Last night, I went into a friend's new 15,000 square feet house...

[Phentex]

I have to re-think the term friend even though I have known her for more than a decade through our book club. There are only an handful of things we have in common, one being that she and her husband are democrats. Other than that and a couple of other things, I feel like we are on different planets.

The place was exquisite. We were given a tour and everywhere you looked there was something really incredible. But it's hard to describe such a place because except for a few areas, I just could not shake the foreign feeling of WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE? There are things like islands and ladders in the closets (sounds kinky but you know what I mean!), a "wing" that consisted of the master bedroom, his and her closets and his and her bathrooms. That was one whole wing!

There is a theatre. No, not a media room...a theatre. There's a homework room, a rec room, a craft room, two guest suites, and many rooms without names I can remember. The room above the garage is finished with wood floors and I personally would use it as a skating rink (I WOULD SO HAVE THE DISCO BALL IN THAT ROOM!)

The outside is as magnificent with pool, basketball court, terraces, etc.

I can't feel jealousy because I don't understand it. But, wow, was it surreal to see up close.

[femmocrat]

1. Happy to hear about democrats who are living like republicans! LOL

Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there!

[Phentex]

2. I would have 25 dogs if I lived there!

I think my mouth was still hanging open this morning.

[femmocrat]

3. Yes, that would be a great place for a "retirement home" for shelter dogs.

Or we could take in some families of refugees!

[NewJeffCT]

4. I know some Democrats with pretty big homes as well

but, 15,000 square feet is a lot of room. I hope they at least have some energy efficiencies built into it - just heating, cooling and lighting that place is going to be a lot of money.

Where is this home, if I may ask? (Not the specific street, but state or area of a state)

[Phentex]

9. In Atlanta, Sandy Springs I think is the neighborhood...

My neighbor drove and we followed her gps. It was still inside the perimeter but we were definitely out of our element.

I have no idea about the efficiencies.

I only mentioned that they are Democrats because I was trying to think of what the hell else I might have in common with them.

[angstlessk]

5. If I was a gazzionair I would never have a 15,000 sf home

I would love nothing more than a 1,500 sf home (in Florida) which is easy to clean by ME

[Phentex]

10. Same here...

I don't begrudge others. I just don't understand the concept.

[SammyWinstonJack]

42. I live in a 34ft motorhome w/3 slides. I would upgrade to a fifth wheel w/5 slides on 5 acres

on the Oregon coast.

PARADISE for me.

[magical thyme]

50. I have ~1400 square feet

I actively use about half of it; the rest is storage for decades of accumulated stuff which I'm starting to sift through and get rid of. I didn't want a house that big; I bought it under a bit of duress.

I'm hoping to sell it and downsize to 700-900 sq feet. That's plenty big enough for me, my dogs, birds, plants and hobbies.

[angstlessk]

53. We are actually considering doing a 5th wheel and a trailer

light possisions

[hunter]

6. I'd be happy in a tiny house with a garden...

... or a van by the river.

Probably something like this:


http://indulgy.com/post/9LuXsamMa1/tiny-house-big-garden
http://tinyhouseblog.com/straw-bale/pedalpalooza-tour-of-southeast-portland-tiny-homes/

As a young guy (before modern crazy-meds) I've lived in my car in a church parking lot, and in a little shed in a PTSD Vietnam war veteran's backyard.

I'm a simple person, perhaps a little too simple.

If someone gave me a 15,000 square foot house I'd give it away to some charity as fast as I could. Otherwise I'd get in trouble with the neighbors because I figure at 100 square feet per person a lot of starving artists could live in a house like that...

Next thing you know, I'd be the reluctant leader of some kind of cult.

[Phentex]

11. One of the ladies looked around and said...

this is why I want to win the lottery. I was thinking I could never do it, not with a billion dollars. And I don't play the lottery so there's that.

[Snobblevitch]

20. There is likely a local ordinance limiting

the number of non-related people living in that single family home.

[hunter]

22. Are you concerned that someone like me will move into your neighborhood?

No worries, I couldn't live in a place like that.

I live in a place where big families sharing a house are common.

At some point we're all cousins and the elderly people in the house are great grandpas or grandmas, whether or not they ever had children themselves.

That's the norm of human history, it's not a mom and a dad and their minor children living alone in a monster house.

