Tasteful friends, what are your thoughts on this chateau?

The balconies in the foyer!!! OMG, make it stop!!!

Those smokestacks are absurd.

This old thing? My great granddaddy was the inventor of the zambonie! I don’t normally splash money like this but hey a girl’a gotta live a little. And they thought driving a 30 year old Volvo meant I was poor! Well I showed them!

The whole place looks like a cheap chain restaurant.

Oddly symmetrical. When I was a kid a played with legos, I remember I would build things in a similar fashion, and now I see how weird it can look in real life.

I quite like it. The pond in back ... it doesn't have to go, but put in a filter or something and combine the two ponds.

I'd change some light fixtures. Get rid of the sauna (does anyone really use those? It is like a hot tub, sounds nice in theory).

It was as horrific inside as I knew it was going to be from looking at the outside.

AND it looks cheap. AND tacky as hell.

“What’s the inspiration here?” “Banquet hall meets nursing home meets country club!”

Ees so refined. Maybe I buy vith divorce settlement.

R1, yeah those balconies in the foyer are just weird. And complete with table/ chair sets too.

Overall I dont hate it, but it is just unnecessarily big, and somewhat bland inside, needs more colour. And get rid of those frigging can lights everywhere, really cheapen it. And the hideous grey leather sofa thing in one of the living rooms on pics 76-78, that can go.

I do like the dining room in pics 83-86, that's nice, if they'd done the rest of the house as well it would have been much better

Garden is kinda underwhelming, its like they laid grass and the ponds and said fuckit, call it a day

Excessive.

It looks like someone with little taste ran out of money.

Early aughts with 1990's flair.

I'd like to know the story behind the owner.

It looks like a giant beige suburban house that took multiple doses of steroids. Horrible scale and proportion.

The McMansion that ate all the other McMansions.

For R11

"Welcome to BonanzaTown North, Greater Peoria's favorite casino, spa and bingo hall. Join us Tuesdays in the Grand Hall for a $7.99 barbeque platter with the purchase of a ten card rainbow bingo package!"

R13 very Baymont chic!

The tiny balconies with the tiny tables and chairs overlooking that cheap, woody, foyer were hilarious.

"Let's pretend we live in the world's most boring bistro!"

The interior is like that of a tract home, not a mansion. Builders' grade finishes, mostly pulled from the Home Depot clearance section it appears.

It's a huge showy McMansion made of posterboard and spackle, adjacent to a muddy mosquito breeding ground.

It really looks like its original purpose was a hotel/rest home thingy. Lose the fountain in front of that Obvious hotel entrance. I like the short bridge to the little island, but would never sit there because it looks like that pond stinks to high heaven. Other than that, wouldn't take it as a gift!!

If I had that kind of money to throw around, I would not live in Clifton. You're still half an hour from DC on a day with no traffic; which is like .01% of the time here. It's a pretty enough area, but there is nothing to do. Clifton itself has a mini strip with one country store and a couple restaurants.

Clifton only has a population of 282 while being surrounded by suburban NOVA sprawl. I’m wondering how that is even possible.

The wife is a director of the United Way. That's where the money came from.

Does anyone not find the small door at the top of the staircases in the grand foyer a strange design? Typically grand enterences lead to an airy upper level or balcony.

Why do people desire murky, brown, muddy ponds? Don’t they attract mosquitos? I’ve never seen the appeal of these type of ponds.

Oak paneling? Hideous in every respect.

R23 here in Virginia those are called fire ponds. If you have a house in the country and it catches fire, you’ll need plenty of water, with no hydrants around. The FD can siphon water out of the pond to help fight the fire.

looks like it came out of the ole PTL Club's Heritage Village of Jim and Tammy Faye fame.

Smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty...

[quote]here in Virginia those are called fire ponds. If you have a house in the country and it catches fire, you’ll need plenty of water, with no hydrants around. The FD can siphon water out of the pond to help fight the fire.

I would drain those fire ponds immediately. With a house like that, fire is your only friend. Take the insurance money and build something nice.

