VERO BEACH, Fla. — The horse pen is brand stinking new — plenty of stuff stinks here, by design — made of wood panels and enclosed to grant privacy for the animal and its handler.

You wouldn’t have the foggiest idea that one of baseball’s highest-paid players built this pen, or trains his horses in it, or owns this 88-acre piece of land located in what feels like the middle of nowhere even if it stands roughly 6 miles from Interstate 95.

Unless, that is, you stand right up against the structure, close enough to peer over it, and notice that the doorway is marked by a piece of string.

The string is neon yellow.

Welcome to La Potencia Ranch, Yoenis Cespedes’ primary home and his escape from the grind of being a very famous professional athlete. Welcome to a different side of the neon-sleeve-wearing, electrifying (and occasionally polarizing) All-Star who forever changed the Mets’ universe upon his 2015 arrival.

Remember when Cespedes pulled into Tradition Field parking lot in a different outrageous car each day last year, setting social media ablaze and reveling in the attention? He commuted from here, where the occasional, characteristic flashes — he did brand the place after his colorful nickname, which means “The Power” in Spanish — can easily get lost among the trees, the ponds and the dozens of animals on the property.

“Yoenis Cespedes enjoys the cars,” he said Friday, with Mets media relations coordinator Melissa Rodriguez interpreting, as he sat at a table outside his main house. “But he enjoys this, too.

“When I’m playing,” he added, for emphasis, “I enjoy the spotlight.”

That love of New York’s scrutiny and energy shined through in the way Cespedes carried himself and performed in a Mets uniform. It produced a groundswell of fan support that contributed significantly to the Mets bringing him back for 2016 on a new contract. And when Cespedes opted out of that contract to explore free agency for a second straight winter, little doubt existed that he and the Mets would re-up for a longer term, which they did last November for four years and $110 million.

“You can’t say no to New York,” Cespedes’ teammate Noah Syndergaard said, in explaining why he always thought the outfielder would be back.

Yet the Mets unknowingly held a geographical advantage beyond Citi Field and its metropolitan address. Upon getting traded to the Mets, it didn’t take Cespedes very long to realize that he had been dealt to the team with the spring training complex closest to his offseason home.

He started his career with the Athletics, who train in Arizona, and then moved to the Red Sox and Tigers, neither of whom run their Florida operations close enough to here for Cespedes to avoid renting homes in other parts of the state. With the Mets, though, Cespedes can get from his ranch to Tradition Field in well under an hour.

La Potencia Ranch’s proximity to Port St. Lucie “was a big motivator” in his desire to stay with the Mets, Cespedes said.

For the Mets, who moved from St. Petersburg to Port St. Lucie in 1988, Cespedes said with a smile, “Yeah, I would say that was a little bit of luck.” Getting to spend another seven weeks on the ranch, during spring training, “is very important, because I get to be able to relax and enjoy this here,” Cespedes said. “I love being here at home, being with my family and sharing time with them.”

Even after signing with the far-away A’s as a free agent out of Cuba in February 2012, Cespedes bought his first home in Boca Raton, Fla., which is just under an hour away from Miami. “I leave Cuba, and I’m not going to go to Miami? Where all the Cubans are?” he explained.

That choice led to his awareness of the land here, an hour and a half north of Boca. In 2013, Cespedes purchased the property for $925,000, moved here and let other relatives, including his mother, Estela Milanes (who fled Cuba alongside her son), live in Boca Raton, where he’ll spend time when the Mets play the Marlins during the regular season. Cespedes resides here at the ranch with his girlfriend, Sandra Quesada, and his cousin Ivan Ortiz, who runs the property year-round. Various other family members and staffers, like a chef and ranch hand, spend a lot of time on site, and it’s common for Cespedes to host large gatherings for his family as well as his Mets bosses and teammates.

“You can see how tranquil it is,” Cespedes said. “The animals. It’s sort of like where I was born and raised. It reminds me of that.”

Cespedes grew up in Israel Licea, a small Cuban town nestled in the municipality of Campechuela, which is in turn situated in the province of Granma. The town had just 100 houses, Cespedes said, and one athletic field where he first learned how to play baseball before his mother sent him at age 10 to a baseball school 50 miles away.

