Venus Williams has splashed out nearly $10 million on a secluded waterfront ‘retirement home’ with its own beach and private cottage for sister Serena, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The sprawling resort-style retreat in exclusive Jupiter Island, Florida includes a main three-bedroom house and two guesthouses, set in lush tropical gardens and boasting breathtaking ocean views.
The ritzy property also has a pool, outdoor kitchen and bar but, unlike the five-time Wimbledon champion’s previous property in nearby Palm Beach Gardens, it doesn’t have a tennis court.
Still ranked number 35 in the world, Venus has dismissed talk of retirement, but friends say it’s inevitable the 38-year-old’s thoughts are beginning to turn to life after tennis.
The proud auntie expects Serena, her husband Alexis Ohanian and their baby daughter Alexis Olympia to be regular guests, with the couple getting to choose between the one-bed guesthouse or roomier two-bedroom private cottage.
They won’t have far to walk to reach the beach either, with the one-acre garden stretching 312 feet before a short path leads directly on to pristine white sands.
The entire property, decked out with hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings and a nautically themed décor, totals 25 rooms and 10,000 square feet.
Property records show Venus managed to knock more than a million dollars off the original $10.9 million asking price before closing for $9.6 million in January.
Her old house, the seven-bed Palm Beach Gardens mansion she jointly bought for $525,000 with Serena back in 1998 has been on the market for $2.7 million since December.
The listing was removed in late January though the Williams siblings are still the registered owners.
They spent years custom building the almost 8,500-square-foot house and kitting it out with a tennis court, gym and home movie theater before living there together for well over a decade.
However the upscale location was also the setting for the devastating June 2017 car accident which left an elderly man dead and threatened to derail a glittering career that has seen Venus claim seven Grand Slam titles and $40 million in prize money.
A police investigation later cleared Venus of doing anything wrong when Jerome Barson’s Hyundai slammed into the side of her Toyota SUV as she was blocked from exiting an intersection outside the property’s gates.
The family of 78-year-old Barson, who died 13 days later, sued Williams for wrongful death but the bitterly contested case was quietly settled late last year.
Former world number one Venus resumed her tennis career just weeks after the accident but broke down in tears when she faced questions from the media.
‘There are really no words to describe, like, how devastating and yeah I’m completely speechless,’ she said, before tailing off and leaving a press conference at Wimbledon.
Serena, 37, now lives in LA after marrying Reddit co-founder Ohanian but the world’s highest paid female athlete still has a home she bought in Palm Beach Gardens in 2015 for $2.5 million.
She also has an apartment in Paris, a $10 million mansion in the LA neighborhood of Bel Air and a 6.7 million, 6,000-square-foot home close to Beverly Hills that she put on the market after tying the knot in December 2016.
Venus previously owned her own Hollywood Hills home before selling it for $1.7 million to actress Ellen Page in 2014.
