Weeks after more than 100 million people worldwide saw him decisively defeat former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, Jake Paul had a ringside seat to a spectacle that convinced him to buy a 5,746-acre sporting property in Southwest Georgia. In the company of his father and a broker who would become a trusted family friend, Paul watched herds of whitetailed deer streak across a living laboratory for land management on the shores of Georgia’s Lake Seminole.

The 28-year-old provocateur and prankster — someone as unafraid of inciting the Internet’s ire as he is of taking a punch — fell hard for the prestigious plantation. By June, he announced on a podcast that he had ploughed the lion’s share of the Tyson fight’s payday into purchasing Southlands. Come to find out that when the sale closed, it ranked as the most valuable sporting property sold in Georgia history.

Introducing Paul Reserve

Though he’d just pulled off the landowner’s equivalent of buying an NFL team, Paul wasn’t content to bask in his new property’s pedigree. Instead, the so-called Problem Child rebranded his purchase “Paul Reserve” and immediately began making plans to personalize his newfound paradise.

As he embedded himself in the Bainbridge community, Paul introduced the land to his 75 million followers across various social media platforms.

Fans around the globe devoured videos of him shuttling around the pristine property on his fleet of Polaris ATVs. With his crew of not-so-lost boys, this modern-day Peter Pan jet-skis, shoots guns, and does doughnuts with his Lamborghini Huracán Performante against a backdrop of red dirt, peanut fields, and towering pines.

“This place is just magical,” Paul says. “Life out here is freedom and being in nature and being able to do what you want to do every day.”

Here’s a young man who helped create influencer culture, changing how we consume media today. He’s also a high-octane entrepreneur who brought the buzz back to boxing while orchestrating the single most-streamed global event of all time. Jake Paul cannonballed into American culture and continues to command the attention of nearly everyone born in the 21st century.

Who better to introduce a whole new generation to rural landownership?

A Dream Fulfilled

DUKES UP. Jake Paul is a high-octane entrepreneur who has singlehandedly put the buzz back in pro boxing.

Jake Paul may be the most famous peanut farmer since the 39th president, but many still think of him as the mischievous kid who made funny videos with his older brother. As children, Jake and Logan posted their “vlogs” on a now-defunct social media site called Vine. The Paul boys hijacked shopping carts, cracked themselves up with goofy stunts, and caused low-key mayhem around their native Cleveland from 2013 until the platform’s demise in early 2017.

The brothers migrated to YouTube, taking their 5 million followers along for the ride while growing their following via newer sites such as Instagram and TikTok. Before Vine withered, Disney tapped the teenager to star in Bizaardvark, a comedy series that aired on its cable channel from 2016 to 2019. Alongside future pop princess Olivia Rodrigo and years before his signature bushy beard and tattoos, Jake played a naïve but lovable daredevil named Dirk Mann. The character seemed an easy fit for such a naturally telegenic kid.

But at age 20, Paul chose spontaneity over anything scripted. In 2017, he paid $7 million for a 15,000-square-foot mansion in Calabasas, northwest of Los Angeles, then invited a cabal of like-minded influencers to move in and create content. Dubbed Team 10, this coed crew documented their daily drama for an audience that clamored for more.

Whether he knew it or not, this enterprising young entertainer was perfecting a formula that leveraged the attention economy for clicks and likes. Watch time — those precious minutes of viewer engagement stoking social media algorithms — became the metric for success. Jake Paul riveted Young America as he built his brand. As he accumulated influence and wealth, Paul started to think seriously about a dream he’d held close to his heart since childhood: owning a substantial piece of rural recreational land.

“Even in Calabasas, I built a track around my house, which was wild because it was only on four acres,” he said while seated on the screened-in porch at one of the homes inside Paul Reserve. “But I always wanted more. Me and my dad were looking for years and years. It’s actually really hard to find something like this piece of property.”

CORNER MAN. Greg Paul’s decades as a real estate professional serve his son well.

Like Father, Like Son

Jake credits his father with instilling in him an enduring love of the outdoors. Greg Paul owned a cabin in Southern Ohio, a place where he and his sons would jump in the lake, catch turtles, and zoom around on ATVs.

“I think I dropped my first deer at 6 or 7 years old,” Jake says. “Those trips with my dad and brother are some of my best childhood memories.”

“Our cabin was their place of letting go and being boys,” says Greg Paul, who grew up going camping with his father, grandparents, and uncles. “Jake and Logan, they took on a leadership role at a young age with the friends they would bring along. They’d teach the other boys how to start a fire, how to shoot a shotgun, how to catch a fish.”