[Snobblevitch]

23. You misunderstood my post.

Most municipalities have ordinances limiting the number of NON-RELATED people living in a house in an area zoned for single-family housing.

[hunter]

24. Which is why many parts of the U.S.A. are so very, very dull.

I wouldn't go back to the well zoned highly regulated Ivory Soap 99 44/100 pure white affluent community I mostly grew up in for any amount of money in the world.

My parents actually fled as soon as they retired, leaving my youngest brother to take care of the place until he finished school.

Of course my brother kept the house filled with various lost and found people, which really wasn't much of a change from when we all lived there together as kids, remaining crazy grandparents at times included.

I think the stereotype of U.S. Americans living fearfully in their little castles, afraid that someone is going to take their "stuff" or lower their neighborhood property values is a good one.

[Snobblevitch]

26. Why are you telling me this?

Your life certainly seems to be much different from my own. I did not grow up affluent so I had no reason to flee (even though I now live 200 miles from the town in which I grew up).

My dad didn't retire until I was 35 years old, so I can't relate to being 'abandoned' in a house in an affluent community.

We were. Ever fearful in the home in which I grew up and my family can say the same.

You really seem to be projecting.

[hunter]

27. We were not affluent ourselves. We were engulfed by an affluent community.

Massive new development, with citrus groves and bean farms turned into "mini-ranches" with huge homes.

The gentrification of places like Oakland is a similar problem.

The lives of people already living in those communities are not improved; the people are simply displaced.

[Snobblevitch]

28. I'm still attempting to figure out why

I am getting this lecture from you. What's the deal?

[hunter]

30. You responded to MY comment, and the first thing you thought was...

... "there are laws against that!"

I still haven't figured out why that was your first thought, nor have you explained yourself.

[Snobblevitch]

31. You said something about opening up a 15 thousand

square foot house to the homeless and I simply pointed out the flaw in that idea. You then veered off into other subjects.

[hunter]

32. What's the flaw? Some laws suck.

[Snobblevitch]

33. The flaw exists because the law exists.

[LanternWaste]

49. Driving on the right being the worst.

Driving on the right being the worst.

[hedgehog]

7. That's a lot of house to keep clean.

[Phentex]

12. I cannot imagine...

I didn't ask but I assume there's a fleet of maids involved.

[underahedgerow]

14. Think of it as employing the locals. They have housekeepers, gardeners and maintenance

people; the heating and air conditioning people, plumbers, electricians, the pool guy, IT technicians, carpet cleaners, etc. (the bigger the house, the more likely stuff is to go wrong)

A house that big provides work for a lot of people!

Plus they pay a lot in local taxes compared to smaller homes.

It's all good.

[hunter]

25. Well sure, if these workers are paid comfortable wages, live in the same neighborhood...

... and send their kids to the same schools.

Otherwise, no, it's not a good thing and indicative of increasing disparities of wealth.

[underahedgerow]

34. Exactly, lets hope! There definitely are some very good private employers out there,

we only hear about the bad ones.

I've known a number of uber wealthy people who take very, very good care of their former domestic employees, it's much more common than you think.

For example, I know an incredibly wealthy woman whose former housekeeper of many years is now in a very nice, elegant retirement home, near her children, totally paid for by her employer. All medical bills and living expenses paid, and Madame visits her several times a year.

David Bowie just bestowed a million bucks on his son's former nanny... Some other friends of mine, the husband was raised on the estate his parents worked for, with housing provided on the estate. The son was raised with the same fine education as the children of their patron, went to the best University of his choice and was afforded many great luxuries alongside the family they worked for.

In Paris, the buildings created under the great restoration, the Hausemann buildings, were all designed with lodgings for the domestic staff on the top floors. Not fancy, but liveable. I've come across a number of ex-housekeepers who were elderly and retired, granted those apartments for life.

Maybe it's more common in Europe to treat domestic employees with compassion, dignity and respect. I've heard the horror stories the world over though!

[hunter]

38. Not quite what I meant, but it reminds me of a movie...

The Women on the 6th Floor (2010)
Les femmes du 6e étage (original title)

In 1960s Paris, a conservative couple's lives are turned upside down by two Spanish maids.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1805297/

The only tradespeople I ever hire are automobile mechanics, and only for things I don't have the tools or the patience to repair myself. I hate automobiles. I drive a mid 'eighties $800 car with over 300,000 miles on it. We've had it many years now, so I guess I know what I'm doing.

