Sunday, June 18, 2000
Homearama features big mortgages, small yards
I went to Homearama this week. I always go to Homearama. I love the wretched excess. I love the people walking around finding flaws in the fairy-tale houses.
I love it when someone working at a house, usually a builder or a real estate agent, asks me, “Picking up any ideas?”
Oh, yeah. A few hours at Lowe's and a weekend with my hammer, and my place is the Biltmore.
It used to be, the houses at Homearama went for reasonably outrageous prices, such as $450,000. You could dream of that without laughing hysterically. If I hit a number, sell a screenplay to Universal, find $400,000 in small, unmarked bills in the backyard ...
This year, Homearama should have been sponsored by the Sultan of Brunei. That $450,000 of a few years ago wouldn't get the maid's quarters. Excuse me, the “lower-level, multipurpose entertainment venue.”
One house, the Glen Ellen, has a 15-foot-by-30 foot “sitting room” in the master suite. The ceiling is 12 feet high. If you don't feel like sitting, you can play three-on-three fullcourt.
All the houses have names. If you're spending a mil or more on a house, you deserve as much. Provence, Avenel, the Analiese. Avignon de Maison (cost: beaucoup moolah), Monet's Paint Box (huh?) and my favorite, Leonardo's Sedan. I'm sorry. But if you're going to ask $1 million or so for a house, shouldn't it be titled something grander than a sedan? Why didn't they just call it Leonardo's Pacer?
Of course, if the electrical system shorts or the house doesn't start in January, you can always call the Consumer Protection Agency and invoke the lemon law.
But anybody can name his house. I call mine the Kramden.
“Welcome to the Kramden.” I can hear myself now. “Built by somebody with a sick sense of humor a long time ago, this gracious home welcomes visitors with timeless features such as termites, water stains and a crumbling foundation.
“Creatively designed to mimic the workaday struggles of the quintessential American Dreamer, the Kramden envelops you in the simple pleasures of leaky faucets, groaning floorboards and the occasional, welcoming mouse. The Kramden's 2,000 square feet of character sell for whatever a sucker wants to pay.”
The showstopper at Homearama is the Copperstone, a 15,000-square-foot, $2.2 million cottage that is already sold. I'm not going to say the Copperstone is large. But to get from the “pub room” to the “children's computer center,” I called a cab. Anytime I sleep in something this big, I get Marriott points.
There is enough cherry wood in this house to have wiped out an entire orchard in Michigan. There is a computerized media center, exercise room, large “formal” veranda and a swimming pool.
The Copperstone has closets the size of the Yukon. All these houses do. I walk into these closets and ask where the men's department is.
But here's what I don't get about Homearama: Why would anyone want a 15,000-square-foot house on a half-acre lot? It's like sailing the QE2 on the Litte Miami.
The bathrooms have tubs big enough to backstroke in. But the windows above the tubs usually look into the side yard of the guy next door.
If I had $2 million to put into the Kramden, I'd want a lot the size of Yosemite. I'd put my double, sunken, marble, jacuzzi-whipped tub in a corner of the house where Ralph Next Door can't see me pouring the bubble bath while he's weed-whacking.
You with me?
If I had $2 million to spend on a domicile, I'd buy a place on the ocean or in the mountains. If I had $2 million, I'd quit work and consult builders on what to name their Homearama homes.
But I don't. I'll be back in this neighborhood, though. Call me for the garage sale.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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