The sorry fate of R. Kelly's custom mansion
Back in the 1990s, when the putative King of R&B R. Kelly was still riding high on hits like "I Believe I Can Fly" and when his legal troubles mostly lay in the future, he bought himself a $1.5 million mansion in the Chicago suburb of Olympia Fields -- not to live in it, but to tear it down and build a new one.
The bizarre fate of that custom-built mansion, now badly rundown and bank-owned, in some ways holds up a cracked mirror to Kelly's own fortunes.
Once reportedly valued at more than $5 million, the home is now bank-owned -- and the price recently dropped to a staggeringly paltry $587,100. (Click here to see the listing.)
Click through to slide 18 to see photos from 2011, before the bank took over the property. The labyrinthine story of the home begins in the caption on slide 4.
By Jennifer Karmon, Yahoo! Homes
