The childhood home where Muhammad Ali, the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion and activist, learned to box and that was along the route of his funeral procession in Louisville, Ky., is for sale.
On Tuesday, the pink one-story home, which for several years was a museum of sorts, focusing on Ali’s early life and humanitarian pursuits, and two of its neighboring properties were listed for sale through Christie’s International Real Estate Bluegrass for $1.5 million, according to the company’s listing.
“Home to ‘The Greatest,’” the listing states, noting that the ranch style, one-story house at 3302 Grand Avenue in the Parkland neighborhood of the city features two bedrooms. The living area of the three homes combined is 3,363 square feet.
Rusty Underwood, one of the listing agents, described the property as “a rare offering.’’
“Muhammad Ali spent the better part of his childhood and adulthood on the property,” he said on Tuesday.
George Bochetto, a trial lawyer in Philadelphia who said he owns the house with his late partner’s widow, bought it in 2016 for $60,000.
“It was abandoned for many years. It was run down,’’ Mr. Bochetto said in an interview on Tuesday. He marveled at how “this small home in the west end of Louisville, as modest as a home it was, could produce a magnificent worldwide figure.’”
He added, “Muhammad Ali was a boyhood hero of mine.”
Mr. Bochetto said he wants the new owners “to make sure the house is preserved” as an honor to him.
The sale would also include the contents inside the house, he said.
“It’s now my goal to sell this property to either an institution or an individual or group of individuals that will be dedicated to preserving and promoting the property as a national historic site and monument,” he said.
Built in 1920, the home has had different owners over the years. The Ali family sold it to Jared Weiss in 2012, who then formed a partnership with Mr. Bochetto, according to The Courier Journal of Louisville, which reported on the listing.
He also made the property into a museum, which opened for tours days before the 2016 death of Ali, who had Parkinson’s disease for more than 30 years and who died at 74.
Mr. Bochetto said the museum shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The exterior of the residence features a plaque honoring Ali, who was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on Jan. 17, 1942, and lived there with his parents and brother. It also notes that Ali attended local public schools, which mostly enrolled Black students.
Mr. Bochetto said that about $1 million was spent to rehab the house to replicate it to look the way it did when Ali and his family lived there for 20 years. That included the home’s furnishings, appliances and artwork, according to Mr. Bochetto.
Ali fans looking to learn more about his life and social activism can visit the nearby Muhammad Ali Center, also in Louisville, “which provides education and community engagement to continue Ali’s legacy and inspire greatness.”
A spokeswoman for that museum, which receives about 100,000 visitors annually, said the center is not affiliated with Ali’s childhood home that is for sale.
Mr. Bochetto said he would be selective when it comes to choosing a buyer.
“I am certainly not going to entertain a sale for someone who wants to knock it down and build a house,’’ Mr. Bochetto said of potential new owners.
“Now if they want to continue it as a museum, it’s all set up to do that,” he added. “It doesn’t necessarily have to remain a museum, although that would be nice. It would have to stay as a preserved historic monument.”