As I'm going through the pics, after the endless pics of the outside, I braced myself for a truly hideous inside. It did not disappoint.

It's a teardown.

R13 thank you for the link!

Needs more windows.

Are the Falwell Juniors selling their Xtian palace as part of the divorce?

The guest house looks charming. But where is the main house?

Do they pay somebody to shit in those ponds to keep the water that color?

I mean, for the right price I'd do it.

A fire pond? Learn something new every day I guess. To me, it would be mosquito central for 6 months of the year, making that basic Home Depot outside furniture absolutely useless and making you a hostage in your own home.

The outside entrance is a 2 star hotel - you wonder where the cigarette stand and bench is for the guests. Be sure to make room for the hotel shuttle van!

Inside, I'm looking for the free breakfast buffet.

I hate to see money badly spent - they could really just have taken the money they spent and light it on fire.

Last comment - wouldn't you be embarrassed as HELL to have anyone over if you can't afford to make the interior match the exterior? The comments from their holiday party guests and other hosted events must have been vicious as fuck. Or maybe bland, white, straight people don't care and love it.

Hideous. And it is the first time in my life I have seen a pond that I did not like and want to have myself. I had to stop looking after 30 pics. Who the FUCK wants to look at 90 pics of trash?

The most glaring issue is the cheapness of materials. That foyer! Cheap wood and painted white spindles. Everything is basically a tract house McMansion but supersized.

Who are these people with $10 million who choose to live like this? I guess it really is ALL about size for them - 15,000 square feet PLUS 12,000 unfinished. Why?!? 1/3 the house - with finishes that were 3x as expensive - would be too big for most but would be somewhat more logical.

R38 - I missed that - there's 12,000 unfinished square feet? WTF?

They really did run out of money if they've been living there since 2000 and have been trying to sell it for 8 years. I notice only a woman's clothes in the pics - and they're low heels and, of course, some 'riding boots'.

No pics of the owners - Ron and Cheryl Hubbard. But their names alone says a lot about them - no, not THAT L. Ron Hubbard.

Dear God, that place is hideous in every respect; I couldn't even stand to get through all the pictures. It looks like what the Beverly Hillbillies would have slapped together in three months with the proceeds from their first oil well.

It's aggressively tasteless, but as the earlier Tasteful friends thread about Valery Kogan's monstrosities demonstrated, that's not the same as looking this cheap.

Not only is every single fixture and finish in the house dirt cheap, but there is a disastrous design flaw everywhere you look: those rectangular cabinets/ walls sticking their corners into the curving staircase in the hall (pic 27), those sharp marble corners on the raised fireplace hearths that are guaranteed to cause serious injury to anyone walking past (pix 34 & 48), the random assortment of window shapes.

If ever we needed a grease fire...

Not enough outdoor lighting.

There's just so.....so MUCH of it.

R26, love the PTL Village reference...so true! My favourite detail was the plants in the hanging plastic baskets that are just sitting in the stone ledges of the "2-star hotel entrance," as a poster above put it. And then the window box plants sitting on the benches around the fountains. No class at all, but the interior balconies in the foyer proved that. Yet another PTL/Heritage USA Grand Hotel detail that Jim & Tammy Faye would've loved!

All the floors are steel bar and mesh reinforced concrete and have radiant heating from “three geo-thermal fields that heat and cool the house” (whatever that is). The roof rainwater run-off empties into the ponds. Built for multi-generational living. Owner is an architect and was the general contractor.

There are three kitchenettes and two full kitchens (one in the apartment) plus the plumbing and wiring to accommodate two more full kitchens. All the ceilings are either 10’ or 12’ high. Five fireplaces but was built to accommodate 13. Indoor pool and 4-hole golf course.

"We thought we would live here forever," Cheryl said. "We didn't think about maintenance and taxes and being so tied to the house."

That’s not a chateau, it’s just a an ugly McMansion.

Terrible design.

