Betty White lived her last few years in her Los Angeles home over COVID concerns - but wished she could have stayed in the Carmel, California home she shared with her late husband, Allen Ludden.
White was living in her five-bedroom, six-bathroom Brentwood home in West Los Angeles when she died on Friday - just weeks before her 100th birthday.
Her agent and longtime friend Jeff Witjas told the Associated Press she had been staying at her LA home during the pandemic out of caution.
But if she had it her way, the New York Post reports, White would have remained at her longtime marital home in Carmel, which she built with Ludden when they bought the land back in 1978 for just $170,000.
Ludden died just three days shy of their 18th wedding anniversary in June 1981, leaving White with three step-children: David, Martha and Sarah.
'She never wanted to leave her home in Carmel, but was forced to for at-home care,' an unnamed source told he Post, explaining: 'Los Angeles was more accessible.
'If she had it her way, Betty would've lived and died in that home [in Carmel],' he said. 'It's the home she shared with her husband - it's where she felt more comfortable.'
Famed comedian Betty White died in her Los Angeles home on Friday morning at the age of 99
White married Allen Ludden (right) in 1963, and the two built a house in Carmel, California together in 1978 before Ludden died of cancer in 1981
Los Angeles police were seen leaving Betty White's home in Los Angeles on Friday after she died of natural causes. She had been living in the house for at-home care during the pandemic
Sources told the New York Post she would have preferred to stay at her home in Carmel, California she built with Ludden back in 1978 for $170,000
Her home in Los Angeles, where she died Friday of natural causes, is pretty modest with a white-panel exterior and yellow window panes.
It is surrounded by lush hedges on a 3,029 square foot property originally built in 1052 and stands on three-quarters of an acre.
But White's home in Camel overlooked the ocean and spanned more than 3,600 square feet with two bedrooms and five bathrooms. It is now worth an estimated $2 million.
In 2017, White gave a minute-long mock MTV Cribs tour of the Carmel, California home, showing off her aquarium filled with tropical fish and her modest bedroom, saying: 'This is where the magic happens,' before the camera pans over to a magician pulling a handkerchief from his sleeve.
'What did you think I meant?' the famed comedian asked in the clip.
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In 2017, White gave an MTV Cribs-style tour of her Carmel, California home
An animal rights advocate, she showed off her aquarium with tropical fish
Both of her homes also had rooms filled with stuffed animals.
'You won't be surprised to learn that I love stuffed animals,' White, an animal rights advocate, wrote in her 2011 memoir, If You Ask Me.
'Both at my home in LA and at my house in Carmel, there is a special room devoted to them, filled to capacity.
'I especially love the exotic ones - there is an anteater, a rhinoceros, a beluga whale, an armadillo, a bear - not a Teddy, a grizzly - the list goes on.
'I never enter that room without speaking to the animals,' White continued. '[I say] "Hi guys," and I never leave it without saying "See you later. I love you." Out loud!'
Police were seen leaving White's Los Angeles home on Friday morning, when they were called to the home for a 'natural death investigation,' according to the Post. The LAPD does not suspect foul play was involved in her death.
A few hours later, fans gathered outside the home, dropping off mementos and flowers for the famed actress and paying their respects.
'We were hoping she would make it to 100,' Michael Douglas, 37, of Los Angeles, told the Post while wearing a Golden Girls facemask. 'She was so sweet and caring. She was America's grandmother. I saw my grandma in her.
'Our parents grew up watching her and then we grew up watching her shows,' he said. 'I'm just very sad.'
Betty White had a television career spanning 80 years
Flowers, stuffed toys and cars were displayed at her Hollywood Walk of Fame star following her death on Friday
White, whose career on television spanned 80 years, leaves behind a massive legacy as a comedienne, actress, author, animal rights activist and one of the first female pioneers in television, eventually starring in hits like the Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls.
She was born in Oak Park, Illinois on January 17, 1922. White was an only child and liked it that way, she remembers her blissfully happy childhood as 'spoiled rotten, but taught to appreciate it.'
Her family moved to Los Angeles in 1923 when she was just over a year old. She attended Beverly Hills High School and though she was interested in theater she said, her dream was to become a zookeeper or forest ranger. 'The problem was, back then a girl wasn't allowed to be either one,' she wrote in her autobiography.
When she graduated high school in 1939, television was still a new frontier that had begun in New York but not yet started in California. Three months later, she was asked to do an experimental television show in downtown Los Angeles where she performed a waltz from The Merry Widow on the fifth floor of the Packard Automobile building. 'And it was broadcast all the way to the bottom floor. My parents had to stand in front of a tiny little monitor on the first floor to see me! But it was the beginning of television in Los Angeles.'
White made her rounds at movie studios but was told that she was too 'unphotogenic' for the silver screen. Alternatively, she picked up odd jobs in modeling and radio until World War II broke out when temporarily shelved her showbiz career to join the American Women's Voluntary Services.
It was during this time that White met her first husband, an Army pilot named Dick Barker. It was 'terribly romantic,' she recalled. They were engaged for most of the war and got hitched in 1945, but their marriage would only last a few months. 'I married my first because we wanted to sleep together. It lasted six months, and we were in bed for six months.'
The newlyweds moved into Barker's chicken farm with his parents, in small-town Ohio. 'They would send me out to kill a chicken to bring it in for dinner. I said, 'No way!' That was a real trauma because I'm such an animal nut. I couldn't hack it, so I split and came back to California.'
Betty White on her wedding day to her first husband, Dick Barker in 1945. White met Barker, an Army pilot while working as truck driver delivering supplies in the American Women's Voluntary Services during WWII. Their marriage only lasted six months
White later met Ludden on the game show Password, and the two fell in love
After the war was over, White returned to radio work, mostly reading commercials, playing bit parts and sometimes as a 'noisemaker' in the crowd. Eventually she landed her own half-hour radio spot called The Betty White Show where she was paid $5 per week.
She remarried in 1947 to a Hollywood agent named Lane Allen. 'We had a couple of very good years,' she told Newsweek in 2017. 'But he wanted me to stop working. He didn't want me to be in show business.' Allen wanted his new wife to
