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Boat of the Week: Meet ‘Boardwalk,’ Houston Rockets Owner Tilman Fertitta’s Showstopping 252-Foot Superyacht

This vessel has a long, instantly recognizable profile. but it's the myriad interior details—and the interplay of light and crystal—that define her., michael verdon, michael verdon's most recent stories.

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At the end of February, Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta and his family held an annual Mardi Gras celebration, which they call the San Luis Salute. The event, which included local officials and celebrities, was headlined by the band Maroon 5. But the most visible VIP guest at the gala was Fertitta’s majestic new superyacht, Boardwalk.  

The 252-foot Feadship is indeed a showstopper. It was the largest vessel at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, and hundreds of people walking the docks took selfies against Boardwalk ’s towering stern, with a H130 helicopter perched on the top deck. Fertitta and his family enjoyed the show from the comfort of the yacht—from the main-deck’s rear cockpit lounge to be precise.

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It’s Fertitta’s favorite spot on his new yacht, a sanctuary protected from the wind and sun, but still exposed to the ocean. It’s also a microcosm of Boardwalk ’s very intricate design. The stern has the requisite lounges, bar and large flat-screen television, but that’s where it differs from other yachts. The ceiling has delicate curves, there are many lights embedded into the area above the bar, and the trim on the columns supporting the stern’s overhang is highly stylized.

The abundance of crystal and lighting define Boardwalk ‘s formal dining area.  Courtesy Fertitta Entertainment

“I don’t think any other owner pays as much attention to the details,” Fertitta told Robb Report during a visit to the yacht. “If you look at the bigger yachts, they really don’t vary much with standard features like ceilings and lighting.”

“Tilman came in with all the important details—all the details that really make the difference in this boat,” adds Amy Halffman, who worked closely with Fertitta on the design. “He’s an extreme detail man, down to the quarter of an inch.”

The Houston entrepreneur has made a highly successful career out of paying attention to the details. Named by Forbes as the “World’s Wealthiest Restaurateur,” the chairman of Fertitta Entertainment and chairman of Landry’s has an empire that also includes the Houston Rockets NBA team, multiple restaurants, Bentley and Rolls-Royce dealerships, and five-star hotels.

The contrast of the black stairwell with the white floors is dramatic, nicely offset by the custom stainless-steel inlays along the railings.  Courtesy Fertitta Entertainment

Fertitta’s Post Oak Hotel in Houston, in fact, provided inspiration for Boardwalk . “We spent a lot of time meeting at the hotel,” says Halffman. “He had a lot of input into that design, which is classy and elegant, so we decided to reflect that style on the yacht.”

This Feadship is actually Halffman’s fifth yacht project with Fertitta, the other four Boardwalks being a succession of ever-larger Westports, the most recent being 165 feet in length. After owning it for 12 years, “it felt like time for a larger project,” says Fertitta. “One that was more complex and elaborate.”

While upsizing by almost 100 feet sounds like a simple hull stretch, the Feadship has 1,848 gross tonnes of interior volume, compared to 492 on the last Westport—in other words, the latest Boardwalk has nearly four times as much interior as the last one. That makes not only for a very complicated build—something which bespoke builder Feadship is used to—but also a new mindset for the interior design, which the design team needed to wrap their heads around.

A more relaxed vibe in the owner’s office.  Courtesy Fertitta Entertainment

Halffman and design partner Frank Woll came up with the concept about four years ago, and then worked closely with the owner on the yacht’s many features. There are hundreds of features, seen and unseen, that distinguish the interior.

The most noticeable—arresting, in fact—is a whimsical, fantasy-like sculpture of a bronze female form with a dress of flowing crystals, diamonds and pearls. The work by Estella Fransbergen is strategically placed in the main entry. “She’s like a guardian angel,” says the sculptor, noting it took nearly two years to complete. “She was originally going to be placed by the staircase, but we moved her so she greets everyone.”

“I’d seen Estella’s work years ago and admired it,” says Halffman. “The torso of the woman’s body appealed to everyone and proved to be a launchpad for me. It played off all the other features.” They include an enormous crystal in the main foyer, pendant chandeliers in the formal dining area beside a case with crystal wear, and bespoke crystal light fixtures on the nearby stairway—which also has a beautiful stainless railing that resembles a feature from the last Boardwalk , but on a much grander scale.

The main salon, with detailed lighting overhead. Notice the backlighting on the rear bar.  Courtesy Fertitta Entertainment

The designers looked for striking but elegant stones—a white opal for the salon and an onice grigio for the sky lounge—mixed with Sapele, mahogany and other dark-stained woods that show contrast with the light-colored fabrics and tiling. The wine cellar even has a custom stainless-steel design that gives it a distinctive look. In all, 55 stones, marbles and tiles were used across the yacht.

Of course, all these stunning details were made possible by the ubiquitous placement of lighting, both direct and indirect, something that Fertitta understands with almost a scientific precision. His previous Westport had four times more lights than the yard had ever put on the 164-foot series. This Feadship paid even more attention to the lighting. Even the beach club, with its lounge and dedicated dive and watersports locker, has a stylish, deliberate look. The bar has a light fixture comprised of Swarovski crystals.

The yacht, though immense, is easy to navigate. Fertitta and longtime captain Tristan Judson paid attention to the functional aspects, creating an open foredeck where the two Hogdon-built tenders are stored, adding the ability to use the massive area for social occasions. The sundeck has a mosaic-tiled swimming pool, and above that is an observation deck with a mast. On that level, one gets a sense of how large Boardwalk really is, surrounded by smaller superyachts at the Fort Lauderdale show.

The intricate details on the day head—typically a forgotten space—give a sense of the how the design team approached the interior.  Courtesy Fertitta Entertainment

Still, the owner and his designers managed to keep a sense of intimacy throughout, installing what they call a “country kitchen” as the owner’s galley, to allow more informal meals and socializing than the main dining room, while retaining the yacht’s professional galley for the staff on another deck. Fertitta, who often works on board, has an office dressed with light-colored fabrics, lounges and glass doors to access the exterior decks.

The Feadship may not be Fertitta’s last yacht. Rumor has it that he’s talking to European yards about an even larger Boardwalk . When asked about it, he says simply: “I love to build things.”

Some other angles.

Courtesy Fertitta Entertainment

Courtesy Boardwalk

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Cool Spaces: Step aboard Tilman Fertitta's luxury mega-yacht

At 164-feet long, 31-feet wide and almost 500 tons, this is no ordinary yacht. Welcome aboard "The Boardwalk", Houston businessman Tilman Fertitta's luxury ocean vessel and favorite toy.

The $40 million yacht has 12 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, grand salons, and a true chef's kitchen with steamers, warming drawers, and walk-in fridge and freezer.

The master suite features an owner's office, opulent bedroom with space to spare, and a gorgeous bathroom.

