Brook Lopez is about to check out his new house in Disneyland

By foxsports
Published

Most kids fantasize about having a house right next to Mickey Mouse or Goofy. Brook Lopez is actually doing it.

Both Brook and his brother Robin, the Knicks' starting center, are obsessed (obsessed seems to be the right word) with animation, and Disney hasn't escaped the brothers' love. So, now that Brook has become a successful, wealthy man, he's decided to capitalize on what he would've wanted as a child: a house in Disneyland.

Lopez announced earlier this year he would be building a house in Orlando, FL, right outside of Disneyland but still on Disney's property. Now, as the Nets ready to travel there to play the Magic on Wednesday, Lopez has made plans to check out the progress on his new home.

From Newsday's Mike Gavin:

Both Lopez twins are highly into animation. Actually, Robin said during the Knicks' Sunday night broadcast on MSG that the best Christmas gift he ever received was a set of drawing materials he could go to town on as a kid. To this day, he is actually a remarkably talented animator. 

You have to imagine photos of this house are going to surface upon its completion. Whenever that happens, it will be a great day.

“The house just shows his love of Disney,” Lopez’s mother, Deborah Ledford, said in a phone interview Saturday. “That’s his childhood.”

Ledford raised the Lopez brothers in Fresno, California, which is just a four-hour drive from Disneyland in Anaheim. The twins took an immediate interest in Disney — not just for the rides or the characters with the funny voices, but because of an appreciation for the artwork.

“What they did that perhaps your average kid doesn’t do is they appreciate the artwork,” Ledford said. “They would look closely at the cartoons. They really appreciate Walt Disney’s creativity. We are Californians, so we’d go to Disneyland a couple times a year and the boys would always love it.”

Before each trip, Ledford recalled the boys sitting in the backyard with a notebook, plotting out the itinerary for the amusement park so they wouldn’t miss any attractions. “They’d have it down to times,” she said. “We’ll go on this ride at 9:05 and then here at 9:17.”