What Ever Happened To Roseanne Barr's Eldon Diner?

The sitcom star tried to put down roots in the Hawkeye State back in the 90s. All of her attempts whether they were personal or somewhat professional, proved to be unsuccessful.

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Roseanne Barr and her then-husband at the time Tom Arnold bought a property in Iowa in the 90s. The couple attempted to build a 25,000 square foot mansion in Eldon, IA, but this project was ultimately abandoned when Barr and Arnold got divorced.

Arnold apparently donated the property to a local college.

ABC

It's been several decades and seemingly no one has done any work on the property in Eldon, IA. One Iowa resident happened across the property and saw the state that it currently is in.

The completed project, according to the Des Moines Register, was meant to be 28,000-square-feet and have a swimming pool-in-the-basement. If you look closely you can see the differences that just nine years can have. The property looked sketchy years back, but now the property has been taken over by the forest surrounding it.

See Inside Roseanne Barr's Eldon Mansion

Roseanne Barr was set to make a home in Iowa. She and her then-husband Tom Arnold were in the midst of building a mansion in Eldon. It was put on hold when the couple eventually split up. This left a beautiful, unfinished, and kind of spooky mansion behind.

She hasn't been too active on social media since the scandal that got her booted off of her own show several years ago. Last year, news broke that Roseanne Barr put her $3.5 million home in El Segundo, California on the market. The house has four bedrooms and four bathrooms.

It wasn't just a home that she was trying to build, but also a business. When Barr and Arnold were together the couple would make trips out once a month to the town of Eldon. Called Roseanne & Tom's Big Food Diner, the restaurant was actually modeled after the Lunch Box Restaurant, the restaurant from the hit sitcom that Barr starred in.

According to a 1993 report from the Orlando Senteniel, the building was a converted pizzeria that the famous duo bought for around $125,000 not too far away from the location of their mansion.

The reason behind this odd purchase? These two Hollywood stars didn't want to cook for themselves, AND at the time the other local restaurants in the area closed at 6:30 PM. On weeknights, the restaurant would be open until 9 PM and 10 PM on weekends.

Back in the day, the restaurant employed 26 individuals which made it Eldon's biggest employer for a brief time.

After the couple broke up, the fate of the restaurant was up in the air. In a 1995 article from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the manager of the restaurant said that Arnold would be taking over operations. However, the restaurant wouldn't last.

The final day of business for the restaurant was February 13th of 1995; which just so happened to be the day Roseanne married her former bodyguard. Reports say that the restaurant building has been converted into another restaurant.

Roseanne Barr Abandoned Iowa Mansion in Eldon, IA

I fell into a rabbit hole when I found out that Roseanne Barr almost had a mansion in Iowa. After seeing the current state of the property on Facebook, I was amazed that such an extravagant project could be so quickly overtaken by nature. Only two hours away from Waterloo, this abandoned field could have hosted some of the coolest and elite Hollywood parties in the Midwest. The current photos were taken by Gable Fry on a recent trip he took.