The Obamas are buying an estate listed for $14.85 million on Martha’s Vineyard
LandVest
Barack and Michelle Obama, the former U.S. president and first lady, rented a seven-bedroom home on Martha’s Vineyard this summer and decided to stay. The Obamas now have the property, with a $14.85 million price tag, under contract in a deal expected to close this month.
The weathered-shingle house is set on 29 acres with private beaches along the shore of Edgartown’s Great Pond, a mix of fresh and salty water that opens to the ocean. The home has a living room with a vaulted ceiling and fieldstone fireplace, a circular dining room lined with windows, and a master suite that comes with a fireplace and a private sundeck overlooking the water.
There’s also a screened-in porch with a fireplace, a two-car garage, and a pool surrounded by a garden. The house has a winding driveway that’s more than a third of a mile long.
The seller is Boston Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck, who was a contributor to Obama’s campaign in 2008 when the president won the first of two terms. But, Grousbeck played both sides of the field – he also donated to Mitt Romney’s campaign that year, according to public records.
There’s a poolside baskeball net ready for a watery slam-dunk.
LandVest
Obama is known for his love of basketball, and was often photographed playing pick-up games while on the campaign trail and in the White House. While the Celtics isn’t his favorite basketball team – he told reporters last year he’d play for the San Antonio Spurs if he could join any NBA team – the basketball connection might have been a plus. The property’s listing includes a photograph of a poolside basketball net, ready for a watery slam-dunk.
Tom LeClair and Gerret Conover, the LandVest agents who list the property, declined to comment.
The Obamas are regular summer visitors to Martha’s Vineyard, about five miles off the shore of Massachusetts’ Cape Cod. The former president and his wife, the author of the best-selling memoir “Becoming,” spent seven of Obama’s eight presidential summers on the island.
This year, the couple arrived in mid-August, on the former president’s 58th birthday. The following day, Obama was spotted at the Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs, about eight miles from Grousbeck’s home, playing a round with former Boston Celtic Ray Allen and Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
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