Tiger's birthday buy - a 40 million-dollar estate

by AFP

01/01/06

PALM BEACH, United States (AFP) - Tiger Woods, who celebrated his 30th birthday on Friday, has agreed to buy a 10-acre oceanfront estate on Jupiter Island, Florida, for 40 million dollars.

Woods, a 10-time major golf champion, led all US athletes with 89.4 million dollars in endorsements and prize money in 2004 and set a record sale price for a property in what Forbes magazine calls the "Most Expensive ZIP Code."

And Woods is expected to tear down the 13-year-old main house on the estate, according to unnamed real estate agents familiar with the deal who spoke to the newspaper.

"It's a really high price and everyone's blown away," Chappy Adams, president of Illustrated Properties in Palm Beach Gardens, told the Palm Beach Post Sunday.

"It wouldn't be unusual to tear it all down. If you paid this much for the property, you'd want your own home. He's probably going to redevelop the whole piece."

The 400 block of South Beach Road that Woods would own extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the nearby Intracoastal Waterway. It includes a main house, two guest houses and a beach house plus two boat docks.

"The main house is in very good condition, but I'd think that someone who paid that much would want to put their own stamp on it," Jupiter area real estate agent Dolly Peters said. "I'd be surprised if he didn't tear it down."

Woods' 155-foot yacht "Privacy", which the golf star now docks in North Palm Beach, could be docked in one of the deep water docks, sources told the newspaper.

One of the people living near the property Woods purchased is famous Canadian singer Celine Dion, who bought a 12.5 million-dollar beachfront home this year.

A guest house alone was listed with an asking price of 18 million dollars but Woods made a winning bid for the whole estate.

Woods and his wife, Swedish model Elin Nordegren, became interested in the area because Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik and his wife Mia live nearby. Nordegren had been a nanny for Parnevik when she met Woods in 2003.

Zimbabwean golfer Nick Price also owns a Jupiter Island home while Australian golf legend Greg Norman lives in the area as well.

Woods owns a home at Isleworth Country Club near Orlando, one he purchased in 1996 during his first season on the US PGA Tour. Woods also bought land this year in a golf-course community in Jackson, Wyoming.

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