Having been available privately for about five years with no deep-pocketed off-market property shoppers willing to sign on the dotted line, Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder has hoisted his sprawling Maryland estate on the open market at $49 million with Heather Corey and Michael Rankin of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, per Dirt. The listed was first exposed by Washington Business Journal.
The 58-year-old billionaire professional sports tycoon purchased the centerpiece of the estate from Jordan’s King Hussein and Queen Noor in 2000. That was right about the time he sold the communications company he co-founded with his sister to a French media and advertising concern in a deal that reportedly sent about $300 million into his coffers. This was also right about the same time the Maryland native paid $340 million for the Commanders.
Looking to plant some baronial roots, Snyder and wife Tanya soon snapped up half a dozen surrounding parcels, and they hired architect John Ike and interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield to manifest the four-story chateau-style mansion that now presides over about 15 lush and manicured acres along the Potomac River. Set at the end of an impressively gated half-mile long driveway, faced in French milled limestone, and capped by a slate mansard roof, the palatial mansion was completed in 2004. There are five bedrooms and six bathrooms, plus four more powder rooms, dispersed across its roughly 30,000 square feet.
Beyond the intimate entrance vestibule and grandiose double-height reception hall, with its monumental 24-foot-tall limestone fireplace, ample formal living and dining rooms are serviced by what marketing material describes as a “true commercial grade chef’s kitchen.” More intimate spaces include a family room and an eight-sided and glass-roofed breakfast solarium. Elsewhere on the ground floor are an office, a spa lounge, and a gym, the latter housed in a second eight-sided and glass-roofed solarium.
There are four en-suite guest bedrooms on the second floor, while the primary suite occupies the entirety of the top floor. Along with a separate sitting room and a bedroom where floor-to-ceiling windows lead to a glass-railed terrace with panoramic views over the river, the multi-room suite includes two exquisitely crafted baths, a sumptuous, mirrored dressing room, and a spacious wood-paneled office with built-in bookshelves and a banker’s green marble fireplace.
Composed of a mahogany-paneled club room bar and lounge space, a climatized wine cellar dressed up with an inlaid marble floor, a professional home theater (installed in 2017), and back-of-house space for staff operations, the lower level opens to the rear gardens.
Bordered by protected parklands, the manicured grounds include stone terraces, vast swathes of lawn mown into perfect stripes, an outdoor basketball court, and a crystalline swimming pool and spa. Other structures include a guard house and an estate manager’s residence.
Should the Snyders’ demesne sell at or very near its full asking price, it will be the highest price ever paid for a home in the Greater Washington area, right behind another riverfront estate, about 35 miles downstream, in Virginia, that sold in November 2022 for $48 million to—drum roll, please—Dan and Tanya Snyder!
And though they paid all cash for their new estate in Virginia—it’s composed of land once part of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate—and maintain a 12,000-square-foot getaway in Aspen, the Snyders are reported to have recently listed the U.K. as their “usual residence.” And for those times when living like landed gentry on terra firma gets a bit pedestrian, the Snyders are also said to be the owners of the Lady S, a sleek 305’1” floating mansion with seven staterooms, a crew of 33, a glass-bottom swimming pool, a slew of toys and tenders, and a helipad.
Having been investigated by Congress twice in recent years—once on allegations of overseeing a toxic workplace and a second time for allegations of financial impropriety related to fudging ticket sales revenue—Snyder is not just looking to sell his big ol’ house in Maryland, he’s looking to sell the Commanders. Expected to fetch somewhere in the neighborhood of $5-7 billion, the potential sale has reportedly drawn interest from Jay-Z and Jeff Bezos.