One of the biggest perks of being really rich is having your own plane, but not many people get to park that thing right outside their front door. Jumbolair, the fly-in aviation community in central Florida where everyone has airplane hangars that match their houses, and home of John Travolta, has just been listed for $10.4 million.
Unfortunately you don’t get Travolta’s place, which is designed to look like an airport, in the deal. But he’ll be your neighbor. The movie star and practicing scientologist was one of the first buyers of a plot at Jumbolair Aviation Estates, where he built his 6,600 square foot house, complete with its own air-traffic-control-style tower.
Jumbolair is close to Clewiston, Florida, the headquarters of the secretive and eccentric religion known as Scientology, of which Travolta is a prominent member. At least as recently as 2009, Travolta would fly over there every day. So, that’s convenient, right Big T?
Located just outside of Ocala, Florida, Jumbolair has the largest privately-owned runway in the United States, which at 7,550 feet is big enough to handle a 747. It’s as long as the runways at Miami’s airport. Jumbolair also has a shorter grass runway, and a 7,686 square foot mansion once owned by horse breeder Muriel Vanderbilt.
While not nearly as impressive as most of the other remaining Vanderbilt family mansions scattered around the country, like the Breakers and Biltmore Estate, some of the interiors are fabulously kitsch. Especially the bathrooms.
The sale includes the two runways, the Vanderbilt house, a conference center, an 8,700-square-foot conference center, warehouses, and 17 unsold estate lots with runway access. There are 38 Jumbolair house lots, at 2 or 3 acres each, in total.
A typical Jumbolair house. 
A typical Jumbolair house.
John Travolta’s Jumbolair house. 
One of the warehouses. 
The Vanderbilt mansion
The Vanderbilt mansion 
Inside the Vanderbilt mansion 
Where’s the nearest Walmart, and what bus do you catch to get to this location? The gardeners and the other hired help wish to know. Apparently none of them have their own bicycles, much less cars, airplanes, or cab fair. Is it a long walk from the beach? Cuban immigrants don’t always have shoes by the time their boat arrives – they often have to share the shoe leather for lunch. I’ve heard that trimmed toe callouses make a salty snack that will keep the hunger pains of crying children away for minutes at a time. Luckily green grass if not green cards await them at Jumbolair, home of the world’s longest concrete penis.