“I didn’t have a lot of animals,” he said, “but I did grow up in an area where it was kind of farmland, open fields. We had two bulls … and we had a lot of land. We raised pigs and worked with farm animals.”

Whichever direction you walk here, you’ll find animals. When you pull into the property off a narrow road lined with orange trees, you see 10 cows, penned in to your right. Two British cur dogs, Ella and Lion, greet you upon arriving at the main house. Eventually, they will accompany Cespedes when he hunts boars, deer and turkey in Port St. Lucie. In all, Cespedes owns seven dogs.

Outside the main house sits a pond, which Cespedes keeps stocked for fishing.

Away from the house, crossing a footbridge over a second pond and walking through a stretch of open land, you reach the stable, where Cespedes houses 10 adult horses plus an ornery pony. Two other horses, one named Candy and the other with no name, roam free. They gained their 15 minutes of fame last year when Cespedes transported them to Mets camp for Syndergaard and other teammates to enjoy.

Two boars share their own pen. Cespedes grabbed yet another headline last spring when he purchased a pig at a local fair and sent it to the butcher.

In another cage, you’ll find two peacocks peacefully coexisting with eight turkeys. Yet another structure, a chicken coop, stands unoccupied.

“I built that last night,” Cespedes explained in English.

Ivan, a licensed contractor, does most of the building here, Cespedes said. Yet Cespedes has followed Ivan’s lead and taken up carpentry as another hobby. It took him, another cousin and a farmhand three hours to build the horse pen, Cespedes said.

“He’s an imitator,” Rodriguez said of Cespedes. “He can see something and imitate it better than anyone else.”

Speaking of off-the-field pursuits, the sporty cars are largely gone, sold off; there’s no sign of any here. Inside the main house, where Cespedes fed his guests a Cuban meal of pork ribs, yucca (a Cuban delicacy), rice and beans and avocado (but didn’t partake, as he’s dieting in preparation for the season), there exist no signs that the 31-year-old plays baseball for a living. You have to walk about 100 yards away to find a batting cage and weight equipment. More visible a field away is a shooting range; Cespedes keeps about 25 rifles and four handguns on the premises.

Extravagant the ranch is not. The main house features three bedrooms and two bathrooms. A guest house on the property has the same. Cespedes for sure enjoys putting his personal touch on items; his uniform number 52 can be found on all of his saddles, and there’s the neon string. These rank as dramatically understated compared to the gargantuan “52” medallion and designer clothes he wears to the ballpark. Or to the generally high-styling manner in which he performs at an All-Star level.

“He’s a very friendly human being,” said reliever Jerry Blevins, who has been Cespedes’ teammate first with the A’s and now with the Mets. “Easily approachable. Loyal as it comes. And that’s rare for a guy with his talent, to have a personality as friendly as that.

“It would be easy for him to be an unapproachable guy. And I wouldn’t hold it against him if he were because there’s a lot of expectations on his shoulders. I’m glad I don’t have to harness and wear that kind of burden, but he carries it with pride. He’s a fun guy.”

Cespedes’ success on the baseball field and enjoyment of ranch life have prompted him to purchase other land through his limited liability company, also named La Potencia. Last year, Cespedes bought nearly 4,000 acres in Port St. Lucie, about 10 minutes from the Mets’ complex, for $14.9 million, according to the realtor who arranged for the sale. The land holds approximately 300 cows, Cespedes said. More recently, he added a plot of land in Arkansas, too.

Cespedes doesn’t necessarily possess a clear game plan for all of these holdings. At the least, they represent interesting investments. And they symbolize his love of open spaces. Once the Mets break camp and begin the regular season, Cespedes will live on Long Island after spending his first two Mets seasons in Manhattan.

Being a Met, Cespedes said, “came to me like a ring to my finger. It just fit.” Who among us outsiders would’ve figured, when we first welcomed his shiny presence to the Big Apple, that a place as serene as this would be such a crucial part of that fit?

“This has been my whole life,” said Cespedes, appearing content as he surveyed his land, the Fortress of Solitude for the Mets’ Superman. Plenty of work, both here on the ranch and down in Port St. Lucie, remains. Cespedes looks ready, his mind and body right, for all of it.