I won't fault a house for being too big, and I won't fault it for being grand if it's done well, but I will fault it for bad architecture, ugliness, and the stupidity of architect and client.

It's the dream house of a defense contractor who offered someone a big kickback, or maybe a few.

The porte-cochere is so refined, I wonder which off the Loire Valley chateaux inspired it?

*of (obviously)

I would move the hot tub to the foyer and add a chandelier. And I'd remove the two little tables on the balconies and install fountains that shoot water across the landing to the other side. And I'd add colored lights to the fountain out front and the two new balcony fountains.

It would make an ok bed and breakfast.

It would be nice if they finished it out as a nice upscale assisted living facility.

Those red umbrella table sets look like they belong behind Pizza Hut.

Those balconies in the foyer are perfect for gentlemen callers to pick out their lady of the evening who can seductively lounge at the bistro tables of the La Chateau whorehouse.

Perfect for the dormer fetishist.

I could write a sitcom based on that house, the opening scene each week would start with two people one each on the foyer balconies having a conversation yelling across the foyer while they drank their morning coffee.

Reminds me of the Opryland hotel

R55 - I like the idea - like the intro to 227. Just have people open the door, acknowledge the camera, wave and then lean on the railing while tilting their head to the side.

Featuring Jackee Harry...

"Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Bloom!"

Buy for the land, tear down the ugly, grossly large chateau, and build other beautiful structures instead. Maybe a bunch of well-spaced cottages or modest homes. Turn the property into a community of friends who share expenses and upkeep, like perhaps an Elder Gay Retirement Community, (but Mike from Palm Springs is definitely not allowed.)

It’s making a statement. That statement is “kill me with fire.”

Chateau? That's a gaudy faux French mansion. Everything about it looks cheap. And those ridiculous chimneys are scandalous. I can guarantee you if it went more than 2 years without someone living in and maintaining it the ceilings would start falling in.

Vile.

It's near Manassas which is relatively trashy. Clifton sounds like a horse country wannabe place. If they had real money they would have gone further North to Loudon or Facquier County where a house that looked like this would have made them lepers. The real money in the DC area on this side of the Potomac tends to live further North or in the horse country that's further out.

Clearly they ran out of money and had no idea what they were doing. The smart people are the kid and her family who live there, if it's rent free. Even a mini-mansion would be more practical.

Chateau in the USA?

Aren't they mutually exclusive?

The title of this should be, "Dormer Hell in a Hand-basket"

It was sold in 1987 for $35,000? How do you ask for $12,500,000 in 2012? Did they find a diamond mine on the property?

Does anyone know what this is really worth? If it’s been sitting around forever, is it possible it’s only worth closer to 1 or two million?

That would be devastating.

At this point, the could cut their losses, or they could turn it into some type of corporate retreat or rent it out to a church or a property management company.

Reminds me of the inside balconies on a cruise ship, which is weird because I have never been on a cruise ship.

[quote] It was sold in 1987 for $35,000? How do you ask for $12,500,000 in 2012? Did they find a diamond mine on the property?

I doubt that house is 33 years old, that was probably the lot.

The links don’t work for me.

R66, the house was built in 2000. The lot was probably bare when it was sold in 1987.

Garbage.

You can buy a real Chateaux in France for half the price!

Clifton? Bwahahahahaha.

{quote] It was sold in 1987 for $35,000? How do you ask for $12,500,000 in 2012? Did they find a diamond mine on the property?

LOL! That has to be the purchase of the land It's not a very desirable acreage even now.

It's so typically trashy and cheap looking. No real art if you'll notice. Oh, unless it's all in the vault. LOL!

Anyone else bothered by the paneled glass door directly behind the diving board? I’m not a swimmer, but have vivid childhood memories of kids roughhousing while waiting in line for the diving board at our neighborhood pool.

Thanks for the poster who educated me on fire ponds. I had never heard of them before. But for $6 million bucks, I want my fire pond to be pretty. Couldn’t the water from an in ground pool be used for the same purpose? I’d rather look out onto a pool rather than a brown, murky pond.