No expense was spared on the outdoor space either. "The Boardwalk" boasts multiple decks, lounges, scooters for land excursions, and even a helicopter pad.

Fertitta, his family and crew travel the world on the yacht. Some of his favorite stops are the Bahamas and the Mediterranean.

"It's one of those things I always wanted and I'll always have. It isn't cheap, I can tell you that," Fertitta said with a smile. "But every time I walk on it, I tell myself, 'God, I love this boat.'"

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Take a look at the superyacht the Jefferies CEO just bought from the Houston Rockets' billionaire owner

• Jefferies CEO Rich Handler sold $65 million of stock — some of which he used to buy a superyacht.
• He purchased Boardwalk from billionaire friend and client Tilman Fertitta.
• Here's a look at the multimillion-dollar superyacht.

Earlier this week, Jefferies CEO Rich Handler sold $65 million worth of stock in the investment bank — enough to warrant a press release — partly to buy a yacht from his friend and client, hospitality billionaire and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta .

"My sale of shares today was a gift to myself and my family," Handler said in the release.

It's a pretty good gift. The boat in question is a 50-meter superyacht named Boardwalk.

According to the yacht's shipyard, Westport Yachts, the off-market deal was pending as of last month. The sale price isn't public.

Boardwalk, which is currently moored in Fort Lauderdale, Florida , was originally delivered in 2010. She features a spa pool and helipad on her sun deck, as well as multiple bars and 15 bathrooms, of which at least one has a television. The master cabin has a dressing room and a private study, and there are scooters on board to make getting around easier — and more fun.

She can fit 12 guests and 12 crew members, according to industry source SuperYacht Times .

"It isn't cheap, I can tell you that. I just love it," Fertitta told a local ABC affiliate in 2017, referring to Boardwalk's $40 million price tag.

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While Boardwalk is technically part of "a series" — one of a fleet of boats built by the shipyard of this size and general design — Fertitta made many custom adjustments, adding lights throughout and opening up spaces to create a less formal feel, he told Yachts International in 2011.

Handler has been a guest on the yacht before, landing on its deck via helicopter when it was moored in St. Barts , according to a video posted on Fertitta's Instagram account in 2018.

"It's a shame when you have to pick your friends up to come see you. This is @handlerrich roughin' it to the @boardwalk164," he wrote in the caption.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tilman J. Fertitta (@tilmanfertitta)

"It's one of those things that I've always wanted and I'll always have," Fertitta said during the 2017 interview.

While he won't always have this exact boat, Fertitta, who is worth $9.3 billion, per Forbes, will likely always have a yacht and appears to have traded up.

He teased his new, fully custom vessel — a 77-meter giant built by Dutch shipyard Feadship — in 2019. It was delivered in 2021 and is also named Boardwalk.

The new Boardwalk has a more modern design. The gym has a Peloton and a Mirror ; there's a sauna and beauty salon; and there are six sit-down bars — appropriate for a hospitality billionaire.

"This takes it to a whole new level," his son, Michael, told Boat International .

Looks like Handler still has something to aspire to.

Watch: Inside the world's biggest cruise ship that just set sail

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Meet 'The Boardwalk': Tilman Fertitta's ultra-luxe yacht

Billionaire Tilman Fertitta shows KPRC 2's Frank Billingsley inside his new yacht that was docked off of Galveston around Mardi Gras.

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Billionaire Tilman Fertitta lords over a 500-company strong business empire from his Houston headquarters.

There are few quiet moments for Tilman Fertitta in his top-floor office. (Photo by Max Burkhalter)

Tilman Fertitta's own TV moment is decidedly more real than anything on premium cable. (Photo by Max Burkhalter)

"Billion Dollar Buyer" director David Tibbals and Tilman Feritta go over a show clip. (Photo by Max Burkhalter)

Michael, Paige, Tilman, Blayne, Blake and Patrick Fertitta flank their parents Paige and Tilman Fertitta at the 20th San Luis Salute.

Tilman Feritta does touch-ups for his new TV show. (Photo by Max Burkhalter)

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Tilman Fertitta's 164-foot yacht, Boardwalk, creates plenty of envy in ports around the world.

Tilman Fertitta quickly grasped TV's nuances. Photo by Max Burkhalter.

Tilman’s World: The Life of Houston’s Most Famous Billionaire — a Rare Inside Look

I t is 9’o’clock on a Saturday night, and Tilman J. Fertitta finds himself engaged in a fourway email thread. The other participants? Pitbull , the American rapper with two career No. 1 hits on the Billboard 100 and 22 million Twitter followers; Michael Milken , the once-disgraced financial wizard infamously dubbed “The Junk Bond King” who’s recast himself as a medical philanthropist; and Scott Kelly , the astronaut who recently returned from a year in space. “I was emailing these three people at the same time, and it dawned on me,” Fertitta says. The billionaire who’s now clearly the best-known businessman in Houston immediately nudged his companion and offered a look at his phone.

“I mean you have three different people from three different ways of the world,” Fertitta says. “An astronaut-scientist, an entertainer and the greatest financial mind of the 20th century probably, who created the leverage finance … ” Fertitta stops himself, still smiling, but clearly packing any wonder away. “But that’s just what I do, so it wasn’t a big deal to me.”

Just a normal Saturday night? “No, I wouldn’t say that was a normal, normal,” Fertitta quickly shoots back, “but at any time, I could be exchanging a call or email with them.” Some of this life comes with the territory of being a Forbes-certified billionaire — as Feritta himself notes, “It’s a nice club to belong to, okay.” But some of it is just Tilman, the guy who has always found it easy to connect with people and turn opposing supernovas into eventual friends.

“I was the person that got these two together,” he says at one point, picking up a framed photo of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush embracing each other and Fertitta. That came on the heels of Fertitta lending Clinton and Bush his private plane to lead the U.S.-aid efforts in the wake of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Fertitta has been brokering unlikely partnerships like this for years — not to mention, the string of acquisitions and takeovers that grew his Landry’s Inc. into the conglomerate that owns and operates more than 500 restaurant, hotel, casino and entertainment properties today with the man himself lording over them all from his Houston headquarters. Still, Fertitta remained something of an unknown figure outside of Texas’ borders, partly by design.

“He’s kept under the radar a bit,” says David Tibballs . Tibballs, the Englishman behind a run of successful reality TV shows, including Property Virgins and Dragon’s Den , the United Kingdom precursor to the U.S. hit Shark Tank , seems intent on changing this. Tibballs quickly tabbed Fertitta as a star after watching clips of a few of Fertitta’s appearances on CNBC and created a new show, Billion Dollar Buyer , around the tycoon who carried his grandfather’s briefcase everywhere as a little kid and told everyone he had his “business” in there.

