A mansion popped up for sale on Miami's Multiple Listing Service two days ago with an asking price of $31.75 million. The 51,000 square-foot property has multiple structures including a main home that features 8,000 square feet of living space with 9 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. The lot is perfectly situated with over 100 feet of water frontage looking out onto Biscayne Bay.
Madonna sold this home to the current owner in 2000 for $7.5 million.
The house is located at 3029 Brickell Ave, Miami, Fl 33129. Normally we don't give out addresses in our real estate articles because we try to respect the seller's privacy. This case is a little different. The owner of this home is not a person. The seller of this $31.75 million Miami mansion… is a dog. A German shepherd named Gunther. Technically Gunther VI. As in, "the sixth." And believe it or not, this mansion represents just a sliver of Gunther's net worth. Gunther VI is purportedly worth a half billion dollars.
If this story seems too absurd to be true, in the last 24 hours it has been repeated by outlets including NPR, People, the Tampa Bay Times, CBS Miami and TMZ. I also dug around and found a story Yahoo Finance several years ago and another one from the LA Times back in 1999 that line up with the basic facts. Speaking of which, here are the basic alleged facts:
Gunther VI is the great-grand-dog of Gunther III. Gunther III was the beloved companion of a wealthy German countess named Karlotta Liebenstein.
According to an article titled "A Match Made in Doggy Heaven" from the LA Times in 1999, in the early 1990s Gunther III was simultaneously Leibenstein's beloved companion AND a performer in a popular German disco dance troupe. I'm not joking. When Karlotta died in 1992, Gunther III inherited the countess' entire estate. Today, in addition to the Miami mansion, Gunther's estate controls ownership interests in several sports teams.
According to the terms of her will, the money is to be continuously passed down to successive members of Gunther's bloodline. So in 1999 (again, this according to the LA Times… if you don't believe me read it for yourself right here) Gunther IV inherited what was then a $200 million fortune.
A year later when Madonna sold a Miami mansion for $7 million, the buyer was an LLC called Gunther Corporation. The New York Times, BBC and the Financial Times all published articles at the time about Gunther buying Madonna's home.
Fast forward to the present and we're now onto Gunther VI. And apparently the latest Gunther – who allegedly travels by private jet to and from his primary home in Italy's Tuscany region – is looking to offload his Miami mansion at a huge profit. The half-billionaire was even kind enough to take time out of his busy day of chasing tennis balls and squirrels in the backyard to appear in the home's real estate marketing video. Check it out:
Is it legal to marry a dog? Asking for all the Miami gold diggers…
