Billionaire Mat Ishbia razing 5 Bloomfield Twp. homes to build mansion, 'amusement park'

Mortgage magnate Mat Ishbia does nothing small.

In Pontiac, he runs the nation's biggest mortgage company. In Phoenix, he's majority owner of two pro basketball teams, the men’s Suns and women’s Mercury.

Soon, in Bloomfield Township, Ishbia will own Michigan’s largest occupied house, estimated to be at least 60,000 square feet when it’s complete, says the township assessor’s office. What's bigger is Michigan’s largest unoccupied house. It's the 85,000-square-foot Meadow Brook Hall, built in the 1920s by Dodge auto heiress Matilda Wilson, who gave it to Oakland University as a conference center. No one lives at Meadow Brook Hall. But Ishbia will occupy his new house, to sit on about 14 acres that he'll assemble by tearing down five houses.

One of those tear-downs is where he lives now. It's a 22,000-square-foot house that Ishbia built after demolishing two other houses, both of them 1950s ranch houses — the style that was hot in the nation's housing boom after World War II. Aging ranch houses sometimes gain additions, growing up with second stories, or out with new kitchens and family rooms. In affluent areas, they've been leveled for the last two decades, making way for new, more fashionable and much larger houses. Nowhere in Michigan, however, have ranch houses made way for anything this big.

Ishbia's current house is by no means an expendable ranch. It's only eight years old, has won design awards and starred in glossy design magazines. It seems far too new to destroy. But a lot can happen in eight years to someone viewed by Forbes magazine as Michigan's fourth-wealthiest individual, with $4.5 billion in assets as of 2022.

The Free Press offered the opportunity to comment to Ishbia, through a spokeswoman, and to his architect; neither responded.

But Ishbia's plans for his big new house, and especially his big new yard, have become the talk of the neighborhood.

“He’s building an amusement park,” one neighbor said. Details came on July 11 at a township meeting of the zoning board of appeals. At such meetings, most petitioners approach with just one or two requests, such as, “May I build a bigger garage and a taller fence than usual?” Ishbia approached — actually, his team of architects and lawyers approached — with 13 requests. They'd appeared at a previous meeting with even more requests. Before the recent one, they'd pleased the zoning board by dropping plans for a go-kart track, go-kart garage and lighted observation platform. Although the karts were to be electric, township officials and neighbors worried that they'd hear squealing tires and see the upscale bleachers.

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The updated roster of backyard amenities had a magic number — 14. Attorney Trey Brice told board members that almost none of the backyard features would exceed that height, and many had been dropped to 10 feet to please the zoning honchos. Among items needing approval? A “trampoline park,” some tall mesh screening for a basketball court, more tall mesh around a 62-by-121-foot all-sports court, a treehouse, 14-foot-tall masonry piers holding metal gates that will enclose a sprawling “Enchanted Forest,” an ultra-large deck, 14-foot-high climbing walls, a reflecting pool, a 14-foot-tall waterfall, five 14-foot-tall artworks, as well as design tweaks to a previously approved 18-foot-high "conservatory and studio building," whose size had recently been expanded "to have a little more indoor space for days that are bad weather," Brice said.

Township officials reacted with controlled glee. One quipped, “This should be a stop for the passenger trains running from Pontiac.” Indeed, Amtrak’s passengers will roll past the property from a tall embankment, close enough to spy, except that Ishbia’s plans include massive plantings of evergreens around his property, shielding all that goes on from public view. At a meeting 18 months ago, the board approved an even longer list of outdoor features and accessory buildings. They included accessory buildings to house security guards and the caretakers who will maintain the mansion and grounds; a serpentine swimming pool that will stretch nearly 200 feet and have a "lazy river" to sweep those on "floaties" around artificial islands, a large backyard gazebo and a 50-foot-long pool cabana, a batting cage 75 feet deep, a trampoline park with bouncing from below ground level to avoid exceeding township height rules, a sports court for tennis and pickleball with its own 81-foot-long cabana, and a "rockscape" in the front yard that's to be 2,500 square feet of boulders stacked up to 14 feet high, setting off a large pond around which will sweep a formal driveway carrying vehicles to a motor court in front of the house. A separate, secluded driveway will give family members access to their six-car garage.

At that previous meeting, the board denied permission for Ishbia to add a 24-foot-high platform for launching rides on a zip line, and they vetoed a security station at the front of the house, although they approved most everything else while issuing some guidelines: Almost nothing in the amusement areas but the swimming pool could be used after dark, no additional elevated lights would be allowed and more evergreens were needed to screen the grounds from public view. At that meeting, 11 neighbors spoke in opposition to various aspects of the Ishbia amusement park, one in support.

Ishbia's plans also met resistance from the subdivision's homeowners association. The association's current president, Rich Sorensen, who lives across the street from Ishbia in a historic 1920s Tudor mansion, said the original location of the giant new house violated deed restrictions in the neighborhood. The south side of the house as planned would've been 20 feet too close to the street. Sorensen said he notified Ishbia's construction team, at first getting poor communication and no cooperation. Getting compliance took a stern letter with a veiled threat of potential legal action.

"Our attorney sent him a very good letter explaining the continuing issues he could have," after which Ishbia agreed to move the house, Sorensen said. At last week's township meeting, Sorensen said he no longer had major objections to Ishbia's overall project. Just two neighbors spoke in opposition. Other neighbors had sent letters of support to the zoning board, following changes to the original designs, including pro hockey player Jeff Petry, son of former Detroit Tigers pitcher Dan Petry.

"We added more landscaping, more screening. The neighbors are very happy about it," said Brice, Ishbia's lawyer. It was time for board members to vote. Nudged by the chair Brian Henry to make a motion, board member Jocelyn Giangrande quipped, "Do I get a season pass?" Giangrande then moved that the requests be granted because "it is a very expensive property." She quickly corrected her slip to "expansive property."

The upshot? Unanimous vote. Permission granted.

Contact Bill Laytner: blaitner@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Phoenix Suns' Mat Ishbia to raze Bloomfield Twp. homes for new mansion