Muhammad Ali’s career began after his bicycle was stolen when he was 12. The Louisville, Kentucky, boy reported the theft to a police officer who owned a boxing gym and became his first coach. A decade later, in 1964, Ali—then known as Cassius Clay—defeated Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight champion.

He went on to win the title twice more, earn Olympic gold and receive recognition for his civil rights activism and humanitarian work. Photographs from different stages of his life also show the homes and retreats where he spent time outside the ring.

After becoming champion, Ali announced his conversion to the Nation of Islam, changed his name and moved to Chicago. In 1967, he cited his religious beliefs when refusing to serve in the US Army during the Vietnam War. His boxing license was revoked and his title stripped, beginning a period away from the sport. A photograph from the following year shows him reading a book by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in his Chicago home, a furnished brick house in Avalon Park that he shared with his second wife, Khalilah Camacho-Ali.

The couple married at the house in August 1967 and had three daughters: Maryum, followed by twins Rasheda and Jamillah. In November 1970, Ali and Maryum were photographed at home in West Philadelphia with the newborn twins. The family stayed in the Overbrook Park home for about a year.

Ali later maintained a long connection to Pennsylvania through Fighter’s Heaven, his training camp in Deer Lake. He bought the property in 1972 and built a log gym, dining hall, cabins, a mosque and a courtyard with a large stone fireplace. Fans could watch training sessions there. Ali kept the retreat after retiring and sold it in 1997; it is now a tourist destination with a small museum.

After briefly retiring in 1979, Ali returned to boxing the following year to fight Larry Holmes. In August 1980, about a month before the bout, he was photographed in his home office in Hancock Park, Los Angeles. Other photographs from that period show his game room. Ali lost to Holmes and retired again; he had begun showing early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, which affected his athletic ability.

Ali fought one last time in 1981. A few months later, he was photographed outside his Hancock Park home with his third wife, Veronica Porché. In 1982, a portrait showed him in the home’s living room. He had bought the 14,500-square-foot Italian Renaissance mansion in 1979. Designed by architect John C. Austin and built in 1916, it had seven bedrooms.

The house also featured stained-glass panels designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and a formal dining room with carved dark wood and a crystal chandelier. A 1985 photograph shows Ali eating cereal there. That year, he and Porché filed for divorce. Another photograph from 1985 shows Ali in the home’s trophy room. He left the property the following year, after the divorce was finalized, and later married Lonnie Williams, who became his primary caregiver as his Parkinson’s disease progressed. Ali was diagnosed with the disease in 1984.

In 2012, Ali posed for a photo shoot marking his 70th birthday at the Arizona home he shared with Williams. He received the Liberty Medal that year for his humanitarian work, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. Ali died in Arizona in 2016, aged 74.

Sources: Architectural Digest.