contract just a month and a half later.
Nancy Mizrahi of Saunders & Associates represented the listing. She did not immediately return a request for comment.
Esposito, who is also a New York Times best-selling author for her book Jennifer’s Way, bought the two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house in 2017 for $594,000, and put it on the market for a 168% increase, thanks to a high-end renoation that includes a new roof, new windows and doors, limewashed walls and untreated natural hardwood floors. The home also boasts green insulation for “a non-toxic backdrop for modern living,” according to the listing.
An open-concept great room features a fireplace and an eat-in kitchen, particularly stunning, clad in marble, including a waterfall peninsula. Floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that lead out to the half-acre property, which would fit a pool. An accessory structure had served Esposito as a private home gym, but can be used in a variety of ways. The primary bedroom suite is spacious and offers double-heigh ceilings, exposed beams and skylights overhead. The primary bath includes a standalone tub and a walk-in shower.
In a video taken from inside the home as she packed up, Esposito told her Instagram followers that she had to leave her house because of the mortgage she took out to get Fresh Kills completed. However, the purpose of her post was more about “whiteness” and “patriarchy” in Hollywood, and she noted that only 8% of the top 250 films were directed by women.
She struggled to get financing for the project for her film — which she wrote and co-produced, as well as starred in — for 15 years, which she told several publications was due to the lack of male lead actors in the film. The drama tells the story of loyal women of an organized crime family that dominated some of the boroughs of New York City in the late 20th century.
Perhaps not a financial success given Esposito’s circumstance, the film did receive critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Hamptons International Film Festival and the Artistic Director’s Award at the San Diego International Film Festival.
Deadline Hollywood reported it was “the first feature film financed and traded by a global group of fan investors via this first-of-its-kind IPO on Upstream Exchange, the Ethereum-powered digital stock exchange. It premiered at the TriBeca Film Festival in 2023. It is now available for streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime.
In an interview with KTLA at the time, she said: “So I’m going to put my money down. At the end of my life, am I going to be so happy that my house was paid off? Or am I going to be so happy that I gave myself the opportunity that I’ve been waiting for for far too long?”
Following her initial post on Jan. 30, several publications wrote that she was “losing” her house. She followed up with another video in reaction to “so many people reaching out to me about my house — and, listen, I’m not living in a car, the bank did not take my house — I had to sell it.”
The news story noted “she was crying” in the initial video, “somehow, seems like trying to shame me,” she said. “I want to be very clear — I am so deeply proud of myself and I would do it again —not in that way — I would mortgage my house again — there’s a story there. I’ll just say betting on yourself is never wrong. I just wish art would be taken for art’s sake and viewed on its merit, but that not the way things work. That’s why it’s so important for you to get behind independent films because there are so many hurdles to get through. . . If it took that video for so many new people to see Fresh Kills I sincerely am so grateful.”
In an open letter to Variety, The Wrap and People, Esposito wrote on Friday: “You must ask yourself, WHY? Why did a story (that isn’t even accurate) go so viral? Especially now, in a time when women’s right[s] are being taken daily, victims are being gaslit and people are being shot in the street — is this really ‘news’? she wrote. “I NEVER said I lost it. NEVER. . . I did say that I was crying. I was.”
She explained, “I loved my home. It’s the one place I felt safe. It was special for many reasons. And if my film would have been judged on merit alone, maybe I wouldn’t have had to sell it. Everyone in my film pretty much went onto do amazing things, HUGE things. Everyone except me.”
She continued, “My tears were because I still believe art should matter,” and she concluded, “I’d tell any and all filmmakers with a passion to tell their story to bet on themselves too.”
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