Introducing Pêche

The show’s already a hit for CNBC, picked up for a second season after just one episode of the first season. It showcases the 58-year-old Fertitta’s one-liners, everyman charm, business nerd’s love of all things business and a little bit of the toughness that helped propel him to the top. “If anything I probably look a little better (on the show) than I am,” he says. “I get tougher than that.”

Fertitta is more strict teacher than ferocious shark on Billion Dollar Buyer . Each episode matches him up with two striving businesses vying for his life-changing buy. The platform’s tailor-made for a billionaire who remembers what it’s like to be scratching and clawing for one’s business life. When the young twentysomethings behind an Austin cocktail syrup company ask Fertitta how he got into town in episode two, he’s almost apologetic about telling them he took his own helicopter.

“I made it real clear from day one, I’m not going to be an ass, okay,” Fertitta barks to the reporter sitting across from his desk. This is Tilman Fertitta’s TV moment, and he’s going to make sure he controls it.

Seeing Green

  “There’ll be more than one take, believe me,” Fertitta cracks. It is weeks later now, inside the long boardroom connected to Fertitta’s impressive top floor office in the Landry’s headquarters building on West Loop South, and the Billion Dollar Buyer crew is here, filming touch ups. This involves Fertitta sitting in front of a giant green screen, redoing lines from the show that weren’t picked up in the original on-location shoots due to background noise and the like. Sometimes, this means numerous repetitive takes, something that can wear on a man who has 100 million dollar deals working in the next room.

“I’m taking the microphone off,” Tilman declares at one point, essentially calling the day a wrap himself. He reaches under his T-shirt and yanks the little mic off his chest too, triggering some quiet concerned looks from the crew, but he comes back minutes later to reattach it and do another take that Tibballs feels he needs. Mostly, what comes through in this session is how quickly Fertitta’s picked up on TV’s nuances — including the value of breaking up the drudgery for the crew with some light moments and maybe a little good natured ball busting.

“Let me read the whole paragraph, I’ve got to get in the mood,” he says, drawing smiles in the midst of one arduous redo. But nothing tops the moment when Tibballs demands that he deliver one explanatory line as straight and emotionless as can be. “I always talk with inflection,” Fertitta moans. He’s right, it takes more than 10 takes for him to pull off a truly monotone voice. The guy’s not boring, even when he’s trying to be.

“Are we picking up that siren?” Fertitta asks at one point, noticing a fire truck’s wail on the street far below. Tibballs grins. The savant is at work again. Darn if Fertitta’s not right, the sirens have ruined the take. “He has that attention to detail thing,” Tibballs says later. “He can spot a busted light bulb at 1,000 yards. That whole thing.”

Fertitta seized on his particular gifts early. “You want to know the truth?” he says by way of explanation. “When I was sitting there as a junior in high school, trading stocks and not studying for a history exam. Just kind of realizing early on — you start looking back to your early years — when you’re a little kid and you’re not watching a lot of cartoons or reading comics, but you’re carrying around your grandfather’s briefcase with your business in it. ‘I’ve got my business in here.’ It’s just like a musician knows or any artist knows, you just know. I never thought I wasn’t going to be successful.”

Fertitta excels by almost instantly identifying why a business is going to be successful or why it will fail. “That’s my gift,” he says. “I can’t write, but I can do that. Big business or little business. You can give me certain numbers — and there are certain numbers I want on any company — and I’ll have it figured out in five minutes. That’s not the problem. That’s just what I do. I just understand it. And it’s just a gift. It’s just a gift. And I thank God for the gift.”

It’s a gift that Fertitta latched onto with the force of a pit bull’s lockjaw bite. He now owns more than three dozen well-known restaurant chains, having acquired them and moved their corporate headquarters to Houston under the Landry’s umbrella, including Bubba Gump (formerly of Monterey, California) Chart House (Chicago), Claim Jumper (Newport Beach, California), McCormick & Schmick’s (Portland), Rainforest Café (Minneapolis), Mitchell’s Fish Market (Columbus, Ohio) and Morton’s steakhouses (Chicago). He owns five Golden Nugget casinos and all the restaurants and nightclubs in them. He also owns six other hotels, including the San Luis Resort, Spa and Conference Center in Galveston and the Westin right across the street from Minute Maid Park. Sometimes, it seems like he owns the world — and Fertitta is not done yet. His newest Houston project — The Post Oak , a gleaming new 35-floor high-rise that will rise on West Loop South, next to Landry’s headquarters building, and include a ultra high-end hotel, luxury apartments with rents running from $6,000 to $9,000 per month, new restaurants, shops and office space — is one of Fertitta’s most ambitious, high-end and personal projects yet. A model and video of The Post Oak is one of the first things visitors to Landry’s headquarters see. He will spend $1 million just to transport and replant large oak trees on the project, slated for a December 2017 completion. This isn’t a development where corners will be cut. In many ways, this will be the showpiece of Fertitta’s ever-growing empire.

F ertitta still obsesses over his numbers. It gives him his edge. He looks at 60 emails every morning before he ever gets to the office, seeing the bigger numbers coming in all the little details. Once he’s in the office, he pours over the one-page informational recaps he’s trained his department heads to distill everything down to, the better to see the numbers that truly matter clearly. “I can tell you everything about the company today basically from these four pieces of paper,” he says.

The old Tom Wolfe ‘Master of the Universe’ stereotype sometimes seems to apply to Fertitta. He sits at a giant raised desk with six monitors behind his head, with several of them showing live feeds of his various properties (blackjack tables at his Golden Nugget casinos, the H2o Lounge at his San Luis Resort in Galveston). Fertitta is not a particularly physically imposing man; he’s of average height and weight. He doesn’t dress in fancy three-piece suits — a simple black T-shirt, dark jacket, black jeans or dark slacks ensemble represents his signature look. Still when he’s sitting here on his throne, it’s easy to see how employees might think he has eyes in the back of his head.

Fertitta is no slave to business convention, though. He has no interest in being one of the first people in the office every morning. Instead, this CEO lets everyone else get settled while he reads newspapers and looks at emails at his River Oaks home. He’ll get in late mornings on the days he’s not globetrotting. “I’m not an early person,” Fertitta says. “I’m a late person. Which seems to be a lot of successful people kind of a standard. Like to work late. It’s kind of weird. Now if you came here at 8’o’clock this place would be busy. Last night we all left at 8:30.”

The vibe’s decidedly casual for a Fortune 500 company. Many of Fertitta’s highest-ranking VPs walk around in blue jeans, there is hardly a tie in sight and the only time Fertitta seems to put on his sports coat is when he has a meeting to attend or filming to complete. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a more down to earth successful billionaire,” says Tibballs, who specializes in turning “high-net worth individuals” into TV stars.

