Even though my eyes are still shot from binge-watching the three-part Netflix documentary on former NFL star Aaron Hernandez, I couldn’t help but wonder whatever happened to the fabulous mansion he used to share with his fiancé and their daughter.
Over here at FPH, we’re drawn to homes that have a dark past, and we’re always hoping for a happy ending for these properties — and this house might finally get it.
But we’d be remiss if we didn’t first take a look at the crazy story around it. After all, it has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood thriller: murder, intrigue, a very high-profile trial, and an A-list sports celebrity at the center of it all.
A short history of the Aaron Hernandez debacle
If you’ve watched the Netflix documentary, dubbed Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, or if you owned a TV back in 2013, then you’ll already be up to speed on this whole story.
Basically, Aaron Hernandez was a shining American football star, who — despite some attitude and behavioral issues — eventually ended up playing as a tight end for the New England Patriots in the NFL.
His successful career came to a very abrupt end when he was arrested in 2013 for the murder of Odin Lloyd, a linebacker for the semi-pro Boston Bandits.
As it turned out, he was also involved in the killing of four other people in 2007 and 2012, and he also suffered from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a brain disease caused by repeated head injuries, which is reportedly quite common among football players.
Hernandez got life in prison for the murder of Odin Lloyd, and he committed suicide in his cell in 2017. Allegedly, he was trying to make sure that his fiance, Shayanna Jenkins, and their daughter, Avielle Janelle Hernandez, would be able to live off of his estate.
His conviction in the Lloyd case, under the common law legal doctrine of abatement, was initially vacated because Hernandez died during the appeal — which some suggest was his plan all along.
However, prosecutors appealed this decision, and his conviction was then reinstated.
Consequently, his fiance suddenly found herself in a world of debt, and she put the home that she had shared with Hernandez on the market. But finding a buyer would prove quite difficult, as we’re about to see.
Selling the Hernandez house – Take One
Aaron Hernandez’ fiance, Shayanna Jenkins, filed a request to obtain the rights to sell the home at 22 Ronald C Meyer Drive in North Attleboro, Mass. soon after the NFL player’s conviction.
However, the house didn’t exactly attract buyers like a magnet, most likely because it was part of the case and murder trial.
It didn’t help that, shortly after murdering Odin Lloyd, security cameras inside his own house showed Hernandez walking around holding what looked like a gun, which prosecutors claim was used to commit the murder, directly implicating the Massachusetts house in the trial.
Needless to say, the five-bedroom, five-bathroom, 7,100-square-foot home stayed on the market for quite a few months, until it finally sold to 24-year-old New England Patriots fan Arif Khan, for $1 million.
Khan, a real estate investor, was convinced that with a little bit of renovation work, the house’s ugly history could be forgotten.
“It has a bad name to it, but it’s probably one of the most famous houses in Massachusetts,” Khan told the Boston Herald (paywall article) back in 2017.
“Nobody wants to buy a house with Aaron Hernandez’s name on it, but I feel a name change and a little upgrade on the property will increase its value.”
He turned out to be wrong, and put the property up for sale again less than one year later, for $1.6 million.
Selling the Hernandez house – Take Two
It turns out that it’s not that easy to forget such a notorious case like the one of Aaron Hernandez, and Arif Khan didn’t have much luck finding an interested buyer to pay his asking price — despite the property’s many attributes.
The North Attleboro mansion was built back in 2007 and is located in an area popular among New England Patriots stars known as Westwood Estates.
Key numbers & facts
- Location: Westwood Estates, North Attleboro, MA
- Bedrooms: 5
- Bathrooms: 8
- Square footage: 8,130
- Year built: 2007
- Lot size: 0.46 acres
- Amenities: a formal living room, sunroom, gourmet chef’s kitchen, home theater, private sauna & ice bath, outdoor saltwater pool with waterfall, pool cabana with bar
- Last sold price: $1,050,000 (July, 2019)
The five-bedroom home features a formal living room, a family room, a dining room, a home office, a sunroom, a chef’s kitchen equipped with modern appliances, a full wet bar with wine storage, as well as a 10-car parking garage.
Other amenities include a backwater retreat with a saltwater pool and waterfall, an outdoor grill and cabana, as well as an indoor home theater in the basement.
Arif Khan invested roughly $150,000 in upgrades at the former Hernandez estate, but still, the house wasn’t an easy sell. It would seem, however, that Khan has ultimately managed to find a new owner for the property.
Realtor.com shows that the home sold in July 2019, for $1,050,000, well below the $1.6 million initial asking price. According to the website, the listing was sold by The Roberta K Team with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Evolution Properties.
There’s no information on who the new owner is, and we think they’d prefer to keep it that way, given that the Netflix documentary sparked renewed interest in the whole case, the former Hernandez estate included.
And with American Sports Story — the new sports anthology television series developed by Stu Zicherman, who will also executive produce alongside American Horror Story producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk — centering its first season around Aaron Hernandez, it’s bound to bring it back into the limelight.
Now what we don’t know is whether Aaron Hernandez’s house will also make its way into our screens along with the release of American Sports Story.
Both Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have a knack for weaving chilling narratives that orbit around an eerie house — all the sinister American Horror Story houses are proof of that. So it remains to be seen how the North Attleboro house will be portrayed.
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