Former Pro Baseball Player Lenny Dykstra Facing Foreclosure

Date:April 15, 2009 | Author:Diane Tuman | Category:Celebrity Real Estate

Updated (9/4/09): Problems continue to mount for former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies baseball player Lenny Dykstra. According to Bloomberg News, Dykstra is accused of “…taking goods from his home including a $40,000 French stove two weeks before a bankruptcy judge appointed a trustee to oversee his finances.”

Dykstra was “apparently in the process of stripping furnishings, fixtures and equipment from the estate property,” Index Investors said in an Aug. 19 court memorandum, “doubtlessly to fuel his lifestyle at the expense of his creditors.”

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Original post (4/15/09):

Say it ain’t so, Lenny. Almost a year ago, we did a post on former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies baseball player Lenny Dykstra and the glorious home he owns at 1072 Newbern Ct, Thousand Oaks, CA, which was on the market for $25 million.

It was a dream story about how a scrappy infielder — not Hall of Fame quality, but just a good, tough player — parlayed his so-so sports career into an amazingly successful post-sports career. A 2008 New Yorker article on Dykstra describes him as a day trader who was starting a magazine called The Players Club, an exclusive magazine for pro athletes advising them how to spend their money wisely (here’s a scary first-person account of someone who worked for Dykstra at The Players Club). Dykstra also had a Maybach, a Gulfstream jet and this glorious home in Thousand Oaks that he purchased from hockey star Wayne Gretzky for $18.5 million. All in all, a pretty nice, lucrative life.

Now, the NY Post is reporting that “Lienny Dykstra” is flat-out broke and facing foreclosure. According to the article, “The private-equity firm Index Investors filed foreclosure papers March 11 on Dykstra’s sprawling Thousand Oaks estate…” Also, Washington Mutual filed its own notice of default on his $12 million mortgage on March 18. To top it off, his jet has been impounded.

According to Luxist, the home was on the market last year for $24.95 million and when it didn’t sell, it was lowered to $16.5 million. Now, the list price is back up to $25 million. Sotheby’s International has Dykstra’s listing.

Read about other celebrity foreclosures.