Jake told his father, who sold more than 800 properties during his real estate career, that he wanted at least 2,000 acres on a lake. And though the family owns land in Upstate New York, Jake is no fan of the cold, knocking out potential contenders such as Montana.

Other considerations included proximity to his father, who lives in Florida, as well as to Puerto Rico. Favorable federal income taxes for full-time residents of Puerto Rico lured the Paul brothers to the island. In 2023, Jake bought the “Taj MaPaul,” an eight-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot house in Dorado, where he trains for his fights. Depending on the day’s tailwinds, Bainbridge, Georgia, is a two- to three-hour flight from the island.

The Southlands Story

Bobwhite quail thrive in Southwest Georgia’s wire grass savannas and lush forests of longleaf pine. On well-managed acreage, sunlight reaches the forest floor, creating ideal habitat for the small, plump birds. Well-heeled Yankees flocked to the region in the aftermath of the Civil War, snapping up hundreds of thousands of acres in and around Thomasville, Albany, and Bainbridge. In the subsequent decades, the rolling Red Hills north of Tallahassee and into Georgia became the epicenter of a celebrated sporting culture that drew the Fords, the Whitneys, the Vanderbilts, and, more than a century later, Ted Turner.

When International Paper (IP) acquired Southlands in the late 1950s, it became the crown jewel of the company’s 12-million-acre timber empire. Initially assembled by the celebrated conservationist Herbert Stoddard (1889-1970), author of The Bobwhite Quail (1931) and co-founder of Tall Timbers, Southlands became a research and teaching forest where loblolly pine, sweet gum, and sycamore thrived alongside long-leaf pine. Looking over the landscape today, trees straight enough to become telephone poles speak to the company’s far-reaching vision and expertise.

RIGHT-HAND MAN. Earlier this year, Walter Hatchett of Jon Kohler & Associates (right) co-brokered the sale of the historic estate to Jake Paul.

Rock Creek Capital Era

Financier Jim Dahl paid $200 million for Southlands in 2010. In truth, the Drexel Burnham Lambert alum acquired 140,000 acres in eight states to get his hands on Southlands.

“Because it was a research forest when International Paper had the land, there was no emphasis on naturalizing other things like aesthetics or wildlife or diversity,” says Dahl, who earned a bachelor’s and an MBA from Florida State University in nearby Tallahassee.

“We switched gears entirely,” Dahl tells me in a phone interview. Dahl and his right-hand man, Walter Hatchett — who would co-broker the sale of Southlands to Jake Paul 15 years later — turned the iconic tract into a sporting paradise. Both recognized that the rolling hills, sprawling meadows, and wooded bottoms offered an incomparable opportunity. The soils are phenomenal.

Located eight miles southwest of Bainbridge, the charming seat of Decatur County, Southlands benefits from four miles of frontage on Lake Seminole, a man-made reservoir formed by the confluence of the Flint, Chattahoochee, and Apalachicola Rivers. An abundance of state and federal neighbors means that no housing tracts or shopping centers can ever crop up and obstruct views.

“It was a labor of love,” recalls Dahl, whose journey as a landowner was influenced by perennial Land Report 100er Ted Turner. “When we started managing the land for long-term aesthetics, we knew time would be its friend.”

In addition to upgrading the existing structures, Dahl added a four-stall horse barn and a manager’s house. He created a 30-acre marsh that attracts as many as 10,000 ducks at a time, along with a 20-acre private lake nourished by the five miles of spring creeks that meander through the property.

“We also put in food plots to support the wildlife and instituted more controlled burnings,” says Hatchett, an avid turkey hunter. Numerous flocks of healthy wild birds make the property their home.

ROBUST RESOURCES. In addition to world-class hunting, Paul Reserve has substantial timberland and farmland.

Hurricane Michael

Whereas time was every bit the ally Dahl and Hatchett had hoped for, the weather proved a formidable foe. On October 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael tore through the Florida Panhandle and into Georgia, becoming the most intense Category 5 hurricane ever to hit the US during the fall. Winds raging up to 160 miles an hour felled 100-foot trees that had stood for generations. Cleanup and restoration efforts took years.

“Jim Dahl showed us that reversing the industrial timber model could create more long-term value,” says Jon Kohler of Jon Kohler & Associates, who co-brokered the sale to Paul with Hatchett.

