Realty Check: Do the Math

June 10, 2008 1:55 PM

Ever since I wrote about Ed McMahon, my friends have been urging me to check out Evander Holyfield, the boxing legend whose house -- for about 10 minutes -- was scheduled to go up for auction.  Seems Holyfield owes a little back child support and hasn't quite settled up on some landscaping he had done at his 235 acre estate in Fayette County, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta.  A notice in the newspaper alerted us all to the fact that his super-sized mansion was scheduled for auction July 1st with a scheduled price of $10 million. 

Holyfield now tells Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports columnist Jeff Schultz that he’s all right and the house is safe. 

“I’m fine,” Holyfield tells Schultz.  “Everything’s great. The thing, I just don’t want to react to all of this stuff because, in the end, people will believe what they want to believe. I realize the situation I’m in. But the whole thing is, I’m not broke -- I’m just not liquid.” 

“I’m just not liquid.” 

Gosh, it’s easy to see why.  The numbers are just staggering.  Take a look, then I’ll leave you alone with a scratch pad to do some "ciphering" (as Jethro Bodine used to say on the Beverly Hillbillies): 

Age:  45

Estimated lifetime earnings:  $250 million, give or take a mil or two

House:  54,000 square feet

109 rooms (no, 109 is NOT a typo)

17 bathrooms

3 kitchens

1 bowling alley

$550,000 landscaping job he’s being sued for

$1.2 million annual upkeep

11 children

3 wives  (1 current, 2 exes)

$500,000 child support payments annually

Even with 11 children (and I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that not all of them live with him), does one really need 54,000 square feet?!?   109 rooms??  Don’t you wonder if he even knows where all of those rooms are?  Wouldn't you need a map to find your way around your own house???

By all accounts –- well, by all accounts except one (the ex-wife who’s suing for back child support) –-Holyfield is a devoted and caring father.  So his kids sure do not need to see their dad with all 109 rooms worth of stuff set out on the curb there on Evander Holyfield Highway, and his house going under the auctioneer’s gavel on the steps of a Georgia courthouse.

But it reminded me of something Russell Simmons told me when I interviewed himafter one his Hip Hop Summit get-your-money-straight seminars. Simmons was asking if people really need such big houses that they get themselves into financial trouble:  “No matter how big your house is,” he told me, “you can only sit your a$$ in one seat at a time.” 

Yes, I do note the irony here, but ain’t that the truth??

-Vicki Mabrey