Muhammad Ali’s childhood home is up for sale in Kentucky after being converted into a museum

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – The pink house where Muhammad Ali grew up dreaming of boxing stardom – and where tons of of fans gathered to say an emotional farewell as his funeral procession passed a long time later – is up for sale.

A two-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Louisville was transformed into a museum that offered a glimpse into the early life of the boxing champion and humanitarian known all over the world as The Greatest. The house was put up for sale Tuesday together with two neighboring homes – one was converted into a welcome center-gift shop and the opposite was slated to turn out to be a short-term rental.

The owners are asking $1.5 million for the three properties. Finding a buyer willing to maintain Ali’s childhood home as a museum could be “the best possible outcome,” said co-owner George Bochetto.

“It’s part of Americana,” said Bochetto, a Philadelphia lawyer and former Pennsylvania boxing commissioner. “It’s part of our history. And it should be treated and respected as such.”

The museum opened to the general public shortly before Ali’s death in 2016. Bochetto and his then-business partner restored the frame house to what it looked like when Ali – then often called Cassius Clay – lived there together with his parents and younger brother.

“You walk into this house … you go back to 1955 and you’re inside the Clay family home,” Bochetto told The Associated Press in a 2016 interview.

Using old photos, developers recreated furniture, appliances, artworks and even the pink facade of the home from when Ali lived there. The museum showed movies specializing in the story of Ali’s upbringing, fairly than his extensive boxing profession.

“For me, it’s a bigger and more important story,” Bochetto said last week in an interview.

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Ali began his boxing profession after stealing a bicycle. Wanting to report a crime, 12-year-old Ali was introduced to Joe Martin, a police officer who also served as a boxing trainer at a local gym. Ali told Martin that he desired to flog the perpetrator. The thief was never found, nor was the bicycle, but Ali became a regular at Martin’s gym.

Ali lived in this house when he went to the 1960 Olympics. He returned as a gold medal winner, embarking on a profession that made him one of the crucial recognizable figures in the world as a three-time heavyweight boxing champion and globe-trotting humanitarian.

The house became a point of interest all over the world on the day of Ali’s burial, when tons of of individuals lined the road in front of the home as his hearse and funeral procession slowly passed by.

Despite its high-profile debut, the museum ran into financial problems and closed lower than two years after opening. The museum is positioned in Louisville’s West Side, a few miles from downtown, where the Muhammad Ali Center preserves his humanitarian and boxing legacy.

As efforts to reopen the childhood museum have waned, offers to maneuver the 1,200-square-foot (111-square-meter) house to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and even Saudi Arabia have been 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.

Las Vegas real estate investor Jared Weiss bought Ali’s childhood home – then neglected and empty – in 2012 for $70,000 with a plan to renovate it. Three years later, Weiss established cooperation with Bochetto, which acquired half of the shares in the project. The two were die-hard Ali fans and spent tons of of hundreds of dollars on the renovation project. They also bought two neighboring houses, financed a documentary film, subsidized museum operations and incurred expenses on all three properties. Weiss has died and his wife is co-owner of the project, Bochetto said.

Bochetto now said he hopes to search out a buyer with the “marketing and operational know-how” to make the museum a success.

“I want to make sure it continues to operate like this and never returns to the place where it was abandoned or destroyed,” he said. “This should never have happened.”