I tend my own garden, I cook my own food, I fix anything in my house that's broken, and I clean up my own messes.

One of my great grandfathers had a big house in San Francisco, before he lost most everything in the Great Depression. Before that my grandma grew up with household help, like Alice in the Brady Bunch and a Chinese laundryman who would pick up the dirty laundry a couple of times a week and return it all cleaned and ironed, putting it all neatly away.

My great grandfather's house is still there but it has been subdivided into small, very expensive apartments owned as an "investment property" and managed by a corporation.

For many philosophical reasons, I think the uber-wealthy, say the top 0.01%, ought to be taxed out of existence, their lifestyles becoming indistinguishable from the top one-in-10,000 wealthiest people.

[underahedgerow]

41. I hear what you're saying, but I don't have a big problem with wealthy people. Frankly

they employ a lot of people.

I will definitely look up that movie! Thank you!

One family I worked for holds several estates in England and Scotland. They used to own a major department store.

They have several yachts, a hotel in Paris, another historic estate in Paris owned by the city but rented by them for 100 years and they have to restore and care for the estate. They have an estate in the South of France, and several apartments in the nearby town for staff, free of charge.

Their homes in France all provide housing for a number of employees as do the estates in the North.

And they have houses and apartments in Switzerland, Belgium and Sweden that employ local people, but more often they bring domestic staff with them, all expenses paid and put up in hotels nearby.

They employ several hundred people, pay huge taxes across many countries and are very, very generous to their employees. Tough to work for, poorly managed in fact, but still incredibly generous and very nice people.

Then of course there are real dickheads, but they don't keep employees very long, but then again, that employs a lot of high end employment agencies. The music people are some of the toughest to work for. I turned down an estate management job with one of the biggest dickhead's out there because they had such a bad reputation, and my daughter made me swear I'd never work for the Kardashians.

I have stories and more stories about HNW people as they're my stock in trade, but most of them are good. I get to pick and choose who I work for these days and don't need to work for assholes. I'm very content right now managing the lovely estate of a nice russian/american family who don't pay me loads of money, but they're so darned nice and we all get along so well, it's worth the trade off. I have 3 other very high end luxury properties that are only occupied 2 weeks a year that are super easy; but pay well.

I like being around nice things, and I don't need to own them and I would rather pay people to fix what I can't handle. Rather like being in a museum I suppose. I'm just saving up for my own little stone cottage in the countryside to restore so I can have a half dozen deerhounds and a few rescue pooches. Maybe a couple goats. Chickens. A little pond.

With a housekeeper to come in a couple times a week!

[Doctor Who]

55. I second that...

I'm an electrician, a lot of my customers are well off and have large houses, ( Philadelphia suburbs area ) they are some of my best repeat customers, and they refer me to their wealthy friends. Seems like wealthy people never run out of stuff they want to do to their estates. Landscape lighting, whole house generators, adding a pool, pole barn. I had a customer that put a two lane bowling ally in when they finished their basement last year. Most of them are very nice. Give me the door key, tell me to lock up when I'm done, and to help myself to coffee or cold drinks in the fridge. And they do have a maid service of 2 or 3 girls that come once a week, and a pool guy, and landscaping crew in the summer. They also don't flinch when I give them the bill. I usually get a check in two or three days. Which is always nice.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

35. And keep track of the kids.

My neighbor's sister (we are close with the whole family) lives in a 15,000 square foot house in Fishers Indiana.

Grandma will not babysit the 5 kids there. Too many places to hide. Grandma live near by in her little 5,000 square foot house.

It's like staying in a hotel.

[Arugula Latte]

8. Those kinds of houses give me the creeps.

All I can think of is "massive waste of resources."

Also, we evolved finding shelter in caves and such. I don't think those airplane-hangar type of spaces are very comforting to live in.

[Phentex]

13. I hope I know her in ten years...

I would love to know how she feels about it when her kids are gone...if not sooner.

[gvstn]

15. That is just it.

Large spaces can be inspiring, such as museums. But in a house smaller rooms feel warmer and more comforting. I know someone that has a one story house with the usual 1500 sq. ft. or something but with high ceilings in the living room/kitchen area. I think that is a good layout. Bedrooms/dens are cozy but you have a nice airy place when you have company.

