Why Ali Larter and Her Family Left L.A. for Idaho Town 4 Years Ago

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Ali Larter Explains Why She and Her Family Left Los Angeles 4 Years Ago for ‘Small Town’ in Idaho

Hayes MacArthur, Ali Larter and kids Courtesy of Ali Larter/Instagram
Ali Larter and her husband, Hayes MacArthur, relocated from Los Angeles to a small town in Idaho amid the coronavirus pandemic — and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Our kids’ schools were shut down during COVID and we were like, ‘Why are we just sitting here?’ It was not working at all in Los Angeles,” Larter, 48, said on the Friday, January 10, episode of Live With Kelly and Mark. “So, my husband said, ‘Let’s take a road trip to Idaho [and] go skiing with the kids.”

Larter and MacArthur, 47, have been married since 2008 and share son Theodore, 14, and daughter Vivienne, 9. Their lockdown winter getaway eventually turned into a two-month stay.

“We fall in love with nature and the mountains and this entire new life,” the Landman actress gushed on Friday. “We totally pivoted and went for it. We literally had our house [in California] for less than a year. We went back to L.A. and we realized we wanted to put our family first.”

Larter added, “Our life is so different there and it’s a small town, and it kind of holds you to a different type of accountability. It’s something that me and Hayes really wanted to do for our children, so we did.”

Larter further explained that their family now has “a real life” that is “rooted in reality” since they moved to the mountains.

“We’re so grateful,” Larter said, later joking that son Theodore initially wasn’t happy by the move. “He likes fast cars and designer colognes and that whole thing, like, he wants to be in the big city. I’m like, ‘At 18, you can go [back].’ … He really likes it now and I think he understands how great his wolf pack is there.”

According to Larter, she and MacArthur also “feel if you can hike a mountain, you can run a boardroom.”

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“We just believe in raising them that way,” she concluded.

Larter and MacArthur settled their brood in the small resort town of Sun Valley, which has previously played host to a number of famous faces and acclaimed festivals and business conferences through the years.

“We fell in love with the beauty of the mountains and their quiet grandness,” Larter told Rue Magazine in a September 2024 profile. “Neither of us had ever lived in a small town before. People look out for each other. There’s a real sense of community here and we’re so happy to be a part of it.”