Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister and wife Nikki DeBartolo sell Tampa mansion

Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister and his wife Nikki DeBartolo have made fond memories in the massive, Mediterranean-style waterfront mansion they’ve called home for more than a decade.

The three-story behemoth in Tampa’s Sunset Park neighborhood was their first home after marrying. There, they celebrated birthdays and holidays, Chronister’s appointment to the sheriff post and his subsequent successful elections.

But that chapter of their lives is almost officially over.

Chronister said Wednesday that the sale of the home at 5138 W Longfellow Ave. in Sunset Park closed last week. The same buyers were expected to close Friday on an adjacent, roughly half-acre lot that was listed separately but that had been combined with the other parcel to create a sprawling estate.

The 9,300-square foot home, with six bedrooms and seven full baths, and the adjacent lot were initially offered for a combined price of $15.5 million, but the lot was also listed separately for $7.9 million.

The house sold for $6.5 million, according to property records. Information on the sale price of the adjacent lot was not available this week. Chronister said after commissions, he and his wife netted $14 million on the sales. They moved out several weeks ago.

The listing sparked rumors about Chronister’s future political plans. And the dozens of photos and virtual tour that accompanied it offered a rare glimpse into the home of a law enforcement leader who also happens to be a millionaire.

It was an experience that Chronister acknowledged was “unnerving.”

“When you’re a public figure, not just a police officer, your home is your sanctuary,” he said.

Memories made in a ‘McMansion’

The two properties sit at the end of Longfellow Avenue, which runs along a curving finger of land and dead ends in a cul-de-sac with sweeping views of Tampa Bay.

When the house first rose out of the dirt in 2002, neighbors maligned it as a “McMansion.” That year, the then-St. Petersburg Times featured the home in a story about the consternation that it and other large houses were causing to neighbors, and the debate over whether there should be more regulations.

“It is called a McMansion, a monster house, a house that looms over the neighborhood,” the story said. “Some say it is the American dream to own such a home. Others say it is what is wrong with supersized America.”

A neighbor who lived on nearby Poe Avenue complained that the house, under construction at the time, blocked her view of Tampa Bay. The owners at the time told the Times that they razed a one-story house they’d been living in to build a bigger one that better fit their family’s needs.

The story noted that the builder had to go up 10 feet above sea level because of flood regulations at the time, and the house was another 35 feet high on top of that.

But as the years passed and more houses in the neighborhood were demolished and replaced with bigger, more flood-resistant ones, the house seemed less out of place.

A trust in Nikki DeBartolo’s name bought the property for $5.1 million in 2010, records show. That’s the year that Chronister and DeBartolo, who is the daughter of billionaire businessman and former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr., married.

Chronister’s name was added to the deed in 2017, the same year then-Gov. Rick Scott appointed him sheriff after Sheriff David Gee abruptly retired. Chronister won a special election the following year and was reelected in 2020. He said he’s running for reelection next year.

Chronister said he loved the property. It was quiet, on a dead end street, and the family could hop into their boat kept out back for fishing trips and sunset cruises.

So why sell?

“My wife might have a different story, but I think it was because my son moved out to go to college, and I think my wife wanted to change the scenery,” he said. He said Nikki DeBartolo made a valid point as they discussed the move, that they are now empty nesters. Their son Asher is now a sophomore at the University of Tampa.

“I think she wanted a clean slate to start that next chapter,” he said.

Chronister, a Republican, said the listing prompted rumors that he wasn’t planning to run for reelection next year and was moving out of the area.

“I was like, ‘no, no, I’m just moving a couple of miles away,” he said.

A rare tour

It’s not often the public gets a glimpse into the home of a top law enforcement official, much less a room-by-room tour.

In Florida, some personal information of law enforcement personnel, including addresses, are exempt from public disclosure. Cops can ask for their property information to be hidden on public websites, as Chronister did. For years, a search for the Longfellow address on the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser’s Office turned up no results.

The house hit the market in March. The Zillow listing, with photos and a 3D virtual tour of nearly every room in the house including the primary bedroom closets, put Chronister and his wife’s wealth —and taste in décor — on display.

The photos and tour are no longer available on Zillow, but a page with 52 photos is still up on the website of the listing agent, Toni Everett, and so is a realtor.com listing.

The listing noted that in addition to the 9,300 square feet of living space on the two main levels, the home features nearly 5,000 square feet on the ground level that included a game room, gym, professional kitchen and a “house manager’s office.” The adjoining lot features an “entertaining dock” with a covered patio and a second dock for a yacht slip.

Creative Loafing published a story when the listing surfaced, noting some of elements visible in the photos.

“Be a bad ass with a good ass,” a sign in one area of the sprawling first-floor gym urged. (When the Times mentioned this to Chronister, he laughed and said that was on “my wife’s side of the gym.”)

In an upstairs closet area hung a framed version of a 2010 St. Petersburg Times story about the couple’s marriage and courtship — they met while Chronister was working off-duty details providing security for the DeBartolo family.

The tour also provided a sense of the security the couple enlisted at the home. In a corner of a first-level room was a bank of screens showing views from several surveillance cameras on the property. A whiteboard on a wall asked the “night shift security” to “please empty trash cans before you leave in the morning.”

Having his home on display was uncomfortable, said Chronister, who in a financial disclosure form filed with the state in April listed his net worth at $4.5 million.

“We’re not, ‘hey, look at what I have, look at what I drive’ kind of people,” he said.

He said he got some ribbing about the colorful contemporary décor and the eye-popping price. Someone asked if they could do a 400-year mortgage. Another asked if it bothered him to have a purple chandelier in his bedroom.

Chronister said he and DeBartolo considered building a new home in South Tampa but decided they didn’t want to go through years of construction. So they bought a home near the Palm Ceia Golf and Country Club and are remodeling it. They are living in South Tampa while the renovations are underway, which Chronister expects will take about 18 months.

“She fell in the love with the house that she could make her own by remodeling and not have to start from scratch,” he said of his wife.

It’s unclear who bought the Longfellow properties. The new owner listed in property records is a trustee for CMD Trust. Everett, the listing agent, declined to comment on the sale and the new buyers, citing privacy concerns.

Chronister said the new owners are a couple who are “very philanthropic.”

“I’m very excited that they’re moving here to Tampa,” he said. “They’ll definitely help move the needle.”