I see some of these McMansions and think that I couldn't even pay the heating/cooling bill and yet they probably only use about 3 rooms on a daily basis. Just seems like a waste.

[Arugula Latte]

19. Yes, we have a house that has one area with high ceilings and big windows.

It's the living room, and it's nice to have some openness and lots of natural light. We hang out there, read the paper, drink coffee, converse, etc. We also use every room of the rest of the house for working, sleeping, TV watching, reading, talking, cooking, eating, playing games, what have you. No wasted space.

[TexasBushwhacker]

16. I've never understood the obsession with square footage

Give me a small nice house any day.

[ailsagirl]

18. Nor I

[Populist_Prole]

48. I know what you mean. It's almost pathological

I've worked with my co-workers/peers for 20+ years and seen them ( as well as myself ) go from single renters to married renters to homeowners to homeowners with kids. There was always the crowd who had to have the biggest damn house they could "afford". "Afford" meaning least amount of money down and BIG payments and an absolute requirement to work at least 2 extra shifts of overtime a week to swing it. I distinctly remember hearing phrases like "there's no way I could live in something with less than 4000 square feet" or "I gotta have a place bigger than my brother's". Tacky/gaudy/pretentious looking ( IMO ) big-ass McMansions. A person could go broke just buying freakin' window blinds for a house like that.

Another stupid big-ism is an obsession with massive pick-up trucks as daily suburban drivers. Just had a guy say because gas prices are going down he's selling his car and wants to buy "a big ole truck". We were offering suugestions and he was so fixated on size. He kept saying "biiiiig" in a drawn out way. It's crazy now. You literally need a step ladder to check the engine oil or even reach up to close the hood. But- it looks imposing and intimidating in a motorist's rearview mirror.

[Xipe Totec]

17. Sounds like my sister's house

Including the theatre.

Except for the Democrat thing.

[Laffy Kat]

21. I have a friend like that..

Lives in a "Parade of Homes" home. The thing I like though, was the first time she showed me around it was a mess. They had a home theater with popcorn all over the floor, and dishes in the sink, beds unmade, clothes on the floor and she never apologized or said, "The place is a mess" or anything. She just showed me around like it's always like that (and really it is). It made me feel immediately comfortable and I bonded with her immediately.

[Wolf Frankula]

29. Is He a Green who Thinks that OTHER PEOPLE SHOULD USE LESS?

Then say 'good bye' and go to Argentina for the winter.

Wolf

[hopemountain]

36. one of my sister's pines for

such extravagance, "what for?" i ask - and all the money it takes to maintain such grandeur, much less the time to manage or run a home this size: housekeepers, gardeners, pool people, etc..
i have another sister who does have all of this and she has become so aloof and compartmentalized - the stress of this lifestyle can only be kept "on" for so long.

[onethatcares]

37. cn we say

"Papa John"?

[DFW]

39. Hey, whatever floats their boat

If they earned their money honestly, and have enough after taxes to maintain that kind of life, it's not my place to tell them they're wrong.

Not my, style, but I don't have that kind of money anyway, and even if I did, my wife would leave me if I forced her to live in a house so big, it would need "you are here" maps in every room for visitors.

[milestogo]

40. Think of the power bill.

[DebJ]

43. What I think of is the power WASTED.... resources WASTED...

I live in an older 1950s neighborhood comprised of smallish brick homes on lots varying from 1/3 acre to about 3/4 acre. Mine is the 'baby' of the neighborhood at only 1200 sq ft. There was one small empty lot on the street...it seemed too small to even put a house on, more like a lot you see in the new 'higher end' neighborhoods where it's all house and a few square feet of green. Someone had bought it about 15 years ago, and was planning to build on it. That empty lot, unfortunately, was right next to my lot/house.

They did build on it, about 5 years ago. It is ridiculously large. I actually measured the square feet of it when the basement was first poured out and settling, but I forget now how big. Suffice it to say you could quite easily put four one bedroom apartments into it.... and the garage could easily make two 1 bedroom apartments as well.

This gargantuan home holds all of two people. No pets, not even a gold fish, no children. The amount of energy these two people suck up to keep cooled and heated all of that square footage makes me ill to think of. And because they (and many others like them elsewhere on the planet) are sucking up such huge quantities of natural resources, that drives prices up for the rest of us.