I bet Helga's head and knees will absolutely explode from all the plastic trees she'll have to get down and drag out of the way to scrub up all the dirt I'll hate in all those wonderfully plentiful rooms--if she wants me to continue to retain her!

I’m the fire pond poster. Those ponds are still often seen next to old farm houses out in the country. The pond may be a holdover from a previous house. A pool would certainly work just as well.

The photos of the hideous interior were broken up by pictures of dinky little bathrooms with the cheapest, ugliest fixtures they could buy at Lowe's. It gave me a good chuckle.

Definitely purchase of the land, R74, the house wasn't built until 2000.

Could be converted to a Radisson or a conference center easily!

Where did this “architect” get his education?

What kind of house do u have if you have 100 billion? That is nsane amount if money.

What is it?

The exterior was hideous at night, then the daylight shots began - and I had to stop. Hideous! I haven't even gone inside yet.

Will someone hold me before I begin my tour of the interior?

This is what happens when the Home Depot kitchen designer colabs with the designers from MOR & Costco..........

It pains me more than I can say,

The lack of taste that they display!

Where is style?

Where is skill?

Where is forethought?

Where's discretion of the heart?

Where's passion in the art?

Where's craft?

With a smile

And a will

But with more thought,

I acquired a chateau

Extravagantly overstaffed.

Shithole.

Were those little table/chair sets on the balconies bought from a defunct American Girl® Bistro ?

[quote]Clifton? Bwahahahahaha.

That bad? Why?

But it’s in Virginia...

The interiors could be much worse - but the bistro on the second floor is darling.

From the link above about the owners:

"Ron, president of the architectural consulting firm, C+H Associates, Inc., is an architect who specializes in non-residential design, particularly...hospitals."

And further on:

One of the most striking rooms is the formal living room, which the couple calls "the Egyptian Room."

"When we were in Egypt looking for furniture, I walked past a room and it caught my eye," said Cheryl. "I told Ron 'This is perfect, this is it.'"

I assume Cheryl means Egypt, West Virginia...

The placement of the TV in this room is sheer genius...

"And there is so much room to park the wheelchairs during the "The Price Is Right"."

I wonder if any of these pieces came from Egypt?

There's such an obnoxious clash of styles in each room, it's painful.

And WTF is with the big huge windows in the showers?

The back yard just looks like it's missing an in-ground pool to me.

Everything about this seems like it's all done to just random scales, all of them the wrong scale.

Said Cheryl,

"We were just so tired of libraries with all those dusty books."

"I said to Ron, 'We must build a library for those who DON'T READ, and I think we did it."

I hate literally everything about this property. Terrible feng shui.

"We had intended the third floor for the slaves...I mean 'servants," says Cheryl wistfully.

Where is the "Live, Laugh, Love" sign?

Where is the Shiplap?

How dare they call this a "home"!

The Stairway to...Nowhere

Would it be possible for our son to pull a single-wide in here?

Seriously, R1 & R100. Very bizarre, yet none of it has a modicum of character. Also: the rest of it is just cookie-cutter McMansion bullshit. That whirlpool tub is weird, also.

Was this built by an uneducated lottery winner with no taste or worldly experience? It reeks of that.

I wonder why they don't credit their Interior Decorator?

R100 that’s just painful

Ornate and austere at the same time.

The architect must have been fucking insane. Those dormer windows--the place looks nightmarish.

A little googling shows that people were laughing at this place on line back in 2012 when they first put it on the market after realizing maintenance on this dump was killing them. Hubby seems to market himself on LinkedIn as a consultant to federal lobbyists to beef up their presentations. Wifey seems to sell frau multilevel marketing products. I'm thinking one or the other inherited some money around 2000 and felt a need to show off with no taste, no understanding of home maintenance (you'd need a full time staff just to keep that place clean), and never having read the story of MC Hammer.

[quote]the house wasn't built until 2000.

