After 19 seasons with the NBA, Shaquille O'Neal is one of the wealthiest athletes in the world with an estimated $400 million net worth. And while Shaq is well-known for his donations to charity (including $1 million to the Boys and Girls Club), the big man is also known for spending his hard-earned money on fancy toys, including a $10 million yacht and a custom treehouse.
But his latest toy just might outdo them all: a $500,000 koi pond in the yard of his Georgia home.
And while that build cost is insane, just wait until you hear how quickly it was put together—and the 35-pound koi fish that is set to live in it.
The Story Behind the Pond
Youtube, Ed The Pond Professor
Let's start with the fact that even though this pond cost a cool half-billion, this isn't Shaq's first pond at his Georgia home. The former basketball star is obsessed with koi fish, and he had a pond built back in 2020 complete with underwater caves, waterfalls, carnivorous plants, and koi fish from Ohio Fish Rescue.
It's beautiful—but after a few years, it sounds like Shaq was ready to up his game.
Koi-obsessed as he is, Shaq decided to have a second pond built, this time in his backyard. However, it was a bit of a rough start as the original design team decided to just dig a big hole and let it fill with groundwater. The pond only filled up halfway and instead of a tranquil watering hole, Shaq had an eyesore on his property, according to Youtube video.
And considering it's Shaquille O'Neal, so this glorified watering hole wasn't going to stand.
So, Shaq brought in the "Pond Guy" Greg Wittsock (who worked on his first pond) and Ed "The Pond Professor" Beaulieu, two of the best professionals in the water-scape business.
While Shaq was out of town, the team got to work remedying the situation.
The Build
Youtube, Ed The Pond Professor
In just a handful of days, Beaulieu and Wittsock, alongside a team of contractors from around the world, managed to move over 1,000,000 pounds of boulders to create a massive new pond—the largest one Beaulieu has built.
To accomplish this landscaping feat, the team re-dug the hole, put in a drain system and a wetland filtration system, and lined the pond with boulders and river rock.
The team then filled the pool with over 100,000 gallons of water—which Beaulieu said would take over 20 semi-trucks of water to refill.
What's In the Pond?
Youtube, Ed The Pond Professor
The pond has over 500 aquatic plants, including lily pads which will grow to cover much of the top of the water, the designers explain in their video. Shaq has his own white-sand beach with fake alligators on the shore, and the water is deep enough that he can wade in—likely up to his knees, Wittsock guesses (over the head for the rest of us?).
The big jaw-dropper, though, are the putting and chipping greens interspersed around the pond, put in by Court Dreams, who also built Shaq's enormous, custom, outdoor sport-court. In the video of the pond build reveal, you can see Shaq challenge the contractors to a round of golf on the putt-putt course, with $20 on the line.
Of course, there are also fountains spraying from "Superman"-embossed sculptures and waterfalls falling over themselves into the main pond below.
As for fish, Shaq plans on stocking his pond with more koi fish once the silt settles and the water clears up. But at the pond's inauguration, Beaulieu and Wittsock presented Shaq with a massive, 35-pound Yamabuki koi fish that was shipped through a supplier all the way from Japan to start his koi collection.
The athlete will be hard pressed to find playmates as big as the Yamabuki—or think of as good of names, as he dubbed the swimmer 'Charles Barkley.'
NEXT: How to Build An Actual Fish Pond
