8 Famous mansions that were abandoned or are for sale and the stories behind them

At some time in your life you’ve probably thought about what your dream home would look like and, in fact, there are many spaces that can serve as inspiration. For example, in the celebrity world, real estate is often full of beautiful details, and many of them look like they’re straight out of a fairy tale. However, on some occasions celebrities decide to sell them suddenly and at very high prices. There are cases where a building of this type is available and is quickly sold, but there are others where it cannot be bought and ends up abandoned to its fate.

O awesome.club wants to share with you facts about famous properties that spent a long time in oblivion, some that are still for sale and others that have been transformed into something else.

This mansion was built by Ted Vannelli, a politician from Trumbull County. Mike Tyson bought it for $300,000 in 1989. However, years later the boxer began to have personal and legal problems, which ended up affecting his career and lifestyle. Although he tried to return to the top, conflicts did not stop arising because of his inappropriate behavior. The house was full of luxuries: it had five high-ceilinged, wood-paneled bedrooms, plus a basketball court and a whirlpool. He also kept three Bengal tigers on the property, not to mention that the pool was huge.

In 2003, Tyson was declared bankrupt and the mansion was sold to businessman Paul Monea, but he never lived there. Interestingly, this owner also had legal problems and again the house became available. In 2010, the property was acquired by entrepreneur Ron Hemelgarn, who restored a few things. However, he did not move there either. After so much abandonment, the property passed into the hands of the religious organization Living Word Sanctuarywho worked for four years, only on weekends, to renovate it.

When Bruce Lee passed away, he left a great legacy embedded in movies, books, objects to understand his way of training and his philosophy of life. He also owned a mansion in Hong Kong, where he lived for the last year of his life with his family. After his death (1973), the house is believed to have passed to businessman Yu Pengnian, known as the “Love Hotel King” because many of the properties he owned were used for this purpose. Even though people asked for the kung-fu legend’s property to be turned into a museum, in 2000 it ended up being converted into a hotel.

In 2009, businessman Yu announced that he would make the mansion a tourist spot, but the plan was not carried out because the details were not worked out and an agreement was never reached with the government. Years later, in 2015, Yu passed away. In 2018, his grandson announced that the place would be converted into a school to offer courses in Mandarin and music for children. But in 2019 the building that had housed Bruce Lee’s house was demolished to make room for a Chinese studies center, leaving some characteristic features, such as the mosaic and two windows. Some YouTube videos show how abandoned the property was for a few years.

It is located in Scotland and has survived the flames and time. It belonged to Aleister Crowley and later to Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Long before the writer moved into this mansion, the area already had a history of strange happenings, as by the 13th century a church and cemetery had already been built on the same site. Legend has it that the church caught fire, leaving all the people inside it dead. The Boleskine Estate was built in the 1760s by Colonel Archibald Fraser and expanded by his family around 1830.

The house had four bedrooms, all on the same floor, a kitchen, and a room for a servant. In addition, it had a library and a hall. It is said that there was a tunnel that connected the mansion to the cemetery. Crowley purchased the property in 1899, believing it to be ideal for performing certain rituals, and for this reason some mysterious events are believed to have taken place there. Finally, the then owner abandoned it in 1913. Despite all the stories, Jimmy Page bought it in 1970, as he was a collector of Crowley-related things. After restoring it, he left it under the command of a friend, Malcolm Dent, who also experienced strange things there. Some chairs shifted, doors opened and closed, and rugs rolled up without explanation. The owners who succeeded him left behind other horror stories. In 2015, the house caught fire, sustaining severe damage. In 2019, there was another fire and much of the mansion was destroyed. The Boleskine Foundation acquired the ruins the same year and will restore the property to its original state, with the idea of ​​opening it to the public.