Even though he’s on top now, the 58-year-old Fertitta seems to miss the Houston business scene of the 1980s and 1990s, one dotted with characters rather than mammoth corporations. He recalls Houston bankers and power players Walter Mischer  and Ben Love fondly and wonders when the next originals are going to join him in the arena. “Nobody is around who was around in the ’80s with me because I was so young,” Fertitta says. “But you still had huge names for 25-30 years. And they’re basically all gone now. You used to be able to say name me five huge business people in Houston and you could just reel off five names. Stop somebody on the street and ask them that today. Who are they going to name? Me.

“In Houston, it’s weird. It’s kind of a shame if you want to know the truth. It really is.”

The Trump Card

  Tilman Fertitta happens to be a billionaire with his own TV show. The comparisons are as inevitable as sticky sweat on a July Houston day. When he walks the streets, especially in a place like New York City where his public recognizability seems to have increased a hundredfold since Billion Dollar Buyer ’s debut, people come up and tell him he should run for president. Because of that other guy.

Fertitta likes to claim that the only subjects he truly knows anything about are business, politics and sports. So maybe it’s no surprise that Fertitta follows Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The extent to which he studies Trump catches one for guard, though. For Fertitta places himself in Trump’s shoes and imagines how he’d field the questions Trump faces on the campaign trail much more effectively.

“I’ve taken a lot of those questions and thought about how I would answer them,” Fertitta says. “And there are such easy ways to answer them without offending people. It’s not that difficult. It’s just not that difficult when you’ve already captured everybody. As popular as Trump is right now, I think he could be up another 10 or 20 points if he would have just not said some of things he said.

“I don’t think it’s very smart because obviously he did something to capture people and he could have captured a lot more.”

One of Fertitta’s many takeovers is an Atlantic City casino that once bore Donald Trump’s name. Everywhere. Feritta’s overhaul crew discovered 5,000 untouched Trump bobbleheads while cleaning the casino out for a complete revamp. Fertitta notes, “They were going to throw them out, I said, ‘Nah. Let’s keep ’em.’ ”

“Rhonda, did I ever get my Trump bobblehead from Tom?” Fertitta calls out his open office door to Rhonda DePaulis , one of his two assistants, both of who have been with him for more than 20 years. “Call (Golden Nugget Atlantic City general manager) Tom Pohlman and tell him to send me one.

“There’s got to be something I can do with these bobbleheads to have some fun.” Fertitta grins, the possibilities dancing in his head. The guy who sees every business angle also likes to have some fun. “I’m not an old man,” Fertitta says. “I can still go out to a club or whatever. I’ve just been around for a long time.”

F ertitta is a longtime family man and his four kids — Michael , Patrick , Blayne and Blake — are growing up fast. He no longer worries about them turning into the type of stereotypical rich kids you’d see in a bad reality TV show. Instead, he speaks of them with a father’s unmistakable pride.

“The kids aren’t spoiled at all,” Fertitta says. “You know, what is spoiled? I think my kids are a good example. Do they know how to spend money? Yeah, but everybody will tell you they’re also the nicest of all the kids. And so is that spoiled? My whole deal is how do other people see you. And the other parents see my kids as the most courteous and polite kids. And that makes me happy.”

How do you raise unspoiled kids when family vacations are taken on dad’s private jet; a 164-foot super yacht named Boardwalk is at your beck and call; and biggest sports stars in town show up at your house every year for a Houston Children’s Charity party? Fertitta does not hesitate for a second on his answer.

“I think they had the right mother,” he says. That would be Paige Fertitta , the elegant red-headed beauty whose smiling picture occupies its own special place in the middle of a table in Tilman’s office.

Taking The Under

If Fertitta is Houston’s new kingmaker, he comes at it with love for underdogs that not only fits his new show, but reflects back on his own start working the floor of his father Vic’s lone Galveston restaurant, Pier 23 . One of Fertitta’s more public roles — serving as chairman of the University of Houston System’s Board of Regents — grew out of his old dismay at how UH missed out on getting into the Big 12 Conference in large part due to state politics.

“I hate to use the word tragedy because nobody died, but it was extremely unfair because the governor ( Ann Richards) and speaker of the house were both Baylor graduates, Baylor got in over the University of Houston. So ever since then they were an underdog for the next 20 years. They got dealt a bad hand so I wanted to help them get out of it,” Fertitta says.

A drive to ensure Tom Herman stayed as the University of Houston’s football coach after a 13-1 season spurred Fertitta to secure Herman a $3 million-a-year contract last winter. Fertitta sees it as one strong leader recognizing another. “What Tom has the ability to do is that not only does he know X’s and O’s, but he knows how to motivate. And a lot of times a coach either knows how to motivate or he knows the X’s and O’s. The coach at Texas who just retired a couple years ago, Mack Brown . Mack Brown was a great people person and a great motivator, but he wasn’t known to be a great X’s and O’s guy. I think Tom has the ability to do both. He took not a lot of talent a real long way.”

Sports memorabilia gets prominent spots in the glass display cases in Fertitta’s office, including an NBA championship ring from his team as a minority owner of the Houston Rockets. If there is a void in this billionaire’s remarkable story, Fertitta figures this is it. “I would say that’s one thing I’d like to do: Own a sports team,” he says. “If somebody said, ‘What did you not do that you wanted to do? Own a sports team. But the problem is I’m so loyal to Houston, it’d be kind of hard to own something somewhere else.”

Fertitta obsesses over getting more Houston onto his TV show, too. Billion Dollar Buyer’ s first episode played out as a virtual love letter to the city with Texas Avenue, the “We Love Houston” sign and the Eatsie Boys food truck all drawing prominent cameos. “I’ve been beating on them about more Houston shots,” Fertitta says. “It’s good for Houston.”

TV’s realities sometimes block the billionaire, though. One hundred hours of footage were shot for Billion Dollar Buyer ’s first season — and that’s eventually cut down to the four hours and 42 minutes that make the air. Sometimes, Fertitta cannot help but try and direct it all a little. “He’s funny,” says John Gumina , Billion Dollar Buyer ’s director of photography. “But he gets his point across.”

Fertitta relates to fictional TV billionaires as well, professing to enjoying the new Showtime series Billions and its hard-charging New York billionaire Bobby Axelrod . “I think it’s a good show,” he says. “Yes, you could have a person like this one hundred percent. I mean I think that if somebody truly followed me around and you edited it down to the exciting moments over a 30-day period, I think somebody could say the same things about me. You live an interesting life.”

S pend any time with Fertitta and you’re struck by how many people want his time — cocktail hours represent perilous endeavors likely to leave him with a dozen business cards crammed in his hands and at least that many pitches thrown his way — and how he always seem to have some for his friends.

“I have a saying and my best friends totally agree, ‘Make your friends your friends’ and don’t worry about anyone else,” Fertitta says. “Make your friends your friends. Coming out of the ’80s, you had so many people in the SEC frauds. I don’t know if they really did something in that manner or not. But you had a lot of people go to prison. A lot of people abandoned them. I still, when they got out, invited them to parties or whatever. They were my friends.”

