{"id":197557,"date":"2026-03-19T09:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197557\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:30:22","slug":"meet-the-local-fsu-alum-who-won-bobby-bowden-home-in-emotional-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197557\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the local FSU alum who won Bobby Bowden home in emotional auction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reagan Hobbs wasn\u2019t planning to buy Bobby Bowden\u2019s house <\/a>\u2014 until his affection for Florida State<\/a>, Seminole football and Bowden himself took over.<\/p>\n

Hobbs, 52, was sitting in a local hospital Tuesday, March 17, with his mother and brother as his father recovered from surgery when the bidding intensified on Bowden\u2019s longtime Killearn Estates home.<\/p>\n

A Florida State alumnus and Tallahassee real estate investor,<\/a> Hobbs had promised himself he would stay disciplined.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was getting nostalgic,\u201d Hobbs told the Tallahassee Democrat. <\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s such a historic place, and it\u2019s special to my family. I finally said, \u2018OK, I\u2019ll bid on it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost immediately, Hobbs found himself locked in a bidding war with another buyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started thinking, \u2018Should I keep going?\u2019\u201d said Hobbs, whose initial intention was to stop bidding when the price reached $600,000. \u201cMaybe this person lives in Europe or somewhere and has no connection to Tallahassee or FSU football. And I thought, \u2018I can\u2019t lose to this person.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So Hobbs kept bidding.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext thing you know,\u201d he said, \u201cI ended up winning it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hobbs’ family has strong ties to Bowden, FSU\"The<\/p>\n

The Hobbs family at Doak Campbell Stadium following FSU’s victory over Alabama in 2025.<\/p>\n

Hobbs emerged as the winning bidder at $670,000 as the real estate portion of the Bobby Bowden Legacy Auction closed Tuesday night. With a 10% buyer\u2019s premium, the final sale price totaled $737,000.<\/p>\n

The two-week auction was managed by Wiregrass Auction Group of Thomasville, Georgia. Memorabilia bidding on more than 1,500 pieces was divided into two lots – bidding on the initial lot ended Tuesday March 17 and bidding on the second lot is scheduled to end Wednesday March 18 at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

Bowden and wife Ann purchased the Killearn Estates home in 1976, when Bowden was hired at FSU from West Virginia. He coached 34 years, won a pair of national championships and died in 2021 at the age of 91. Ann recently moved to Alabama to live with family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty cool,\u201d Hobbs said of his winning bid. \u201cThe thing is, I have no idea what I\u2019m going to do with it yet \u2014 but it\u2019s such a neat, historical piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowden\u2019s legacy is deeply intertwined with Hobbs\u2019 own family history.<\/p>\n

His parents were close to the legendary coach, and his father, Ronald Hobbs, served as a national chairman of the Seminole Boosters in the late 1990s. Hobbs, who graduated from FSU in 1995 with a degree in marketing communications met his wife, Stacey, at FSU, and all three of their children \u2014 Clayton, Hailey and Carson \u2014 are FSU graduates.<\/p>\n

Despite driving past the property countless times over the years, Hobbs has never actually been inside the home.<\/p>\n

That leap of faith wasn\u2019t entirely unfamiliar. Hobbs previously purchased memorabilia connected to another iconic FSU figure \u2014 Burt Reynolds \u2014 including items from Reynolds\u2019 personal office. This purchase, however, may require a bit more explaining at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI texted my wife and told her I bought Bowden\u2019s house,\u201d said Hobbs, also the owner of the Golf Club of Summerbrooke. \u201cShe said, \u2018No, you didn\u2019t. You can\u2019t even get rid of the Burt Reynolds stuff.\u2019 So it\u2019s a joke in the family. My kids are diehard \u2019Noles, and my son said, \u2018Dad, I knew you were going to do something like this. I had a feeling.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the future of the property remains undecided. But Hobbs is content knowing it\u2019s in the hands of someone who understands what it represents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could have been another local bidder,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t want to take the chance that someone would tear it down and sell the land. I just couldn\u2019t let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Reagan<\/p>\n

Reagan Hobbs and wife Stacey with FSU football coach Bobby Bowden in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: This FSU alum landed Bobby Bowden’s Killearn Estates home in auction<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reagan Hobbs wasn\u2019t planning to buy Bobby Bowden\u2019s house \u2014 until his affection for Florida State, Seminole football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[91645,57241,1320,91644,91643,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-197557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-bidding-war","tag-bobby-bowden","tag-florida-state","tag-reagan-hobbs","tag-ronald-hobbs","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}