Mike Tyson once called this lavish but abandoned mansion home; now, it's going to be a church

Mike Tyson owned this place, before he fell from grace.

Iron Mike, now 48, bought this opulent mansion in Southington, Ohio, in the late 1980s, to be near promoter Don King, whose facility was in nearby Orwell.

Tyson tricked out the place with crystal chandeliers, a pool fit for a resort, tiger print carpet, gold-plated decor, mirrored ceiling Jacuzzi and everything else necessary to make it his private party pad.

The estate has since had multiple owners, and it’s now slated to be converted into — of all things — a church. Before they do that, the owners invited photographer Johnny Joo to have a look at what’s behind the iron gates.

His eerie photos capture the estate’s long-ago lavishness.

“As I wandered the halls and rooms, I imagined the wild parties which must have taken place within these walls,” said Joo, 24, the Cleveland lensman whose snaps offer a glimpse into the life of the world's once undisputed heavyweight champ.

“The pool was probably my favorite — just because of how incredibly large it was and thinking how vibrant it was at one point in time,” the photographer said. “The room was bigger than three of my houses. It was pretty incredible to look at while standing at one end. Everything was so full of life and now simply collects dust.”

 

The boxer was taken into custody in 1991, on allegations of rape, and in 1992 a jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to six years behind bars.

He was granted parole and released in 1995, returning to the estate in rural Ohio, about an hour’s drive from downtown Cleveland, in hopes of escaping the media.

Because of his increasingly desperate financial situation, Tyson put the mansion up for sale and sold it in 1999 for a reported $1.3 million.

It has since had multiple owners — including one who was the subject of an FBI investigation when he tried to sell it — and is now set to be converted into a church.

The current owners bought the property in December 2014 and will transform it throughout the rest of this year, allowing Joo to explore before the work takes place.

“My journeys have taken me to some strange places but nothing quite like the abandoned home of a former professional boxer,” said Joo. “It felt cold, rather empty and eerie — not so much a creepy eerie but a more interesting one.

"I knew Mike Tyson had once just hung out here,” he added. “And now I stood staring down everything that had been left behind.”

The group plans to invite Tyson to return to the mansion after its conversion, to attend the first gathering inside the church’s sanctuary, Joo said.