Rick Ross buys Evander Holyfield’s money pit
There’s nothing rappers and boxers share in common more than their love for the splurge
- Welcome to my humble abode.
It’s a proven fact that mansions suck: They suck up utilities. They suck up maintenance. They suck up cash. But that hasn’t stopped nouveau riche rappers and boxers from swapping money pits like celebrity arm candy.
The latest boxer-turned-rapper-owned mansion could belong to none other than Ricky Rozay, aka Rick Ross “the Bawse,” who may have recently purchased Atlanta boxing legend Evander Holyfield’s foreclosed Fayetteville home. An Instagram photo posted last week by Ross’s Maybach Music label signee Meek Mill features the Bawse chilling atop the second-story staircase banister, with a congratulatory message from Mill that reads: “new crib is unreal!”
This “crib” ain’t for baby ballers.
Valued at $10 million before the real estate bust, JPMorgan Chase & Company purchased the 54,000-square-foot spread, which sits on 105 acres and has 109 rooms, in 2012 for $7.5 million after it went into foreclosure. When the New York Times reported on it last November, the home was on the auction block with a bidding price that had reached $2.75 million. Holyfield reportedly owed $14 million on the 20-year-old mega-mansion at the time of foreclosure.
In addition to being listed as the “largest single family home in GA,” the 12-room, 21-bathroom main house boasts a 350,000-gallon outdoor pool, bowling alley, baseball field, and indoor lap pool. There’s also an extra 4,000-square-foot home on the property that one of Holyfield’s ex-wives resided in for a spell after their divorce.
Of course, the upkeep costs a pretty penny: approximately $1 million annually, Holyfield once told the AJC, with monthly power bills in the $17,000 range.
Besides sharing similar started-from-the-bottom narratives, there’s nothing rappers and boxers have in common more than their love for the splurge. Talk about balling, in his autobiography Undisputed Truth, Mike Tyson writes about his former three white Bengal tigers, purchased at $70,000 apiece, that ate up an additional $200,000 in food and required a $150,000 trainer. (And you thought that scene from The Hangover was a joke.)
Perhaps Rick Ross’s new splurge is an attempt at trumping his old nemesis, 50 Cent, who purchased Tyson’s former Farmington, Conn., mansion back in 2003, after the success of his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. As Fiddy certainly discovered, you can die trying to pay the monthly nut on a 48,000-square-foot home. It’s been on and off the market for the past five years, according to the Hartford Courant. Currently listed at $9,999,999, it’s down significantly from Fiddy’s original asking price of $18.5 million.
If Ross is the kind of neighborly guy Holyfield was, perhaps we can look forward to watching fireworks on the lawn come Independence Day, when Holyfield would often open up his estate to the public, according to the Times. Or maybe he’ll let Tyler Perry shoot there, too.
Whatever Ross does, he’d be wise to refrain from stringing up too many Christmas lights. Holyfield’s reported expenses on holiday light displays: a cool $16,000.