Billionaire Mat Ishbia building “amusement park” home in Michigan

When you’re a billionaire, why not bring the amusement park home?

Michigan mortgage magnate and Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia is building the state’s largest residential house in Bloomfield Township, just outside Detroit, that also has something akin to an amusement park, USAToday reported.

To make way for the extravagant, 60,000-square-foot mansion on 14 acres, Ishbia intends to demolish his current 22,000-square-foot house, which is only eight years old, along with five neighboring properties.

The new mansion will feature a wide array of lavish amenities, including the trampoline park, a basketball court with tall mesh screening, a large all-sports court, a treehouse, an “Enchanted Forest” enclosed by gates and masonry piers, a reflecting pool, climbing walls, and a 14-foot-tall waterfall, among other things, the outlet said.

Not everything got the OK from the township’s meeting zoning board of appeals: A go-kart track and garage, for example, were denied due to concerns about noise.

The mansion’s surroundings will be heavily landscaped with evergreens to ensure privacy and block the view from passing trains. Despite resistance from the subdivision’s homeowners association, who initially cited deed restrictions in the area, Ishbia’s legal team made adjustments to the plans, adding more landscaping and screening to satisfy the neighbors and gain approval.

Ishbia, the co-founder of Shore Capital and ranked as Michigan’s fourth-wealthiest individual by Forbes in 2022, is worth about $4.5 billion. 

His brother, Justin, is also no stranger to building massive homes: He and his wife Kristen will have the priciest home in Illinois once their Winnetka project is completed. 

The new mansion, measuring at a whopping 68,300 square feet on 3.7 acres, has a price tag of $43.7 million, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing construction permit records filed with the North Shore suburb’s government. The project’s total cost amounts to $77.7 million, including what the Ishbias paid for the three homes that were torn down in preparation for the epic estate, located on Lake Michigan’s shore.

— Ted Glanzer