The YouTuber-turned-boxer snapped up Southlands, a nearly 5,700-acre spread in rural Decatur County with historic prestige and a 30-acre duck pond.
Jake Paul has been talking about buying a ranch for most of his life. Now, at 28, the YouTuber-turned-boxer has done just that—only on a scale few could have imagined. In a deal that quietly closed in April, Paul paid $39 million for Southlands, a nearly 5,700-acre sporting plantation in Georgia’s Decatur County. The sale, brokered by Jon Kohler and Walter Hatchett of Jon Kohler & Associates, is one of the largest recreational land transactions in the Peach State’s history.
Paul revealed the purchase earlier this month on The Iced Coffee Hour podcast, saying he used the roughly $30 million he earned from his 2024 boxing match against Mike Tyson to fund the deal. “I’ve wanted to buy a ranch for the last 15 years,” he said. “I wanted a place where I can wakesurf, hunt, and build a racetrack.” He also spoke about growing his own vegetables and spending time in nature, drawing inspiration from childhood visits to a cabin with his father.
Paul, who also owns a $16 million mansion in Puerto Rico, chose one of the South’s most storied estates. Southlands, dating back nearly a century, was originally assembled as a 26,000-acre tract by pioneering conservationist Herbert Stoddard, co-founder of the nonprofit organization Tall Timbers. In 1937, Rhode Island senator and industrialist Houghton Metcalf bought the land and built a lodge overlooking what’s now Lake Seminole.
By the late 1950s, International Paper had taken over, transforming it into a teaching forest and southern headquarters for its 12-million-acre timber empire. The property remained under corporate ownership until 2010, when philanthropist and land investor Jim Dahl acquired it as part of a 160,000-acre deal. After reselling much of the land, Dahl hung on to Southlands as his crown jewel.
Today, the plantation includes 4.5 miles of lake frontage, a stocked fishing lake, a 30-acre duck pond, vast irrigated fields, and five miles of spring-fed creeks with waterfalls. Wildlife is abundant—wild quail, trophy whitetail deer, and turkey thrive here—and the land is managed to the highest standards.
The main lodge, perched on a bluff, has eight bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms. There’s also a new horse barn for quail hunts, a manager’s residence, a guest house, and multiple outbuildings, all surrounded by pine forests and long, private roads.
In the podcast, Paul called the property a dream come true. And, of course, for the right kind of land buyer, Southlands always has been.
