The Heartbreaking Reports About Diane Keaton's Final Days In California

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New details are emerging following the tragic death of 79-year-old actor Diane Keaton on October 11. While Keaton's family, including her two children, Dexter Keaton White and Duke Keaton, initially requested privacy in the aftermath of their mother's death, a spokesperson for the family later released a statement to People on October 16, revealing that her cause of death was pneumonia. According to a death certificate obtained by The New York Times, Keaton was at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, at the time of her death.

Sadly, it appears that Keaton's final days in her home state of California were harrowing, to say the least. "She declined very suddenly, which was heartbreaking for everyone who loved her," a source close to Keaton told People about the star's death. "It was so unexpected, especially for someone with such strength and spirit." The source added, "In her final months, she was surrounded only by her closest family, who chose to keep things very private. Even longtime friends weren't fully aware of what was happening." As reported by Realtor.com, two weeks before her death, she also took her self-professed "dream home" off the market after initially listing it in March for $29 million in a somewhat surprising move.

While Diane Keaton is perhaps best known for her acting chops, she was also highly regarded in the architectural and interior design world for her many successful house flipping projects. Over the years, Keaton amassed an impressive real estate portfolio of properties spanning from New York City to California and even Arizona. "My feeling is that you find an authentic house and, authentically, try to restore it," she explained to Architectural Digest in 1999 about her own process. "California has a wealth of beauty. My fantasy would be to continue to buy homes that are representative of the architecture of California and restore them." (No doubt, those lucrative house-flipping projects also majorly contributed to her reportedly hefty net worth.)

It wasn't until 2017, however, that the actor turned real estate connoisseur seemed to finally find a project she wasn't willing to part with. Enter: the five-bedroom, seven-bathroom Sullivan Canyon property where Keaton was living at the time of her death. "I always had an interest in homes and the concept of home, but the problem is I never really land and stay. Something's wrong. But something's right, because I love it," she gushed to Wine Spectator in 2017 about the 9,219-square-foot brick inspiration for her third book, "The House That Pinterest Built." According to Keaton, part of her initial draw to the home was its traditional red brick exterior, as it hearkened back to the classic children's story that her mother used to read her about the three little pigs. Keaton recalled that the house that ultimately stood the test was the one made of bricks. "I knew I was going to live in a brick house when I grew up," she declared.