Fertitta shrugs. Up here on the eighth floor, seemingly on top of the world, it’s not always easy to see down. Fertitta knows he wants Landry’s to be around for another 150 years, no matter how different it becomes or if it even stays in restaurants at all. “All four of my kids want to be involved in the business,” he says. “None of us are artists or musicians. They like business. They grew up around it.”

The man with the $3.2 billion net worth looks up. “I probably told you too much,” he says. Fertitta looks around, his empire still visible on those screens behind his head on a day when his penthouse office balcony’s shrouded in clouds. The best-known businessman in Houston makes it clear he’s not planning to get off this stage anytime soon.

“I’m really no different than I was 25-30 years ago,” Fertitta says. “Do I have a nicer office or nicer this or that? Yes, but that’s no big deal. I’m still the exact same person. I still get upset over the same stupid things and I still get excited over the same little things.”

Fertitta glances at his phone. “Hold on, I’ve got an issue to take care of.”

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How Clever Deals Made Houston Rockets Owner Tilman Fertitta Billions Richer During The Pandemic

When covid lockdowns hit, tilman fertitta’s restaurants and casinos took a serious hit, and he had to lay off 40,000 workers. but now, the golden nugget casino owner is richer than ever thanks to seismic market shifts and his own ambitious spac strategy. .

e are expecting you—may I take your shoes?” says the uniformed crew member stationed at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the main deck of Tilman Fertitta’s new 252-foot yacht, Boardwalk. The shoe policy is understandable. Fertitta lavished $150 million and nearly five years on this vessel, spending days with Dutch shipbuilder Feadship imposing his obsessive vision for six decks of plush carpets, marble surfaces, chromed fixtures and automatic sliding doors. There are cabins to sleep 22 crew and 14 guests, who often arrive via a de rigueur helipad. Fertitta’s favorite spot is the top deck, 74 feet above the sea and overlooking the hot tub. His fifth yacht, Boardwalk dwarfs the other ships docked at the Atlantis resort at Paradise Island, Bahamas. He still owns No. 4 , a 164-footer anchored in his hometown of Galveston, Texas. Asked if he ever rents out his yachts to defray costs, he summarily dismisses the question. “If you need to charter, you shouldn’t own it.” 

You can describe the 64-year-old yacht, restaurant, casino and hotel owner in many ways: as a showman, risk taker, college dropout, detail guy, NBA owner (the Houston Rockets), reality show star (three seasons of Billion Dollar Buyer on CNBC) and the fellow who bought Donald Trump’s casino in Atlantic City out of bankruptcy in 2011 and made a success of it. But the one identity that has arguably made the biggest impact on his wealth is that of a sharp financial engineer with a history of cutting the public into and out of his ventures and taking on and offloading debt at opportune moments. 

“We always get bigger and stronger during tough times,” Fertitta says. In the 2001 downturn, he gobbled up troubled restaurant chains at a discount. In 2010, in the wake of the Great Recession, he took Landry’s Inc. private, buying the 45% he didn’t own for $1.4 billion in cash after it had spent 17 years as a public company. 

Fertitta expects to spend a month out of the year on the 252-foot “Boardwalk,” his fifth yacht, docked here at Paradise Island, Bahamas.

This time around, Fertitta could have ended up going broke under $4.6 billion in debt accumulated to build his empire. Instead, he’s getting richer by making use of the era’s hottest financial trend: the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Thanks to creative SPAC financing and what appears to be some serious self-dealing, Fertitta has already increased his net worth, Forbes estimates, from $4.1 billion a year ago to $6.3 billion today. In December, Fertitta hopes to close on his fifth SPAC deal, the biggest transaction of his career, in which he will offload most of Landry’s holdings, including five Golden Nugget casinos and more than 500 restaurants (and billions in debt), to the rechristened Fertitta Entertainment. If all goes as planned, he’ll end up with a 74% stake, worth some $4 billion, in the new public company and a personal net worth topping $8 billion. (Landry’s restaurant brands include Bubba Gump, McCormick & Schmick’s, the Palm and the Rainforest Cafe.) 

SPACs, of course, are publicly traded shell companies that raise money to facilitate a future merger with an unnamed private company that might not have the heft or the patience to do a traditional initial public offering, with all the federal scrutiny that entails. SPACs have boomed the last two years thanks in no small part to all the cheap money the Federal Reserve has pumped into the economy. From just 59 deals raising $14 billion in 2019, SPAC offerings surged to 248 raising $83 billion in 2020 and 443 raising $127 billion in the first nine months of 2021, according to SPAC Analytics. 

Others have done more SPAC deals than Fertitta. Billionaire venture capitalist (and bitcoin enthusiast) Chamath Palihapitiya has launched six SPACs, using them to take public the likes of Opendoor, Virgin Galactic and Clover Health. And others have gotten richer (at least momentarily). United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia is now worth around $8 billion (down from almost $13 billion since January) after his family-owned company went public through a merger with a SPAC sponsored by billionaire investor Alec Gores, who has done eight such deals. 

There’s a lot to question about the SPAC boom, including seemingly guaranteed profits for sponsors and hedge funds. If Gores and Palihapitiya are the most active, Fertitta may be the most aggressive, resorting to brazen maneuvering of which few large investment firms would approve. 

In one notable case, he stood on both sides of a crucial deal for Golden Nugget Online Gaming. In 2019, before the pandemic, Fertitta and his longtime bankers, Jefferies Financial Group, raised $250 million for a SPAC (Landcadia Holdings II) with the stated aim of acquiring an entertainment company. Fertitta got a 10% promoter’s stake, plus the titles of co-chairman and CEO. 

In March 2020, when Covid-19 lockdowns began, Fertitta shuttered nearly all his operations and laid off 40,000 workers. He received $160 million in forgivable federal paycheck protection program loans—but gave it all back to Uncle Sam after public outrage over big operators getting cash intended to help small businesses. 

“If anybody wants to question that deal, it’s the greatest in the world. I already sold it once. Now I’m selling it again.” 

Instead, that April, he drew an emergency $300 million loan at a rate of nearly 13% against his Golden Nugget Online Gaming division (GNOG), which had become a pandemic bright spot, with people stuck at home gambling their federal stimulus money. The loan was liquidity insurance, he says: “I didn’t spend any of it.” 

Two months later, in June 2020, Landcadia II announced it had found its acquisition target—none other than Fertitta’s own online gaming division, the one with that pricey loan. When his SPAC closed on the purchase of GNOG in December 2020 for $745 million (six times revenues), Fertitta ended up with 49% of GNOG’s shares and a $30 million cash payment. He was also rid of the obligation to pay back that emergency debt—and able to keep the borrowed $300 million. 

