A billionaire NBA owner has reached a tipping point with his super-rich Miami Beach neighbors after building a colossal mega-mansion with a basketball arena and jumbotron.
The under-construction home of Memphis Grizzlies chairman Robert Pera, 45, has a professional court, bleachers, locker rooms and a video screen so big locals can see it from a half-mile away.
Exclusive images from DailyMail.com show how the 28,000-square-foot glass-fronted structure on exclusive Star Island dwarfs the homes of J.Lo, Diddy and Rick Ross, among others.
Pera, who is worth an estimated $7.1 billion, had to change his design and hire a lobbyist to appease city planners after his nearest neighbor accused him of building a “professional basketball facility” with more locker rooms than bedrooms.
The design of the enormous basketball arena consists of a wedge-shaped main building attached to a huge hangar
Residents living across the bay from Miami Beach say the dazzling jumbotron has been on continuously day and night for the past week
Pera (left behind for a Grizzlies playoff game) paid $377 million for the team in 2012, becoming the youngest controlling owner in the NBA
The newest addition to the palatial pad’s vast open living space is a two-story, 40-foot-wide jumbotron that wouldn’t look out of place among the giant screens at the Grizzlies’ FedExForum arena in downtown Memphis.
Residents living across the bay from Miami Beach say the dazzling display has been on continuously day and night for the past week, broadcasting video clips of forests, beaches and cityscapes and flooding the night sky with light.
“Even by Miami standards, this place is on another level. It’s a goliath,” says accountant Sal Galbo (46).
‘It looks more like a sports facility or hotel than a house.
‘The way it’s lit at night, you can probably make it out from space. The electricity bill alone must be astronomical.’
California native Pera started his own computer company in high school and played on the basketball team until a rare heart condition kept him home for a year.
He joined Apple but left in 2005 to found wireless equipment maker Ubiquiti Networks, earning a spot on Forbes’ list of the 10 youngest billionaires in their mid-30s.
The lifelong basketball fan paid $377 million for the Grizzlies in 2012, becoming the youngest controlling owner in the NBA and steering the team to a club-record 56 wins in his first year.
Pera started spending big again in 2019, purchasing real estate in New York, Seattle and a $25 million spread in exclusive Star Island, a small private neighborhood of 33 homes located between Miami and Miami Beach.
He demolished the existing seven-bed, 10,211-square-foot mansion and, according to public records, hired a lobbyist to convince planning board officials to greenlight a building about three times as large.
The tech mogul requested special permission to build up to 31 feet (three feet higher than local limits) so he could build a “professional indoor basketball court,” his attorney, Tracy Slavens, told a board meeting in Miami Beach in June 2021.
‘This is the owner’s hobby. He likes to play all the time,” she said, according to a report of the meeting published by Property Magazine. The real deal.
“The way it’s lit at night you can probably make it out from space,” a neighbor told DailyMail.com. ‘The electricity bill alone must be astronomical’
From a half-mile away across the Intracoastal Waterway, the dazzling jumbotron is clearly visible in front of the Miami skyline
Papers provided to Miami Beach City showed that Pera had hired a lobbying firm to help him get plans for the building approved
The radical design, consisting of a wedge-shaped main house attached to a massive hangar, was opposed by Vlad Doronin, a billionaire property developer who bought the adjacent house from Shaquille O’Neal in 2009 for $16 million.
Doronin’s lawyer, Neisen Kasdin, told the board that Pera’s proposed digs looked more like a sports complex than a house and that the extra height and position of the balconies would infringe on his client’s privacy.
Pera, 45, made his fortune founding Ubiquiti Networks and earned a spot on Forbes’ list of the 10 youngest billionaires in his mid-30s
“This looks, smells and sounds like a professional basketball facility,” Kasdin said, claiming the building had locker rooms for “an entire basketball team and its entourage,” while only having three bedrooms.
“We have made several attempts through the owner’s attorney to contact and reach the owner to discuss what he wants (to build) and see if there is a way to mitigate or modify this Kasdin, a former mayor of Miami Beach, added.
Slavens insisted there were seven bedrooms, but withdrew requests for the one-meter height deviation and other exemptions for the roof terrace and perimeter wall, The Real Deal reported. “We do this to avoid a fight with the neighbor,” she said.
The board approved the plans 5-2, allowing Pera to install a new electrical substation and an elevator bulkhead that extends 13 feet above the roofline, allowing him to install an elevator for his elderly father.
When DailyMail.com surveyed the property this week, it was teeming with construction workers, one of whom confirmed that the house does indeed have a basketball court with rows of seats that resemble bleachers.
There’s a tennis court, a swimming pool, a boat dock and a rooftop deck with stunning views of the Intracoastal Waterway, plus a brightly lit atrium that resembles a museum or gallery with rows of giant solar panels on the roof.
Pera welcomed Justin Timberlake to a game at the FedExForum in Memphis in 2014. Timberlake has a minority stake in the team
The Grizzlies defeated the Dallas Mavericks 120-103 in their most recent game on Tuesday, with guard Desmond Bane (22) leading the scoring with 39 points
Locals in Miami jokingly compare Pera’s arena on Star Island to the home of the Grizzlies, FedExForum in Memphis
The giant screen was on, despite the fact that no one seemed to live on the ostentatious 1.9-acre estate, which looks far from finished.
“He has the largest TV in the world on 24/7 in his living room,” says coder Sam Hastings, 39, who lives directly across the bay.
“Like the majority of Miami Beach residents, the man appears both tasteful and environmentally conscious,” he added sarcastically.
Star Island ranked as the most expensive residential area in the US according to sales data Zillow published last March, with the average home fetching as much as $40.2 million by 2022.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Pera’s other homes include a $21.55 million Manhattan penthouse and a $3 million apartment at the Four Seasons Residences overlooking Seattle’s Puget Sound.
Attorneys for Pera and Doronin did not respond to requests for comment.