But it looks like it was built in 1980.

why do people do this? If you want to live in an apartment building, just build one? The rooms need to be larger with a living area and kitchenette (of course a bathroom.)

I decided that was an exercise room, R93, but only because of the windows. Otherwise it looks like the event room in a community center.

I'm not sure that some of the furniture in r96's photo isn't the kind you put together yourself.

indoor balconies? WTF? This is not a thing.

[quote]It's so typically trashy and cheap looking. No real art if you'll notice. Oh, unless it's all in the vault.

R34, so typical of DC where for decades it's been easy to find $1M+ houses hung with metal framed posters from the owners' college dorm days. It's the legacy of a town built on the first generation to go away to college and get a degree and leave their little shit towns for capital that's always been short on sophistication.

People will spend a fortune on a house but furnish it, barely, with the most common shit, unaware they that they could do better.

Framed versions of this sort of thing used to be commonplace in (architecturally) handsome Federal houses in Georgetown.

These people spend all that money and still cannot get it right

You need a fulltime staff of about ten people to keep such a house from falling into ruin: about six cleaners, two technical/maintenance guys and two gardeners. And then there’s the energy bill, property taxes, pest control, ... how can people be that rich and yet so out of touch with everyday, common sense economics?

Question for those who are knowledgeable about domestic architecture. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rich Americans built houses that were attractive and solid, with informed ornamental details and good materials and craftsmanship. I'm not just talking about the Vanderbilts and Fricks et al.; you can still see the results along the main streets of every little upstate town. What happened? Rich people are at least as rich now, even accounting for inflation, and we have if anything even better access to the skills and supplies. Why are rich people like this couple satisfied to build in a perfunctory, formulaic style out of lightweight, second-rate materials?

R116, I think a lot of it has to do with most people who build new construction homes trying to think ahead to reselling it. Even though the couple who built this house allegedly claimed they'd "live there forever," it sounds like they were already in their mid-to-late 50s when they built it. So at some point sooner rather than later, they knew it would have to be sold. People are overall afraid to make anything "too personal," and so they don't even really try and end up just keeping things rather basic. The most people will do is a nice, custom, wrought iron bannister up the stairs. Everything else is usually ho-hum...no scrollwork, nice tile, or elegant crown mouldings. People like my parents--who've lived in the same house since they got married in 1977--are few and far between these days

Also, people are really cheap now. They don't want to spend extra on custom shit. Especially those with money.

yes this is insane

Are all these bizarre fireplace designs "egyptian" ? What are in the marble tile boxes underneath each fireplace? mummies?

David Easton who passed away recently spoke of such changes R116

“Albemarle was what put him on the map. It’s what got him into that class of designers,” says Gauche. “Back then, we had the luxury of people not being in a rush, homes could take five years to finish, and now people don’t want to take that long, and the younger clients come in and that is not what they want. Give me modern, give me glass, and give me steel.”

It's perfect. If you are a Disney princess. Also, never saw a muddier water than in those two ponds

[quote]Give me modern, give me glass, and give me steel

But these crappy houses aren't really of the "modern, glass, and steel" type; they're in a very basic traditional style that looks like a stage set for a tv show. Along with willingness to spend time on building the house, people seem to have lost a feel for style and taste.

They are bad because the buyers don't care there have been no talented well-educated architects and interior designers involved. Not to mention garden designers. Which would more than double the price of the house, or halve the size of the house.

Yu could easily halve the size of this house (which is half unfinished anyway). Even quarter it, and still have a roomy mansion. I don't get putting size ahead of quality.

R121, thanks greatly for that link. I'd heard of David Easton, but didn't know much about him. He sounds like he was a lot of fun, in addition to being very knowledgeable. I'll link another interview from him he gave back in 2007..they republished it on 11/06/20 after his death. Any NY Social Diary interview that concludes with him pondering the opening of a basement sex shop is gold in my book. (Also some great pics on here of his NYC apartment at the time...his arranging of the furniture is epic.)

Yes, it looks like a repurposed Holiday Inn

I’m always amazed at how much money and good materials are wasted on hideous homes. It’s really tragic.

