DeBartolo
Last week, The St. Petersburg Times announced that its employees would have to take a 5 percent pay cut effective Nov. 2.
These are desperate times for newspapers. Some, like The Times, have to produce god-awful Sunday magazines full of fluff in order to attract high-end, upscale advertisers. Not surprisingly, the “articles” often are shameless features on local rich people.
Today’s Sunday “Bay” magazine made me want to vomit. It featured a nine-page spread on the 21,000 square foot home owned by Lisa DeBartolo, daughter of former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr.
Eddie DeBartolo Sr., who died in 1994, made a fortune as one of this country’s first developers of shopping malls. In 1977, he bought the 49ers and handed them off to his son, Eddie Jr., who, like his current Tampa sports neighbors Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, Bryan and Joel Glazer, has lived solely off his old man’s money.
In 1998, Eddie Jr. pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony charge of failing to report that a former governor of Louisiana allegedly extorted $400,000 from him to win a casino license. The episode was largely responsible for Eddie losing control of the 49ers to his sister. A few years later, Eddie moved to Tampa and has since reinvented himself as head of a sports business that represents athletes.
Lisa DeBartolo, like her old man, has led a life of leisure. She spends her days, according to the story, overseeing the family’s charitable foundation, which is to say she directs their tax-deductible giving. She’s married to some guy named Don Miggs, front man for an obscure indie rock band named Miggs, though given the money invested in a home studio, you’d think he was Bono himself.
Describing his studio, Miggs said, “It’s acoustically perfect, better than the Beatles recorded in.” The magazine notes that the studio’s non-parallel walls eliminate echoes and isolate sound. “U2 could record here,” he adds.
Between a new baby and her “work” with the foundation, Lisa DeBartolo is a busy woman. That’s why “personal chef Jay Minzer cooks dinner there five nights a week. Additional staff includes a property manager who lives above the four-car garage and a live-in nanny.”
They have a 12-foot long glass and steel dinner table that “took nine men to lift the 785-poound glass top.”
Miggs notes that the master bedroom is bigger than the house he grew up in and young Milo’s playroom is so large “we do play football in here.”
Lisa has three closets. “One just for shoes and one just for purses,” the magazine notes. “Manolo Blahniks, Jimmy Choos and Pradas fill floor-to-ceiling shelves. (A book lists current inventory.) Clothes hang on pull-down rods categorized by color, style, and season.”
The cedar-lined, walk-in purse closet, which is pictured in the piece, looks like it could hold a queen-sized bed.
“I don’t do drugs and I rarely drink alcohol,” says DeBartolo, noting she gives lots of shoes away, “but I do shoes and purses.”
At least Miggs seems to realize he married well. He notes the photos of Eddie DeBartolo Sr. and Jr., “to remind us of why we have what we have.”
The bulk of the Sunday Times chronicles the shattered economy of the Tampa Bay area, reeling from the real estate collapse, mini-Madoffs, and unemployment that’s estimated at 16 percent. Even in the best of times, it’s a challenging place to live financially given the low per capita income, lack of corporations, and outrageous cost of homeowners insurance.
Then there are the Lisa DeBartolos of Tampa Bay, blissfully ignorant and tone deaf to the rest of the world. She even tweeted to “check out the article on us.”
The St. Pete Times does not put its Bay magazine online. No doubt its editors are ashamed of the crap they have to produce to attract advertising in these brutal times.
So let me get this straight… you’re complaining about someone who has made running a charity her life? Really?
Nope, I’m pointing out that this is a woman who apparently has no shame in having her over-the-top consumer spending and lavish lifestyle displayed in a nine-page spread in the worst economy of our lifetimes. (Assuming you’re 80 or younger.)
I agree that the article was appalling. Tone-deaf is absolutely the right phrase for it. I could not believe I read something like that in the St. Pete Times, even in a so-called lifestyle magazine. (This is not jealousy talking; I live less than a mile from this palace.)
You really had to see and read about this spectacle to believe it. I would think someone devoted to charitable causes would feel bad about broadcasting all the stuff they are able to buy.
I dont understand how you can completely bash someone you do not even now. Do you know Donald Trump? Mosty likely not, he has his lifestyle and riches broadcast everywhere as well as the rest of the millionaires in the world…You have nothing better to do then complain about a women who does her part for charity, please let us know what you have done for the “poor” economy? You have no place to pass judgement on anyone. Get over yourself and write about the good she and the DeBartolo family have done.
Barbera:
No doubt Ms. DeBartolo has done much for charity. But sitting for a nine-page profile solely on the topic of her life of privilege and over-the-top consumption at a time when many people are suffering in the worst economy of our lifetimes strikes me – and apparently many readers of that story – as being completely tone deaf. As for Donald Trump, he takes a lot of criticism. If Ms. DeBartolo continues to angle for this kind of publicity, she likely will hear more herself. As for bashing “someone you do not even know,” many people don’t know Barack Obama or George W. Bush but that doesn’t stop them from voicing their opinions.
hey there pete. seems like you spend way too much time speaking about the lives of others and not enough time with your shameless selof-promotion. author! triathalete! life saving heck of a guy with no personal flaws!!!! you sound like a dream! how’s the wife? the house? the family god? everyone love pete, the swell do-gooder who gives away all of his money and lives in a shack, right?
we didn’t approach anyone about an article about the house. you actively SEEK self promotion. they came to us because we live in a great place! only people who never want to see anyone else living well have issues with that. what is it? misery loves company?
first, the house isn’t 21,000 sq ft, it’s only 20,000. second, you obviously believe all you read and make an awful lot of assumptions. my father in law did better than “reinvent” himself. if you knew the story, you’d know he lifted his family back up after some terrible financial times but i guess being bitter is your best attribute, not research. nobody here is blissfully ignorant. we know what’s going on in the world and in our own backyard and if you did more than write some lame blog you’d have found that out. why should ANYONE feel bad about the money they make? and if you had it, wouldn’t you pass it along to your family? ever meet a rich girl who doesn’t act it? well that’s my wife. your picture shows you to be more concerned with YOU than anyone else so i wouldn’t guess you’d dig that deep.
as for me. i married better than well for reasons you don’t write here but i’d happily talk it over with you at our really long dining room table whenever you’d like. and i am an obscure musician but i’d bet all the creatine and weight lifting equipment you own that i work harder every day than you do and take nothing for granted.
the truth is out there, pete. why not find it? while you’re at it, check out miggsmusic.com and debartolofamilyfoundation.com. we will give you a discount the music and the next gala!
Thanks for the reply, Don. Hopefully you’ll write the St. Pete Times demanding a correction on your home size (20,000, not 21,000 square feet. Okay, got it.) Gotta admit, maybe some of us who mow our own lawns around our modest homes might enjoy reading about how the other half lives, but not everyone does. I don’t know what it’s like to have a nanny, personal chef, four-ton dining room table, wife with $100,000 worth of shoes in her closet, etc. And I’d be willing to bet that many of us have given away more of our net worths as a percentage than your father-in-law. Ever read about the Widow’s Mite? What is it they say about it being easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle? Please. I’m going to go back to work now. Enjoy what I assume will be your front-row seats at the U2 concert tonight. Perhaps you can show off your studio to Bono and the boys….And, no, I don’t sell sports memorabilia, never have. But I do offer my expertise on what people pay for it. Cheers.