Serena and Venus Williams’ childhood home, where she learned to play tennis, will be seized to settle her stepmother’s $600,000 debt after her bankruptcy bid failed.
It’s the latest development in a years-long legal saga surrounding Williams’ estranged stepmother, Lakeisha Williams, and their $1.4 million Palm Beach home.
The former stripper racked up debts from a failed trucking business and ‘fast food and frivolities,’ according to legal documents seen by the sunafter separating from the tennis stars’ father, Richard Williams, in 2017.
He repeatedly filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying off debts, but his latest bid fell through, meaning Williams’ childhood home will be sold to pay it all off.
The four-bedroom, 10-acre plot, now derelict, has a tennis court in the garden where Richard coached his daughters.
Serena Williams’ childhood home, where she learned to play tennis, will be seized to settle her stepmother’s $600,000 debts.
It is the latest development in a years-long legal saga surrounding Williams’ estranged stepmother, Lakeisha Williams.
Richard, who has suffered several strokes and is battling dementia, moved his third wife, Lakeisha, into his then-palatial home in rural Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, after marrying in 2009.
But the couple, who have a son, Dylan, separated in 2017. Williams then filed for divorce, accusing his wife of “stealing” the house, forging her signature to remove his name from property records, leaving only his name on documents.
Lakeisha stayed in the house after they separated, but the house fell into foreclosure in 2021 after court action brought by Miami mortgage lender David Simon.
Since then, he filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy to delay foreclosure three times; all offers have failed.
Lakeisha has consistently defaulted on a $10,000-a-month payment plan she owes to lender Simon, and the debt has reached a high of $620,000.
Now Judge Mindy Mora has reportedly dismissed his third bankruptcy bid without prejudice, meaning he will lose court protection and the house will be sold.
Most of the proceeds from the sale will go toward paying off his debt to Simon, and some of the money will be divided among 20 other creditors.
Richard Williams, 80, married his third wife, Lakeisha Williams, 37 years his junior, in 2009. They separated in 2017 and have a nine-year-old son, Dylan.
The house is where ‘King’ Richard made his daughters Venus and Serena tennis champions. Photographed in 1991
Richard bought the house in 1995 for $355,000 with Venus and Serena’s mother, ex-wife Oracene Price, as a training ground for the eventual stars.
He had two tennis courts built and tirelessly led his daughters, then teenagers, to sports stardom with his mission as a one-man coach. Williams and Oracene divorced in 2002.
In 2022 bankruptcy filings seen by DailyMail.com, among other debts, Lakeisha said she owes the Palm Beach County Tax Collector $2,697.55 for 2021 property taxes and the IRS $7,600.
Lakeisha also listed total assets of $682,923.43, according to the documents.
Of that, $588,197 is the house, which she says is the “current value of the entire property,” although real estate websites value it at around $1.4 million.
Despite all the debts and the request for financial leniency, Lakeisha indicated that her monthly income was $15,972.93.
This consists of $9,671.73 reported under net income from rental property or a business, $5,500 from ‘family support payments’ and $801 from Social Security.
His monthly expenses are listed as a much more modest $2,542, leaving him with $13,430.73 according to the documents.
Lakeisha’s reported income contrasts sharply with her apparent financial problems and the dilapidated state of the formerly magnificent Williams home, where she still lives.
DailyMail.com visited the massive pile in 2022, located at the end of a trail road in an exclusive community dominated by large, immaculate equestrian properties, and it immediately seems out of place.
Instead of the pristine property lines maintained by neighbors, the entrance has a peeling metal gate and a dirty, ramshackle white fence.
There are two ponds on either side of the dirt road, and in one of them is a plastic chair.
The once imposing white double entrance door now has a lot of rust, while the gable of the building above them is falling apart.
Lakeisha stayed in the house after her breakup with Williams. But the house fell into foreclosure in 2021 after court action brought by Miami mortgage lender David Simon and was due to be auctioned on February 18 of this year.
Lakeisha says the couple has been back together since August 2019 and since then there has been “no discovery, mediation or real activity” in the divorce process.
Clearly seen from the front of the house, the tennis courts where Serena, 40, and Venus, 41, honed their amazing talents, are a sad sight.
They are surrounded by overgrown grass and only one appears to be playable. Even that has rusty light bulbs and a fallen and broken net.
One neighbor we spoke to pointed to the house and said, “It would never be in that condition if Richard was still there.” He loved that place.
The neighbor added: ‘Richard is a wonderful man. I wouldn’t hear a word said against him. We were neighbors for many years. Serena and Venus were just kids to me, not superstars.
A previous attempt by Lakeisha to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2021 failed because the home was deemed uninsurable due to the need for a new roof.