Muhammad Ali’s childhood home in Kentucky has gone up for sale.
The two-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Louisville, Kentucky, was converted into a museum that offered a glimpse into “The Greatest’s” early years when he was still called Cassius Clay.
It went on the market Tuesday along with two neighboring homes: One was converted into a welcome center and gift shop, while the other was intended to become a short-term rental.
The owners are asking $1.5m (£1.1m) for the three properties. Finding a buyer willing to keep Ali’s childhood home as a museum would be “the best possible outcome,” said co-owner George Bochetto.
“This is part of Americanness,” said Bochetto, a Philadelphia lawyer and former Pennsylvania boxing commissioner.
“This is part of our history. And it should be treated and respected as such.”
The museum opened shortly before the boxer’s death in 2016.
Bochetto and his then business partner renovated the wooden house to leave it as it looked when Ali lived there with his parents and younger brother.
“You walk into this house…you’ll go back to 1955 and you’ll be in the middle of the Clay family home.”
Bochetto said in a 2016 interview.
Using old photographs, the developers replicated the furniture, appliances, artwork and even its pink exterior from the days when Ali lived there.
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The museum featured videos focused on the history of Ali’s upbringing, not his storied boxing career. “To me, that’s the biggest and most important story,” Bochetto said in an interview last week.
Ali was living in the house when he left for the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, from which he returned with a gold medal, launching a career that made him one of the most recognizable faces in the world and becoming a three-time boxing champion. Heavyweight.
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Despite its high-profile debut, the museum ran into financial problems and closed less than two years after opening.
The museum is located in a west Louisville neighborhood, several miles from downtown, where the Muhammad Ali Center preserves his boxing and humanitarian legacy.
As efforts to reopen the childhood museum languished, offers to move the 1,200-square-foot home to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and even Saudi Arabia were rejected, Bochetto said.
“I wouldn’t do that because it’s an important piece of Louisville history, Kentucky history, and I think it should stay where it is,” he said.
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