Another stunning admission from the owners - they wanted it to be a multi-generational home.

So basically, they tried to justify this monstrosity by thinking their two daughters and their families would stay with them forever and their spouses and kids would stay with them. Shockingly, it didn't turn out that way.

That's a level of stupid and wishful thinking / creepy control that I can't wrap my head around.

This is one of the best Tasteful Friends ever. The standard hideous dated colorful mismatched $500k Indiana house is at least entertaining and makes an effort. This is just a disaster - because clearly the people tried and spent a ton of money - but the complete absence of taste or style mixed with a prototypical McMansion design scheme buried in faux-Chateau wrapping is a feast for DL critiques. Bravo OP.

It's BUTT UGLY.

It's awful! The entrance looks like it would have automatic sliding doors, like the entrance to a Days Inn, which it resembles. I hate the color of the wood and the big, plain rooms. The interior hallway looks like a mall, and the rooms look like a Bed, Bath & Beyond catalog.

[5825 Doyle Rd, Clifton, VA, 20124 ]

Just making sure the address is here, so people googling the property don't miss our reviews, and understand the humiliation they'll be inviting if they buy the dump.

I think it's the epitome of elegance, class, sophistication and good taste. However, gold inlaying in every door and plastic plants sprayed with glitter, would take it to the next level!

It looks like a mini-Versailles!

I just googled the address, R133, and I was surprised at how close the neighbors' houses are on either side—I hadn't realized it was essentially tract housing.

Architect was Slovene-American Melania Knavs-Knauss. Bet the owners are glad the hired a pro.

Good observations, R116, and agreed, it's difficult to understand. Why not build in materials of permanece and quality? Why not invest in excellence of design specific to the client? Why not impress with these things rather than expend great sums on building components and systems with anticipated life expectancy of 10-, 15-, 20-, 30-years? On designs that seem at once conservative and dated before they are completed?

The desire for the appearance of easy living with open-plan and indoor spaces that flow into outdoor spaces; the breakdown of traditional spatial zones (public/entertaining/group activity spaces, private bedrooms and studies and personal spaces, working spaces like kitchens, and service areas for the non-family nannies and.cooks and gardeners and such)... these things.make a hash out of the expectations for a facade like this Virginia travesty. Inside it's just amorphic spaces flowing into others, and elsewhere bedroom suites one after another. Even one-bedroom luxury houses are designed with retreat bedroom suites - but retreat from whom?

In most time periods and styles of the past you can find, say, a formulaic English Georgian country house of no particular distinction, or a big Colonial Revival house with no architectural reach or achievement but they were never on the kind of numbers we see today; most made some effort beyond sheer size and height of the entrance hall.

I think people lost a vision of what a house is, from its basic to most elaborate expression. Certainly they list the vocabulary to describe what they want in a house. They end up with cartoonish enlargements of some child's drawing of a house. If they have taken a couple of trips, maybe it's "Tuscan villa" or "French chateau," it the ever popular "luxury spa resort boutique hotel."

This looks like the Food Court..

so is that the Lane Bryant at the top of the stairs

Does it have an elevator? Because those Lane Bryant heifers ain't gonna be climbin' no stairs.

R140 I’m more of a Limited girl myself!

R140 yes. Yes it does.

[quote] Does it have an elevator?

Yes and all the door ways fit a wheelchair they said so they could live their in their old age.

Here's a picture of the Dining Room - it's painted Burgundy

and let's just say these furnishings aren't priceless Egyptian antiquities either

Google says this address is associated with...

The Africa Development Organization Foundation, Inc. and

the WESTERN AFRICA DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION LLC

exactly what sort of "charities" are they running here?

Apparently there's an apartment over the garage that rents for $2,100 per month...

(which may or may not include some household chores...)

This video shows what appear to be offices either on the third floor or in one of the wings over the front garages....

with rows and rows and old-fashioned metal filing cabinets...

what exactly IS going on here?

