Inside Robert Kraft’s $43 Million Mansion & $350 Million Gillette Stadium

53 acres of prime real estate in Foxboro, Massachusetts. A stadium that seats over 65,000 people named after a razor company for $350 [music] million. Sitting on land that Robert Kraft quietly assembled over decades while everyone else was focused on the scoreboard and just a short drive away, a $43 million colonial mansion in the tony enclave of Chestnut Hill that has become one of the most talked about private residences in New England. Robert [music] Kraft did not inherit a sports dynasty. He bought one. And the way he bought it, methodically, patiently, [music] brick by brick, and acre by acre, tells you everything about how the man thinks, how he lives, and exactly why the New England Patriots [music] became what they became under his ownership. Today, we're going inside all of it. The naming rights deal that turned a stadium into a landmark, the Chestnut Hill estate that Kraft calls home, the land assemblage beneath Gillette Stadium that represents one of the most quietly brilliant real estate plays in American sports history, and the full story of how a kid from Worcester, Massachusetts built a paper and packaging empire, fell in love with football, and turned a franchise that [music] was nearly moved to St. Louis into the most decorated dynasty in NFL history. This is Robert Kraft and the real estate empire hiding in plain sight behind four Super Bowl trophies. To understand Robert [music] Kraft's relationship with land, with patience, and with the long game, you have to go [music] back to Worcester, Massachusetts in the 1940s. Robert Kenneth Kraft was born on June 5th, 1941 in Worcester, the son of Harry Kraft, a dress manufacturer, and Sarah Bryna Weber. The family was working Jewish middle class, [music] the kind of household where ambition was understood as a virtue and hard work was simply the baseline assumption of daily life. He attended Brookline High School where he was academically strong [music] and socially connected before earning a place at Columbia University, >> [music] >> graduating in 1963. He followed that with a Harvard Business School MBA in 1965, the kind of educational arc that opened doors in mid-century American business and gave Kraft the financial vocabulary he would spend the rest of his life deploying to considerable effect. He joined the Rand Whitney Group, a paper and packaging company controlled by his father-in-law Jacob Hyatt, and over the following decades transformed what was a regional business into [music] a substantial industrial enterprise. By the early 1980s, Kraft had built the business into one of the largest privately [music] held packaging companies in the United States, the foundation of the wealth that would eventually purchase a football team, a stadium, and the land beneath both. His love affair with the New England Patriots began not as an owner, but as a fan. He bought a personal seat license at the old Foxboro Stadium in 1988, not an ownership stake, just a fan's commitment to his team. Then, seeing an opportunity, he began quietly acquiring the land surrounding that stadium. By 1988, he owned it all. The Patriots were his tenants, and when the franchise came up for sale in 1994, facing the very real possibility of being relocated to St. Louis, Robert Kraft was the only bidder who could both afford to buy it and guarantee it would stay in New England. He paid $172 million, the highest price ever paid for an NFL franchise at that time. He has never looked back. The original stadium that sat on Kraft's land was Foxboro Stadium, [music] functional, beloved in its way, but increasingly inadequate for a franchise that was about to become the most successful in NFL history. In 2001, the year the Patriots won their first Super Bowl, Kraft opened a new facility on the same Foxboro footprint, a state-of-the-art 65,878 seat venue built entirely [music] with private funds. No public money, a point of pride Kraft has made repeatedly over the years. The naming rights deal that followed redefined what a stadium name was worth. In 2002, Gillette Company, the Boston-headquartered shaving and consumer goods brand, signed a 15-year agreement valued at $350 [music] million, making it one of the most lucrative stadium naming rights deals in American sports history at the time. The math was striking even [music] by the standards of that era. $350 million over 15 years for the right to attach the Gillette name to a facility in one of the most passionate sports markets in the country. The deal was renewed and extended, [music] and Gillette Stadium remains the home of the Patriots and since 2007, New England Revolution soccer as well. The stadium campus today extends far beyond the playing field. Patriot Place, the 1.3 million square foot retail, dining, and entertainment complex Kraft developed around the stadium, transformed what had been an isolated suburban sports venue into a destination that generates year-round commercial traffic. Hotels, restaurants, [music] a movie theater, and retail anchors surround the stadium on the land. Kraft began quietly assembling decades before anyone else understood what he was building. It is, [music] by any measure, one of the most successful privately funded sports real estate developments in American history. [music] Drive 40 minutes northeast from Foxborough, past the Boston skyline, into the leafy, quietly wealthy enclave of Chestnut Hill, and you find the other half of Robert Kraft's real estate story, the personal half. The Chestnut Hill estate, valued at approximately $43 million, represents [music] a very different kind of investment than a stadium naming rights deal. This is a home built not for commerce, but for life. The place where Kraft raised his family with his late wife Myra, who passed away in 2011 after a long illness, and where he has continued to live in the decade since. >> [music] >> Chestnut Hill is not a neighborhood that announces itself. Tucked along the Newton-Brookline border, its streets are lined with mature trees and substantial homes set well [music] back from the road. The kind of neighborhood where old Massachusetts money has always lived quietly and unpretentiously. There are no flashing lights, no paparazzi encampments, just exceptional properties on generous lots occupied by people who have never needed the attention. >> [music] >> Kraft's estate is substantial by any measure. A colonial property on grounds that reflect decades of careful ownership rather than the aggressive renovation cycles that characterize newer celebrity real estate. Robert Kraft's net worth is estimated at approximately 11 billion dollars, making him one of the wealthiest sports franchise owners in the world. The Kraft Group, his privately held conglomerate, encompasses the Patriots, [music] the Revolution, the stadium and Patriot Place complex, Rand Whitney Containerboard, New England Development, and a range of other holdings that extend well beyond football. >> [music] >> The Patriots franchise itself, purchased for 172 million dollars in 1994, is now valued by Forbes at approximately 7 billion dollars. One of the most extraordinary appreciations [music] in the history of American sports investment. Over that same period, the team has won six Super Bowl championships, appeared in 11, and produced the most decorated quarterback-coach partnership the game has [music] ever seen. What makes Kraft's real estate and business story compelling is not just the scale of it, but the philosophy underneath it. He did not build his empire through flash or spectacle, he built it by identifying land and opportunity before others recognized either. By being patient enough to let value accumulate, and by staying rooted in New England when the easy move, the profitable move, might have been somewhere else entirely. The land under Gillette Stadium, the naming rights deal, the Chestnut Hill home he has owned for decades, [music] They all reflect the same instinct. Find something real, hold it, and let time do the work. Robert Kraft started with a seat license and a vision for some land in Foxboro and ended up with a $350 [music] million naming rights deal, a $43 million colonial estate, and a football dynasty that changed what success in the NFL looked like. So, here's the question. Does Robert [music] Kraft's story, the patient land play, the private funding, the stadium built from the ground up with no public money, make him the most impressive owner-builder in American sports history? >> [music] >> Drop your answer in the comments below. >> [music] [music]