“These sorts of maneuvers ensure that sponsors win regardless of the performance of the merged company,” scolded four Democratic U.S. Senators, including Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren, in letters they wrote to Fertitta and five other SPAC kings in September 2021, asking them to account for seeming conflicts of interest and urging the SEC to take a closer look. Michael Ohlrogge, a law and corporate governance professor at New York University, says there have been only about a dozen cases in the last few years in which SPAC sponsors bought affiliated companies, and for good reason: “Whenever the buyer and the seller are the same party, you have to wonder if the price is going to be fair.” 

Not that GNOG investors are complaining. This past August, Fertitta reached a deal to sell GNOG to DraftKings (itself born of a SPAC) for $1.5 billion in stock. “If anybody wants to question that deal, it’s the greatest in the world,” he crows. “I already sold it once. Now I’m selling it again.” 

“Whatever you do, don’t say I got my start peeling shrimp,’’ Fertitta implores during a marathon eight-hour-plus interview that includes dinner at Nassau’s famed Graycliff restaurant, where the bill for four runs to $1,500. It ends after 2 a.m. with Fertitta, his 27-year-old son, Patrick, and a Forbes reporter lounging on a platform that folds out from the hull of Boardwalk, watching spotted manta rays swimming below. 

THE SPAC ROLLER COASTER 

Special purpose acquisition companies now account for more than half of all cash raised in u.s. initial public offerings. in 2016, when tilman fertitta launched his first spac, landcadia holdings i, such deals made up just 14% of the ipo market. it was a flop. his second, landcadia holdings ii, is faring far better, despite criticism that he used it to buy his own online gambling division. .

But Fertitta’s restaurant and entertainment roots are as much a part of his colorful backstory as his financial acrobatics. His grandfather Vic Fertitta and great-uncles Salvatore and Rosario Maceo ran the Balinese Room in Galveston, a nightclub that featured entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. (The Maceos, immigrants from Italy, allegedly ran gambling and bootlegging in Galveston.) His father, also named Vic, owned the Galveston seafood joint Pier 23—where, yes, young Tilman indeed shucked shrimp and by age 14 was managing the restaurant, learning the business hands-on. 

He tried not to be in restaurants. In the late 1970s, after dropping out of the University of Houston, Fertitta launched a women’s clothing shop, stores that sold vitamins, an arcade game distributor and a construction company. In 1985, at 28, he opened the 160-room Key Largo Hotel in Galveston. He showed up at his high school reunion in a limo (“I owned it”). Soon he sold the Key Largo for $600,000 to his cousin Frank Fertitta (who, with brother Lorenzo, later became billionaires from casinos and mixed martial-arts promoter UFC, which they sold in 2016). 

Tilman used that cash to help him buy Houston eateries Landry’s Seafood Inn & Oyster Bar and Willie G’s from the Landry brothers and expanded to Galveston, Corpus Christi and San Antonio. He got overleveraged with $10 million in debt, but “outlasted the banks” after the 1987 downturn and paid off his loans for $2 million. In the late 1980s, he started buying up restaurants on the marina boardwalk in Kemah, on Galveston Bay. In time he erected a Ferris wheel and turned 40 waterfront acres into his first “eatertainment” district, with Joe’s Crab Shack, Saltgrass Steak House and more. 

By 1993 Fertitta was generating $2.7 million in profits on $34 million in revenue and raised $24 million in Landry’s first IPO. To save pennies he cut the size of french-fry orders and put out fewer lemon wedges. “Among Tilman’s superpowers are that he understands the numbers behind the numbers, what they pay for beef and beverage,” says Richard Handler, CEO of Jefferies Financial Group. 

In 2000, Fertitta offered $125 million for the jungle-themed Rainforest Cafe chain. Rebuffed, he snapped it up later that year for just $75 million when the economy hit a rough patch. In a 2010 book, Rainforest founder Steve Schussler described Fertitta as a “brash, arrogant, bargain-basement, bottom-feeding acquisition nemesis.” Schussler was miffed when Fertitta decided to save $100,000 per location per year by getting rid of live bird displays. Reached at his restaurant laboratory in Golden Valley, Minnesota, Schussler recants his previous description, saying he now believes a Fertitta-style numbers obsession might have enabled Rainforest to survive independently. “If it meant the Audubon Society came in and bought margaritas, he’d have twice as many birds,’’ he says of Fertitta. (The two have since collaborated to create the T-Rex Cafe near Orlando, Florida, which features animatronic dinosaurs.) 

In 2011, Tilman Fertitta bought the run-down Trump Marina casino in Atlantic City for $38 million, renamed it the Golden Nugget and put $150 million into renovations. Gaming revenue is up 50% from a year ago.

In 2005, Fertitta bought the two Golden Nugget casinos, in Las Vegas and Laughlin, Nevada, for $295 million. He swapped out old restaurants for his hottest chains, then added three more casinos in Biloxi, Mississippi, Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Atlantic City, where he picked up the run-down Trump Marina casino resort for $38 million. 

Billionaire Steve Wynn, who made his first fortune expanding the original Vegas Golden Nugget casino in the 1970s, says that while he had always tried to “steal the top end” (i.e., the highest-rolling Asian baccarat players), his friend “Tilly” makes sure he has something to appeal to gamblers at every level. To Fertitta, it’s all about numbers. “What’s more valuable to a casino, one $1 million player or ten $100,000 players?” asks Gerry Del Prete, who runs Golden Nugget’s gaming operations. The answer, he explains, is the ten relative minnows, because you can make as much money off them, with less volatility, while providing fewer expensive perks. 

Still, Fertitta does like doing business with other rich folks. His Post Oak Hotel and Spa in Houston, opened in 2018, features a Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Bugatti dealership, which he owns, in the lobby. Celebrities and athletes pay $600 and up per night to see and be seen at its pools and Mastro’s Steakhouse. His son Patrick pulls up on his phone the new song “N 2 Deep” by Drake, which features lyrics about a woman he calls “a little Post Oak baby.” In September Drake tweeted a clip of himself shooting hoops at the Post Oak’s penthouse court. 

Fertitta says he has spent $400 million on the hotel and adjacent office building. In August he invited Forbes to his headquarters to argue for boosting our estimate of his net worth. For his biggest trophy, Fertitta in 2017 finally bought the NBA’s Rockets (he first acquired a 3% stake in 1983) for a then-record $2.2 billion, raising funds by borrowing against Landry’s. 

With Landry’s leveraged to the hilt, the pandemic hit. “For four weeks you were just scared to death,” Fertitta recalls. “You can’t save the world, so you’ve got to make tough decisions”—like laying off 40,000 workers. (He says he has since refilled all but 3,000 positions.) “I caught so much shit for it because I was the first one who did it,” he says. Not that he second-guesses himself. “You’ve got to remember, it’s all my money. At other companies CEOs are not so quick, because it’s not theirs.” 