R145, you made me curious. Here’s a link to the “West Africa Development Organization”, based at this address.

This looks like a front for something. Ronald J. Hubbard has a long history of experience working with the Army on all sorts of things.

The bathrooms are oddly small and unimpressive for something that size.

If you watch the video, try and count the ceiling fans. There were THREE in the family room. TWO in the master bedroom.

I stopped counting at 23.

That African Development Development sounds like a bogus organization for him to get contracts through US government for Western Africa. Instead of going to actual Western African companies..

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the horrors of northern Virginia. From Great Falls to Vienna and out to Leesburg this sort of pile of bricks is all too common. This is what happens when you have lobbyists and government contractors as the upper crust in society. Whenever I go for a little spin in the country, I see another carbuncle on the landscape. I’ve been inside a few, too. They are usually empty with a few select pieces of furniture from Big Lots in their echoing chambers.

This looks so cheap!!! Are they fucking kidding?! It's Home Depot gilding. What is the price per square foot in VA?? Ok, so let's assume becaus it's in Virginia a big $350 a s/f construction cost. That's 4.5m. Are you telling me the land is worth $1.5m. I see 5 acres for $599k in that area. ROFLMAO. Good luck to the brocker.

I remember as a child that there was a “roughneck” bar called the Pig n’ Chik on the corner of the road that you turned off of Route 29 to go to Clifton. Not that she had to be told, but my dad would tell my mother “don’t go into the pig n chik!” She would’ve gotten her ass kicked if she had gone in there, that’s true. Anyway, that area was all country back in the seventies and eighties. Then these nuts started building monstrosities.

[quote]What is the price per square foot in VA?? Ok, so let's assume becaus it's in Virginia a big $350 a s/f construction cost.

I'm assuming the further north you go, the price goes up. I'm unfamiliar with this area, but I'm pretty sure it's more expensive in like Alexandria or McLean.

Outside of Old Town, Alexandria isn't very expensive. The real money starts much further North---you generally want to be close to the Potomac or in the corridor of suburbs with large lots going Westward. The place they wanted to buy (Fairfax Station) is a bit more upscale than this. The next town, Manassas is where the Lorena Bobbitt cutoff her husband's penis.

[quote]The next town, Manassas is where the Lorena Bobbitt cutoff her husband's penis.

Is that on the tour?

The penis?

All it is missing is gilding and a sign that says, "Trump Chateau"

"Please do not bring that foolishness into 2021"

R144, and the $200 chandelier is a nice touch in a $12M, well $6M mansion.

Why do people need homes this big? It’s crazy!

R36

On farms and other rural areas without municipal piped water (for hydrants), you need (or want) a large body of water for fighting fires.

If you examine great country estates and palaces in Europe or elsewhere you'll notice historically there was at least one large body of water somewhere. If the place wasn't built near enough to a river or lake ponds were built. While the water contained served many purposes it was also used to fight fires if needed. Before pumps became available people formed bucket brigades extending from source of water to fire, now there are trucks that can suck up and hold water by hundreds of gallons.

[quote]this sort of pile of bricks

They'll be lucky if there's a single actual brick in that pile.

Anyone reading here needs to take a second look at the photo posted by R94. Every builder / design choice made in this room seems wrong. Take a closer look. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s almost like the Highlights Magazine game, What’s Wrong with this Picture?

I’ll start: 2 mantles.

Ok, I'll play

The wall is not even behind the fireplace...

there's an odd indentation or gap on the right side of the fireplace where the wall on the left extends out beyond the wall on the left

The windows on that wall appear to be at different heights but it may be an optical illusion because of the difference in the wall depth

What R166 said. It's a weird house in that it looks like it's a temporary set up. Doesn't look like a "home."

Does anyone have pics of these people? I’m curious what type of person has millions of dollars and chooses to spend it on this.

I looked online R168 - NO LUCK. I was curious if they're as glamorous as their home! 😅

[quote]I was curious if they're as glamorous as their home!

How could they possible be this glamorous!