I'm not saying people should live in tiny houses, or even in homes as small as mine (I'm glad mine isn't any bigger, and the older I get, the MORE happy I am about that...to much to clean). But this is just ridiculous, and our planet just can't sustain this type of waste in terms of resources and pollution.

Also, because the ratio of house to lot is something like 3/1, he created a tremendous water run off problem. Some of that water runs down the street in a huge 3-4ft wide swath with every rain (either it pours around here as if there is a hurricane, or it doesn't rain at all...gentle rains are very rare here), and in the winter, that makes a 3-4ft swath of solid ice across our driveway for weeks on end. In the back (the lots slope uphill in the back), he regraded his lawn so that all that excess water pours onto my lot...and I haven't the time nor money to sue him. I did call him about it, he laughed and told me to take it up with the contractor who regraded the lawn (the contractor, of course, merely said he had done nothing of the sort...when for 40 years prior, this home had no problem, until the month after it was regraded, and you could easily see small rivers of water flowing directly and swiftly with tons of water right onto our lot with every rain). So along our property border, I dug a small channel and used that soil to create a small 4-6inch ridge between our properties...our basement was being regularly flooded.... he was irritated and said some of that soil I dug up might have fallen on his property line. No kidding, he was irritated over a few crumbs of soil. And he literally laughed in our faces about the flooded basement and our losses.

To me, his large house, and his attitude, scream I love me, I love me, I'm wild about myself. And he hates the environment. He moved into a neighborhood full of graceful trees well over 100 years old, lots of bushes, privacy, quiet, and built a home that belongs in those cold looking newer neighborhoods where it is all house or pavement, with a square splotch of lawn you can cut with a weed-whacker. The first thing he did when he moved in, was to go around the perimeter of his lot, and cut every branch up to two stories high off of the ancient 4-5 story spruce and pines that border and privatize the lots (ours, and another neighbors). First he did HIS side of the property, then, when we left town for a funeral for a few days, he came onto our side of the property, and did the same on OUR side, removing all privacy...the reason we had bought the home, to have a private, quiet, and green back yard. He also hacked away flowering azalea bushes that were a good 6ft into our lot and away from the property border. I filed a police report, and he literally laughed about what he had done. Burbled something about this was his 'dream'... to invade MY lot? Those branches and that privacy are now gone forever. He griped about the pine needles, and I told him that well, you bought this lot 15 years ago, and these trees have been here over 100 years...you knew they were there... and you expanded the size of your home to be all but under them...why didn't you buy a different lot? Seriously, this man and his wife need to live in a city... a city with no trees or bushes or greenery....rather than destroying the rest of the planet.

When I see big houses, I see environmental destruction and waste of resources, and the impact on ALL of us because of that.

I'm hoping this summer to plant a lot of viney-type things on our lot border to block out his ugly and hateful attitude.

[Phentex]

47. You know what?

I think there are people who DO hate the environment! We have had some of those anxious tree & shrub choppers who can't stand anything green other than a flat lawn.

[narnian60]

44. Homework room???

Come on.

[Phentex]

46. I've seen them on tv...

There's a show called Fixer Upper where they remodel an outdated home each episode. The homework room has been an extra usually with either little desks or counter tops and chairs with separate cubbies for book bags and such.

This one was cute but she admitted the kids would probably never use it. There was an L-shaped counter along the walls, a rolling chair for each kid and cork boards on the wall making it seem like a desk for each.

[LanternWaste]

51. To be honest, I have a game room in my two-bedroom apartment.

To be honest, I have a game room in my two-bedroom apartment. Fundamentally, it's just as much a waste-- if not more, as I'm merely playing rather than studying.

[Sanity Claws]

45. I agree with you -- I don't get this kind of thing either

The bigger the house, the more to clean and take care of. I guess I think that way because I would be responsible for cleaning, decorating, organizing the house.
With a house so big, you wouldn't even use most of it. You'd probably end up focused on a couple of rooms, like the kitchen and bedroom, and not even enter other parts of the house for weeks at a time. What a waste of resources!

[valerief]

52. Sounds like someone is compensating for something lacking.

[IrishEyes]

54. That is way too much house for me.

I would feel lost and empty in a house that big. Was there a library? That is something I would like in my dream house. I just want two bedrooms, a library, a kitchen with a breakfast nook, a living room and a bathroom. Maybe two bathrooms. I would also like a small garden and a front porch.