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Paul Bilzerian's mansion, Tampa Bay's most expensive foreclosure, finally sells for $2.85 million

 
The Avila mansion of corporate raider Paul Bizerian, Tampa Bay's most expensive foreclosure, has sold for $2.85 million. TIMES FILES
The Avila mansion of corporate raider Paul Bizerian, Tampa Bay's most expensive foreclosure, has sold for $2.85 million. TIMES FILES
Published Oct. 17, 2016

TAMPA — The "sold'' sign has finally gone up on Tampa Bay's most notorious and expensive foreclosure — the former Avila mansion of disgraced corporate raider Paul Bilzerian.

In late September, a trust paid $2.85 million for the 28,000-square-foot lakefront estate and guest house with a total of 10 bedrooms, 13 bathrooms and six half-baths. Other amenities include indoor basketball and racquet ball courts, four fireplaces and a wine room.

Related: Some of Tampa Bay's highest-priced homes in foreclosure, including the Bilzerian mansion, have stories to tell

The purchase price was a relative bargain — the estate first hit the market three years ago for almost $6.5 million and was listed at nearly $4-million as of last May. At one point in 2008, it was priced at $18 million.

Three years ago, a Louisiana bank repossessed the sprawling, three acre estate that Bilzerian built in the early '90s. He went on to serve 13 months in prison for illegal stock manipulation and is now thought to be living in self-imposed exile on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

Previous coverage: Years after $62 million judgment, Paul Bilzerian is alive and well on Caribbean Island

His son, Dan Bilzerian, has become a social media star for his videos about his playboy lifestyle; he claims to have made $50 million playing poker.

The deed recorded Sept. 26 shows Pat and Gade Wells as trustees of the trust that bought the property, whose sale leaves just one foreclosure priced at more then $1 million on the market in Tampa Bay. That is a nearly 6,000-square-foot bayfront house in St. Petersburg's Pinellas Point area priced at $1.8 million.

Throughout the four-county bay area, there currently are 24 foreclosures listed for $500,000 and above.

Contact Susan Taylor Martin at smartin@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8642. Follow @susanskate