Holyfield’s Huge Home About to Go on the Block
Former Heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield’s sprawling Georgia estate is back under foreclosure, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday.
Unless Holyfield is able to come up with enough to pay off what he owes on the original $10 million loan by July 7, he will lose the 109-room Fairburn mansion. That’s when an auction is scheduled on the steps of the Fayette County Courthouse.
Holyfield, 46, has earned more than $248 million in the ring, “but two divorces, several failed business ventures and child support payments believed to total $500,000 annually have taken a toll on his financial well-being,” writes the Journal-Constitution.
A father of 11, Holyfield hasn’t stepped in the ring since December, when he was pummeled by WBA champion Nikolai Valuev in Switzerland. The last time he got a real payday was six years ago, when he got $5 million to fight James Toney. He told reporters a year ago that “I’m not broke. I’m just not liquid.”
The estate, which has its own bowling alley and movie theater, is worth an estimated $20 million, and according to Holyfield it costs more than $1 million annually just to maintain.
“To attack that house in any way, or suggest he get rid of it … that’s just not going to fly with him,” Holyfield’s former accountant Sam Gainer said last June. “That’s his trophy, his symbol of success.”