For the next three weeks, the world’s best athletes will live on equal footing. All 17,000 competitors in the Summer Olympics will stay in the Athletes’ Village, sharing dorm-style rooms in newly built East London apartment buildings that lead out to communal courtyards. But when the medals are won and the Games close, how do the biggest stars live?
In Pictures: Homes Of Olympic Stars
It depends on the sport. We sorted through property records and real estate listings from Realtor.com, Trulia.com and Zillow.com to uncover the addresses that America’s star Olympians call home or have sold in the past few years.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the most opulent abodes are owned by members of the USA basketball team. After joining the Miami Heat, LeBron James scooped up a waterfront mansion in December 2010 for $9 million. The 12,178-square-foot home in Coconut Grove has six bedrooms, eight and a half baths, a wine cellar, a home theater and a backyard with an infinity pool and dock space for two 60-foot yachts.
James’ Olympic teammate Chris Paul inhabits a Mediterranean-style manse in Los Angeles that he purchased in January for $8.5 million from pop singer Avril Lavigne. The Clippers point guard’s 12,184-square foot Bel-Air estate has eight bathrooms, 10.5 baths, a gym with sauna and a 10-car garage.
Tennis stars also live lavishly. Andy Roddick owns a 5,558-square-foot house perched on Lake Austin in a gated community in Austin, Texas. In the past, Roddick, 29, has unsuccessfully attempted to sell it, asking $3.6 million before pulling it from the market in 2011. The lakefront house, where he married Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker, has four bedrooms, four baths, a kitchen that opens out to a covered patio, a sports court and a boathouse.
Fellow tennis Olympians Serena and Venus Williams own an estate in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. that they built and moved into from their parents’ home. The custom V-shaped mansion has two master wings that mirror each other in layout, with two-story, glass-enclosed sitting rooms and walk-in closets. The property sits in the BallenIsles Country Club and while the sisters didn’t put a tennis court in the backyard, the posh club reportedly added one on its grounds just for them.
Thanks to 16 Olympic medal s and multimillion-dollar endorsement deals, Michael Phelps can afford a fancy home or two. The 27-year-old swimming star reportedly owns several pieces of prime real estate along the East Coast, including a Baltimore townhome that he’s selling for $1.4 million. The three-bedroom waterfront pad has floor-to-ceiling windows and a rooftop lounge. According to listing agent Heidi Krauss’ site, a sale is pending.
Women’s soccer star Hope Solo, 30, became a first-time homebuyer this year. The goalkeeper plunked down $1.2 million on a 5,330-square foot home in Kirkland, Wash. It’s located about 25 miles from the Starfire Sports Complex, where she practices with her pro team, the Seattle Sounders Women.
But for most Olympians, success is unlikely to bring them mansions. Take fencer Mariel Zagunis. When the two-time gold medalist in the sabre, 27, bought a home following her win at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it was a mid-century ranch in her hometown of Beaverton, Ore., that cost $275,000. The 1,267 square foot house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a one-car garage.
For some young Olympians, home means splitting time between training centers and parents’ houses. When gymnast John Orozco isn’t training in Colorado Springs, the 19-year-old lives with his family in a cottage-style home in the blue-collar neighborhood of Harding Park in the Bronx. Gabby Douglas, a 16-year-old gymnast from Virginia Beach, Va., has been bunking for two years with a host family in West Des Moines, Iowa, where the gold medal hopeful has been training.
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Check out more Forbes' coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics here.
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