Former basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal is taking a shot at selling his Orlando-area estate for seven times more than he paid 25 years ago.
It will be no easy layup: The unusual property is highly customized to suit O’Neal’s outsized personality.
O’Neal, 46, put his longtime primary residence in Windermere on the market with an asking price of $28 million.
He bought the 12-bedroom property for $3.95 million in 1993, when he was a player with the Orlando Magic.
He was with the Magic from 1992 to 1996, then played for the Los Angeles Lakers before returning to Florida in 2004 to play for the Miami Heat.
O’Neal is now a basketball analyst for “Inside the NBA,” a cable television show on TNT.
The listing agent for his Windermere home, Danial Natoli of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, told the Wall Street Journal that O’Neal’s three-acre estate features a 6,000-square-foot basketball court with bleachers and the Miami Heat logo.
The Superman logo is emblazoned throughout the house, a reference one of O’Neal’s multiple nicknames for himself.
A mural in a walk-in cigar humidor with storage for wine has a built-in fish tank that blends with a mural to form the image of a truck with O’Neal in the driver’s seat. (His nicknames include “The Diesel.”)
A life-size Superman statue stands watch in the property’s outdoor resort area, nicknamed “Shaq-apulco.” It has a 95-foot swimming pool with a hot tub and waterfall, plus a swim-up bar leading to a covered outdoor kitchen. The Superman statue is located on a dock on one in a series of lakes called the Butler Chain.
Many of the features of O’Neal’s 31,000-square-foot home are made for living large, including two garages big enough for 17 cars and a built-in circular bed in the master suite with a 15-foot diameter.
Natoli told the Journal the home’s condition is good but a buyer probably would alter the property “for their own taste.” [Wall Street Journal] – Mike Seemuth