Yoko Ono leaves NYC for a farm she bought with John Lennon

Among a growing list of celebrities to leave behind New York City in favor of a more rural lifestyle, Yoko Ono is leaving the Big Apple for a rural upstate New York farm that she bought with her long-time partner, John Lennon, in 1978.

From the city to the farm

Yoko Ono has spent more than half of her life in NYC, having lived in the exclusive, first-ever American luxury apartment building, Dakota, on West 72nd Street. The Dakota is where John Lennon was tragically shot on December 8, 1980.

However, it looks like the experience of living in NYC during Covid times was enough to drive her out of the city and her luxurious Upper West side apartment, and into the farm life.

Yoko Ono now lives full time on the 600-acre farm in a small town with a population of just 340 people the Catskills near Franklin, New York

Ono and Lennon purchased the property 42 years ago as a retreat and to raise Holstein dairy cows. The 90-year-old is now living a “peaceful life” out of the spotlight, and has no intention of returning to the city.

The farm house has four bathrooms and two bathrooms and a vegetable garden.

Finding that healing place

When Yoko Ono was awarded the 2017 National Music Publishers’ Association’s Centennial Song award, the wheelchair-bound activist revealed that she was living with an illness, but she did not specify what.

“I’ve learned so much from having this illness,” Ono said. “I’m thankful I went through that.”

In 2020, a source elaborated that Ono has 24-hour care, and that while living in New York City, the artist rarely left her Dakota apartment — however she has dedicated herself to maintaining her health, and when she is able, she goes for four-kilometer walks.

“There’s something I do to get out of depression,” Yoko Ono wrote on Twitter in January 2023. “I walk about 80 city blocks. That gives me a real high.”