After filmmaker Vincente Minnelli passed away, it became known that his last wish was for the property located in Beverly Hills to pass into the hands of his daughter, Liza, but on the condition that his last wife (Lee Anderson), also a stepmother of the girl, had the possibility to remain in the place until her death or whenever she wanted. In addition, if Liza decided to sell the property, she would have to transfer the woman to another residence. At first, there was no problem, and Lee was able to live for more than ten years in the house. However, in 2002 Liza tried to sell it, and that’s when the problems started.

After the attempted sale, Lee and Liza had legal disputes over the residence. Although Liza Minnelli had offered her stepmother that she move into a condo, Lee preferred to take matters into her own hands and act legally, accusing her stepdaughter of disrupting services and laying off some of the mansion’s employees, which would have caused her stressful, worrying and stressful moments. filled with humiliation. For some reason, the charge was dropped a month later and the artist’s stepmother continued to live there until her death (2009), despite the house being officially sold in 2004, and Liza paying rent to the new owners.

Shortly after Lee’s death, it was believed that the property would undergo a remodel, but this did not happen. In some YouTube videos, it is possible to see some tours of the abandoned residence and, in the last images shown (2017) of what was once the Minnelli mansion, it is possible to see that the place is no longer accessible and that there is work in progress.

It was not only a house, but also an exclusive amusement park for the famous’s guests. The facilities were designed to make entertainment accessible to terminally ill children and more than 11 square kilometers of entertainment opened in 1990. Michael Jackson named it “Neverland” in reference to the history of Peter Pan. It was his favorite place and he usually spent his time there, enjoying himself with his family and friends.

Located in California, Neverland was like a dream come true, filled with pure entertainment, including a movie theater, a zoo and a theme park. In spite of everything, in 1993 the singer began to have some legal problems and his house was requested by the court. In 2005, conflicts continued and he decided to dispose of the property. When it was bought by businessman William Bone, its price ranged from 16.5 million to 30 million dollars, and in 2015 it was sold for 100 million dollars. In 2019, after the documentary Leaving Neverland aired, the value of the ranch dropped to $31 million.

It was bought by singer Alvin Lee to make room for Space Studios. While he was in charge of the place, many recordings were made there. Then the mansion passed into the hands of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, and parts of his album were recorded there. The Final Cut. Despite some people referring to the property as “Pink Floyd’s Forgotten House”, Gilmour sold it to Trevor Horn, who put it up for sale after his son Aaron and his wife had an incident in the garden. It was then that the property passed into the hands of Mark White.

In 2017, the furnished residence was reported as abandoned. Some people even shared their trips there in videos posted on YouTube.

Roberto Gómez Bolaños, better known as “Chespirito”, lived with his wife for many years in a mansion in Mexico City, but his real “sweetheart” was his home in Cancun, which he considered a paradise. After the actor who gave life to “Chaves” passed away, Florinda Meza announced on her husband’s Twitter account that she would sell the two properties, as they were too many for her to live alone with her dogs. At a conference, she commented that when she hosted the whole family she needed a lot of space, but that she would buy a smaller home because a bigger one would no longer be needed.

The city property was put up for sale for the value of 34 million Mexican pesos, but so far (April 2020) it has not been sold, even though the price has dropped to 27 million. This is believed to be due to some strange occurrences that neighbors have commented on, noting that they have heard and seen things at night that could be related to some sort of Bolaños presence.

This farm was created by Pablo Escobar and his cousin with the purchase of several plots of land that, together, became an area of ​​three thousand hectares. Immediately, the site was transformed with the construction of rooms, roads, swimming pools, artificial lakes and an airstrip, among other things. Over time, a zoo, bullring, race cars and other attractions for Escobar’s visitors were incorporated into the place. After he passed away in 1993, the property began to be neglected and its condition became deplorable, so it was repeatedly occupied by security forces.

After a long battle, it was expropriated by the Colombian state. It wasn’t until 2006 that a company proposed that the farm be converted into a theme park. Then, in 2007, the project that would transform it into the Hacienda Naples Theme Parkwhich has water attractions, museums and a wildlife sanctuary.

If you had a mansion, why would you abandon it? What other curious story do you know about the home of a famous person? Tell us in the comments.