TAMPA, Fla. — The waterfront mansion Derek Jeter built on Davis Islands was supposed to disappear. Instead, years after a demolition permit and plans for a much larger replacement home, the former Yankees captain’s old estate is still standing.
A fresh report published Thursday revived the unusual story surrounding the property at 58 Bahama Circle, a sprawling Tampa home once owned by Jeter and later rented by Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen. The latest attention centers on a question that has lingered since a demolition plan surfaced in 2022: Why is the mansion still there?
The answer remains unclear. But public property and permit information shows the story is more complicated than a simple abandoned teardown.
Jeter builds one of Tampa’s most famous homes
Jeter assembled three adjoining waterfront lots in 2005 and 2006 for about $7.7 million, according to Mansion Global. He then had the estate custom-built, creating one of the largest and most recognizable houses in South Tampa.
The property spans about 1.2 acres and has 345 feet of waterfront on Hillsborough Bay. Realtor.com lists the residence at 21,796 square feet with seven bedrooms and 16 bathrooms. The estate also includes an 80-foot saltwater lap pool, extensive porches and balconies, a dock with boat lifts, a theater, a gym and other luxury features.
Its celebrity profile grew even larger in 2020, when Brady and Bundchen rented the home after Brady left the New England Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Jeter eventually listed the property for $29 million. The sale closed in May 2021 for $22.5 million, then the highest-priced residential transaction in the Tampa Bay area, according to Mansion Global. The buyer used a trust, and the beneficial owner was not publicly identified at the time.
Demolition plan puts mansion on borrowed time
The mansion’s next chapter appeared set in September 2022, when a residential demolition permit was issued for the property. The prospect of tearing down a house that had sold for more than $22 million drew national attention because of its size, celebrity history and waterfront location.
Then came an even more ambitious plan. In October 2023, the Tampa Bay Times reported that Ellison Construction was preparing to replace the Jeter-built mansion with a roughly 30,000-square-foot residence. The proposed home was expected to include six bedrooms, nine full bathrooms, 11 half-bathrooms, a gym, a swimming pool and more green space.
At that point, construction was expected to begin in 2024 and take about three years.
But the original mansion never came down. In June 2026, the Tampa Bay Times reported that the house was still standing, even though a demolition permit had been filed years earlier. The property again drew attention this week when new reports highlighted the stalled-looking transformation.
Permit records complicate the latest mystery
One detail in the newest retellings deserves caution. The redevelopment record did not simply go silent after the 2022 demolition permit.
Realtor.com’s property history shows a residential new-construction and additions filing dated Nov. 22, 2023, with work categories including a home addition, pool and spa construction and residential construction. The same history shows a residential permit extension issued Nov. 20, 2024.
Those entries do not explain why the existing mansion remains standing, nor do they establish when or whether the announced replacement will be completed. They do show, however, that permitting activity continued after the original demolition filing.
That distinction matters because a report published Thursday stated that no new permits followed after the demolition permit expired. The publicly available permit history indicates otherwise.
For now, the most defensible conclusion is also the simplest: the demolition and redevelopment timeline announced for the property has not unfolded as originally expected, and the mansion remains in place.
The ownership trail adds another unusual layer
The property’s ownership has also helped sustain the intrigue. Earlier reporting identified the deed holder as Zebb.com Trust. The Tampa Bay Times noted in 2023 that Zebb.com was the name of a cryptocurrency application and referenced an affiliation with ZebPay, a cryptocurrency exchange.
That connection has led some newer reports to describe the property as owned by a cryptocurrency trust. Public records are more precise about the legal ownership structure than about who ultimately benefits from the trust.
A 2025 Hillsborough County property-tax notice lists David L. Koche as trustee for 58 Bahama Circle. A trustee appearing in property records does not, by itself, establish the identity of the trust’s beneficial owner.
Jeter, meanwhile, has not owned the mansion since the 2021 sale and has no publicly documented role in the current demolition or redevelopment decisions.
Jeter’s name remains attached as mansion refuses to disappear
Five years after Jeter sold it, the Davis Islands property remains tied to him because of its scale and its sports history. He built it. Brady rented it. The home set a Tampa Bay sales record. Then its new owners pursued a plan to erase it and build something even larger.
The demolition permit, the proposed 30,000-square-foot replacement and the later permit activity all point toward redevelopment. Yet the defining fact in 2026 is visible from the street and the water: Jeter’s old mansion is still there.
Until the owners or builders explain the changed timetable — or demolition finally begins — one of the most famous homes ever associated with a Yankees star will remain an unfinished real-estate story.