With his operations all but shut down, Fertitta was surprised to see a bright spot emerge in his eight-year-old Golden Nugget Online Gaming division. With revenue of $1.7 billion in the first half of 2021, America’s online gambling industry has already surpassed its record 2020, boosting the value of Fertitta’s stake in GNOG to $600 million. But Fertitta will be just as happy to let DraftKings run that business day-to-day. DraftKings generated $600 million in revenue in the first six months of the year but spent so much building market share that it posted a $650 million net loss. “It’s against everything that I do. Everything, to me, has to make money,” Fertitta says. “Let them run the company; let them fund the losses.” 

There have been only about a dozen cases the last few years where SPAC sponsors bought affiliated companies—and for good reason: “Whenever the buyer and the seller are the same party, you have to wonder if the price is going to be fair.” 

It gets better. Before the pandemic, Fertitta had been working on a preliminary prospectus to take Landry’s public. Instead, a deal came to him via Fast Acquisition, a SPAC launched in 2020 by marketing guru Doug Jacob (who sold his agency Jwalk to Shiseido Americas in 2017) and Sandy Beall, founder of the Ruby Tuesday chain. They agreed to sweeten the pot for Fertitta and reduce their promoter’s shares by 40%, Jacob says, in order “to do a once-in-a-lifetime deal with one of the best operators of all time.” In February they announced a $6.6 billion deal to merge most of Fertitta’s restaurants, the five casinos and his stake in GNOG/DraftKings into Fast, creating a new public company to be called Fertitta Entertainment. In June, Fertitta announced that he would expand the deal, adding assets like the Kemah boardwalk district, Galveston Pleasure Pier, Denver Aquarium and more restaurants. This boosted the headline number to $8.6 billion. Piling in more assets also helps soften the balance-sheet impact of the billions in debt he’ll push over to the new company, reducing leverage from 5.2 times Ebitda to a still-hefty 4.3. He’ll have a 74% equity stake and the CEO job. 

Fertitta will hold on to select restaurants, hotels including the Post Oak and, of course, the Rockets ( Forbes values the team at $2.5 billion). But the new public company will be his growth platform; he wants a property on the Las Vegas Strip. 

What could go wrong? Well, resurgent Covid-19 could hit travel and restaurants. A stock market slump could sour investors. And his overall leverage still runs high, especially for a hodgepodge of restaurants and casinos. Moreover, shares in the average SPAC have lost money after a year, and some are ending up in litigation. That’s the fate of Waitr, the Louisiana-based food delivery service that Fertitta and Jefferies acquired in 2018 via their first SPAC, Landcadia I, which raised $250 million. Waitr shares have lost 90% of their value, and class-action plaintiffs accuse him of making false statements pertaining to Waitr’s “huge potential” in taking on the likes of DoorDash and Grubhub, and their “highly complementary” nature with his other businesses. His attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss the case as lacking any actual claims of fraud and say the talk was merely “corporate optimism and puffery.” A decision on the motion is pending. 

But for now, life is good. Fertitta intends to spend 30 nights a year on Boardwalk. This summer he had his ex-wife, Paige, and their four kids there for a week. Their 2017 split was amicable. He has been married for two years to Lauren Ware, formerly a litigation counsel for Landry’s. 

Fertitta acknowledges it’s a complicated time to be so flashy. “The world has changed. People hate billionaires,’’ he laments, especially those who have become so much richer during the pandemic. “Go look at social media—I never posted one thing about the new boat. As public as I am, I’m also very private,” he says. You’ll never see selfies from his yacht on Instagram. “And remember, it was [ Forbes ] who asked me” for a tour of Boardwalk. Yes, and thank you for the hospitality. Fertitta has already started imagining his next yacht, perhaps a 361-footer by German shipbuilder Lürssen.  

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Meet The CEO

Tilman J. Fertitta, Chairman, President and CEO of Landry's Inc. a Houston native, is an accomplished businessman and recognized as a world leader in the dining, hospitality, entertainment and gaming industries.

A Houston native, Tilman is often referred to as “the world’s richest restaurateur.” Through his restaurant and hospitality company Landry’s, Fertitta owns more than 600 properties in 36 states and in over 15 countries. His restaurants include a signature collection of eateries, as well more than 80 different restaurant brands and award-winning concepts.

He also owns and operates numerous gaming, hospitality and entertainment venues, including the iconic Golden Nugget Casino and Hotel brand, with five locations throughout the United States. Fertitta also launched into the online internet gaming world in the state of New Jersey with GoldenNuggetCasino.com and has been recognized as the top iGaming operator in the country. In the Houston/Galveston area, he owns the award-winning San Luis Resort, The Westin Houston Downtown and several other award-winning regional hotels. Fertitta also opened Texas’s only Forbes Five Star Hotel and Spa and Houston’s only AAA Five-Diamond Hotel, The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston; the city’s newest ultra-modern, luxury destination. His entertainment destinations include the Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier, The Kemah Boardwalk, Downtown Aquarium Denver and Houston and Tower of The Americas in San Antonio which are all featured on the Forbes, Travel Channel and USA Today’s top five lists of attractions.

An influential business figure, Fertitta starred in his own reality TV show on CNBC called Billion Dollar Buyer. Fertitta is frequently featured in the nation’s top financial and industry publications and is also a frequent guest of prominent national business and sports programs on networks like CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg, ESPN and Fox. He released his first business book “Shut up and Listen” with HarperCollins Publishing in September 2019, which skyrocketed to New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Publishers Weekly best sellers lists.

“There are no spare customers” – Tilman Fertitta 

Innovative Visionary

Fertitta believes in the importance of giving back to the community and devotes a substantial amount of time to civic service and charitable organizations. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board – Houston Police Foundation, Chairman of the Board - Houston Children’s Charity and is currently serving his sixth year as Chairman of the Board of Regents - University of Houston. He is on the Executive Committee of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which is one of the nation's largest charitable organizations.

New York Times Best Seller

Tilman Fertitta’s Debut Book is on Sale Now

For entrepreneurs ready to reach the next level of success, small business owner turned multi-Billionaire Tilman Fertitta shares the commonsense principles that have rocketed his worldwide entertainment, hospitality, and real estate empire to the top. “Shut Up and Listen!” offers straightforward, powerful strategies and ideas to help anyone achieve the sort of breakout they want, no matter if they’re just starting out or well into their career. 

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Photo: CNBC

Tilman Fertitta House: Inside his Massive Houston Texas Estate

Tilman 's house photos.

Updated on April 19, 2021

If you’re a basketball fan, then chances are you’re already aware of Mr. Tilman Fertitta aka the current owner of the Houston Rockets. This savvy businessman and television personality has built an empire in the billions and even wrote a book titled Shut Up and Listen!,  which was released in  September 2019. If you’re interested in learning more about this business magnate including his lifestyle, family, and the iconic Tilman Fertitta home, then you’re in luck. We’re here to give you the #411 on any and everything relating to him, and his infamous Tilman Fertitta house!