“He proved that recreational land — with more habitat and less timber — wasn’t just beautiful. It was smart business. Jim turned it into a once-in-a-generation asset,” Kohler says.

In 2023, a fund associated with AgAmerica Lending bought the property from Dahl. In 2024, they listed it with Jon Kohler & Associates for $42.5 million.

Fresh off his biggest victory in the ring, Gen Z’s favorite boxer/influencer/ entrepreneur toured a property in Alabama, then decided to make a quick stop in Georgia. What he saw that afternoon changed everything.

“It is a little bit bigger than what I wanted, but when I got here, I was like, ‘I have to buy this,’ ” Paul says. “But I had to ask myself, ‘Do I have the balls to manage this place?’ And that was a little bit of a question that I wrestled with, because it is very intense and it’s a lot of land.”

Generational Change

Years before his $30 million windfall from the Tyson fight, Paul began socking away money for the right piece of property. After months of negotiations, he agreed to pay $39 million for Southlands in a deal that will go down as another of Paul’s signature bold moves. The guy who founded Betr, a popular online venue for sports betting, gambled that he could make a living as a significant rural landowner with the help of four to five full-time staffers.

“In the end, I didn’t want to be 40 and be like, ‘Oh, I should have bought more land,’” Paul says. “I think I just need to grow into it.”

Hatchett believes the plantation’s inherent privacy helped seal the deal.

“There are no public roads, no power lines on the property, and no easements,” says Hatchett, who lives across the road from the property with his wife, Phyllis. “You just don’t find a contiguous property of this quality in a setting like this. It’s really one of a kind.”

Warm Welcome

Hatchett admits that before that first showing in late 2024, he wasn’t the least bit familiar with the renown of his famous client. The broker quickly came to appreciate the young phenom’s pull when he took him out to dinner after a second tour of the plantation.

“The hostess took one look at Jake and her mouth dropped open,” Hatchett recalls. “While we were eating, these little kids drew him a picture that said, ‘Welcome to Bainbridge.’ ”

“The people here are the best, and I feel right at home,” says Paul, who happily stops for selfies with children. “This is like another level of nice, and it’s really awesome because I feel like we all fit in and get along with everybody.”

Paul further endeared himself to the community in August when it was revealed that he’d become a Steward of Lake Seminole. He donated $50,000 to the nonprofit group that manages invasive species in the 37,500-acre man-made reservoir.

“Jake represents the younger generation that is so important to the future of Lake Seminole, our communities, and most importantly, the future of our country,” said Stephen Dickman, the group’s founder and executive director while announcing Paul’s gift. “He exemplifies the American Dream and demonstrates that success is created by setting goals and tirelessly working your plans to achieve those goals.”

Olympic Bride to Be

The community will no doubt embrace Paul’s fiancée, herself a world-class athlete from the Netherlands, who needed to stick close to her home throughout 2025.

Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam, 26, has won seven world championships in long-track sprint events. She took silver in the 1,000-meter event in her Olympic debut at the 2022 Beijing Games. Leerdam spends most of her time in Europe training for gold in the upcoming 2026 Winter Games, scheduled in February in Milan and Cortina, Italy. On Paul American, the family’s reality show that debuted on HBO in March, Leerdam announced she would retire from skating after her second Olympics.

“Jutta and I are very, very similar in the things that we appreciate,” Paul says. “She’s going to build a garden here, and we’re going to go horse shopping and get some cows and goats and all that stuff together next year.” Naturally, their beef will be grass-fed. He has his eye on honeybees too.

The couple, who got engaged days before the premiere of Paul American, also has plans to build a new main residence. Perhaps they’ll site the home on the 200-foot bluff overlooking Lake Seminole, perfectly positioned to take full advantage of the setting sun.

“One thing I still keep telling Jake is that this is a special piece of land,” Greg Paul says. “He’s a steward of the property now, and this is a place where they can build their dreams.”

NEW TWO-MILE TRACK. Paul Reserve ranks as the most valuable sporting property ever sold in Georgia history.

Next Steps

With all that irresistible space, Paul hired the man who’d created the track around his Calabasas house to build a two-mile track out of the red Georgia dirt. Richard Kutbach designed the course and then oversaw its construction, a process that included clearing the land, creating hills, and digging out what felt at times like a thousand tree stumps. On another section of land, Kutbach fashioned a shooting range, though firing weapons at Paul Reserve isn’t confined to a single spot. One summer afternoon, Paul’s friend Ross Young, a neighbor in Puerto Rico who’s also a crypto mogul in the making, set out in pursuit of a hog he’d spied on one of the dozens of cameras located on the property.