Where does Tilman Fertitta live?

Tilman fertitta house houston.

Fertitta and his family live in a massive palatial estate located in the swanky River Oaks area of Houston, Texas.

Tilman Fertitta House River Oaks

This gated estate is definitely one for the books. The $7.45 million home sits on a 5.4-acre lot and includes amenities such as an outdoor pool, a tennis court and a 1,323-square-foot garage complete with 11 parking spaces. The home itself (including the guest quarters) is a whopping 25,548 square feet. The main house has 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. 

The entrance of the home comes complete with a grand foyer which also includes a sweeping spiral staircase that rises up to the second floor. It additionally includes a family room, living room, a terrace, and a summer kitchen. There are 17 rooms in total in addition to an elevator and a fireplace.

Tilman and his family are in great company when it comes to high profile neighbors. Mega-pastor Joel Osteen’s house is just half a mile from Tilman’s. 

Mr. Fertitta and his family are known for opening up their home annually during the Christmas holiday season in order to host a Santa’s Elves party which benefits pediatric cancer research at M.D. Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital. 

Tilman Fertitta Net Worth

As of 2019, it’s estimated that Mr. Fertitta is worth an insane $5.3 billion. That’s a lot of cash — and he spends it quite lavishly. 

Tilman Fertitta Helicopter

In addition to owning two private jets and a yacht, it’s also been reported that Fertitta owns two helicopters. Clearly, the man loves to fly in style. But none of this compares to his infamous Boardwalk yacht. 

Tilman Fertitta Yacht

Fertitta also owns a massive yacht called Boardwalk which was named after Kemah Boardwalk located on Houston’s Clear Lake. The superyacht is 50 meters long, which translates to 163 feet and has 6 bedrooms with the ability to house 12 guests. It also has 5 additional cabins which are used to house 10 crew members. According to reports, the yacht set him back a whopping $40 million.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tilman J. Fertitta (@tilmanfertitta) on May 6, 2016 at 5:20pm PDT

Tilman Fertitta Private Jet

He always told himself he’d have a jet by 35 years old, and he did. He’s quoted as saying he knew he had made then. Well, duh!

Tilman Fertitta Family

Tilman fertitta wife.

Tilman Fertitta is married to his wife Paige Fertitta. According to reports, Paige was initially a little skeptical about dating Tilman, who had to ask her three times before she finally agreed.

Tilman Fertitta Kids

Fertitta and his wife have five children. Their names are Michael Fertitta, Patrick Fertitta, Blayne Fertitta, Blake Fertitta, and Victor Fertitta.

View this post on Instagram Happy Mother’s Day, Paige. Our kids are so blessed to have you to call Mom! #luckykids #happymothersday A post shared by Tilman J. Fertitta (@tilmanfertitta) on May 14, 2017 at 1:53pm PDT

Lorenzo Fertitta Net Worth (is he related to Tilman?)

Much like his counterpart Mr. Tilman Fertitta, Lorenzo Fertitta has also made his way into the public eye due to his various successful business ventures including becoming part-owner of UFC along with his brother Frank. These ventures have also earned him a spot on the world’s list of billionaires. In fact, to date, Lorenzo Fertitta is worth a whopping $1.9 billion.

Is Lorenzo Fertitta related to Tilman Fertitta? The answer is YES. Tilman Fertitta is actually the third cousin of Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta.

What does Tilman Fertitta do?

Fertitta is perhaps most known for purchasing the Houston Rockets in October of 2017 for a whopping $2.2 billion. However, it was his various business pursuits which eventually facilitated his ability to become the official owner of an NBA team. These insane companies include the following:

Fertitta  Group Inc.

Tilman is the owner of Fertitta Group Inc., an investment management company headquartered in Houston, Texas. 

Landry’s Inc.

Tilman is additionally the CEO and sole owner of Landry’s Inc., which initially started out as one of the largest restaurant corporations located within the United States. Fertitta eventually gained controlling interests of the restaurants and purchased the remaining stocks in the company to become sole owner.  The company currently owns and operates over 500 restaurants/gaming/entertainment and hospitality locations around the country. 

His portfolio includes some huge brands, including Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., The Golden Nugget Hotel and Casinos, Morton’s The Steakhouse, and Rainforest Cafe to name a few. In 2017, Fertitta’s Landry’s acquired half of EMM Group which owns the celebrity-loved Catch Restaurants.

Tilman is perhaps most notably known for being a hotelier second to being known as the owner of the Houston Rockets. The business magnate has both purchased and built numerous hotels and resorts since his first venture with the Key Largo Hotel in Galveston, Texas.

In 2005 Tilman purchased the Golden Nugget Casinos chain with locations in Nevada. He also purchased the Trump Marina from Trump Entertainment Resorts, which he reopened as Golden Nugget Atlantic City. He has also opened up casinos in New Jersey, Biloxi, Alabama, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

He also purchased the Golden Nugget Lake Charles from Pinnacle Entertainment in part due to the fact that the location was within close proximity to his hometown of Houston, Texas.

Entertainment

Tilman additionally owns amusement parks, aquariums, and the Kemah Boardwalk, which he purchased in 1999.

Houston Rockets Owner

Tilman purchased the team back in October 2017 for $2.2 billion.

Billion Dollar Buyer Show

In 2016 it was announced that Fertitta would be starring in a CNBC reality show called Billion Dollar Buyer. Fortunately for Mr. Tilman, the first season was wildly successful which resulted in the show getting picked up for an additional season with over twice as many episodes.

The show follows Fertitta as he works with entrepreneurs who have ingenious ideas/products that he could buy and or/license for his own businesses. For example, in one of his earlier episodes, Tilman found a small mom and pop company making what he thought was the most incredible hot sauce and barbecue sauce he’d ever tasted. After they implemented the changes he suggested, he offered them a massive deal to be in hundreds of his restaurant locations.

Got a great product and want to be on the show? You can apply here !

https://www.celebfamily.com/business/tilman-fertitta-family.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/11/billionaire-brothers-to-get-massive-windfall-from-ufc-sale.html

https://www.cnbc.com/billion-dollar-buyer/

https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/top_three/a-conversation-with-tilman-fertitta-owner-of-the-golden-nugget/article_15b856c2-96fe-11e1-bc35-001a4bcf887a.html

https://www.superyachtfan.com/superyacht_boardwalk.html

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Danni Holland is a writer, artist and self-professed celebrity news junkie. Whether she's writing about digital marketing for some of the biggest names in the industry, politics , interviewing legendary fashion icons , or dishing out the #411 on local dirt —you can rest assured she's giving you a 100% truth #nofilter perspective. Check her out on Instagram @iheartcandyfromstrangers and Facebook !