Feral hogs are a landowner’s scourge. They cause billions of dollars of damage nationwide; Georgia is no exception. The invasive beasts, which can tip the scales at 250 pounds, trample crops, transmit diseases to wildlife and livestock, steal food from feeders, and destroy the nests of numerous species.

“There aren’t a lot of hogs on this property, but we’ve been on some of the other neighboring properties,” Paul says. “You sneak up on them with the thermal optics and just go to town.”

Jake and Friends

He flashes a boyish smile as he talks about hunting alongside his own pack. During our August visit, a dozen friends fired up his fleet of Polaris vehicles and headed out to explore Paul Reserve. The guys also ride motorbikes, take turns piloting a Paragon wake boat, or even try their best to reel in a 30-pound catfish.

“One of the best parts is being able to share this place with people and see how happy it makes everybody,” Paul says. “More energy grows collectively because of that.”

In quieter moments, his posse might swing by the property’s 60 acres of peanut fields, which have traditionally been rotated every other year with cotton or corn. Or the guys could watch crews harvest timber and even lend a hand as the plantation continues to sustain itself through logging. They recently completed a thinning of about 400 acres.

With help and guidance from his father, Paul intends to continue the distinguished legacy of being a great land steward for the property, which includes approximately 400 acres of pine trees slated for reforestation in early 2026, along with around 646 acres of longleaf that were planted in 2025. He also plans to continue conducting controlled burns and managing the land intensively to support a variety of wildlife.

“The world needs to disconnect more and be in places like this and not be on their phones all the time,” Paul says. “When you’re here, nothing else really matters. You kind of lose track of the news and what’s happening on Twitter because you’re just not paying attention to it.”

AU NATUREL. When it comes to boxing, it’s back to the basics at Paul Reserve.

Training Camp

His time at Paul Reserve isn’t all fun and games, though. Paul installed a boxing ring near the cluster of homes. On November 14 — almost a year to the day from the Tyson fight — he will take on Gervonta “Tank” Davis at Kaseya Center in Miami. Most Valuable Promotions, another one of Paul’s companies, is again partnering with Netflix on the fight.

To stay in top shape, the pro boxer enlists the help of chef Eric Triliegi, who has worked with everyone from UFC legend Connor McGregor to Demi Lovato, another Disney Channel alum. Triliegi travels with Paul between Georgia and Puerto Rico to see to the athlete’s nutritional needs.

Paul himself is a culinary innovator of sorts. He concocted a honey mustard El Gallo sauce that became a key ingredient of his favorite order of wings at Dog Haus Biergarten, a growing chain known for its hot dogs and burgers. Paul celebrated his victory over Iron Mike with fare from the Arlington, Texas, restaurant, which he owns. Weeks earlier, he’d joined the company’s board of directors after inking a deal to become a major franchisee. Earlier this year, the company unveiled plans to expand to Puerto Rico with locations expected in San Juan, Carolina, and near Paul’s home in Dorado.

He can chalk up another business win with W By Jake Paul, a mass-market personal-care brand that nixes iffy ingredients, including sulfates, parabens, and aluminum. Available at Walmart and on Amazon, the scented body sprays, washes, and deodorants are poaching Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers from aging disrupters like Axe. Paul and his team convinced gymnast-turned-uber-influencer Livvy Dunne to hype the brand on various socials.

Business and Pleasure

Will young social media consumers also flip for his rural retreat? They’ll undoubtedly have the chance, though Paul says he’s weighing exactly how and when to roll out his new place to audiences. Could there be a YouTube series set on the plantation whenever he has the time? For the moment, Paul Reserve serves as a quiet backdrop. Eagle-eyed viewers catch glimpses of the land in, say, the short clip Paul posted of himself driving an ATV into an above-ground swimming pool framed by those iconic pine trees.

But perhaps this young man who’s spent half his life in the public eye will opt to keep the nearly 6,000 acres a little more to himself. From the outset of his ownership, Paul Reserve became the one place where he could truly exhale, step away from the noise, and enjoy the fruits of his astonishing success.

“Every day there’s one moment where I’m just like, ‘Damn, this is cool and beautiful,’ ” he says. “I feel blessed, and I’m still finding new places on the property. I probably will for the next year or so.

“Every day it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s a new tree’ or ‘that’s a new view.’ It’s just really cool to take it all in.”

Published in The Land Report Fall 2025.