"Bill" wrote in message
...
"Nonnymus" wrote in message
What amenities, features and the like do you find in your own area of the
country, such as the above?


The craftsmanship of the windows, doors, and cabinetry is exceptional.
Everything works like a fine Swiss watch!

I've seen a couple of homes with elevators. One home near Beverly Hills is
said to have a elevator in the garage which goes to an underground parking
area which will fit 7 limousines!

I've seen at least one of those here. It was a designed in feature, and not
just added later because of a disability. They cost in the $50k range, and
have to be in a fire resistant shaft.




I heard another "house" near Beverly Hills had a staff of 60 people
working there! (I'm still trying to figure out what that many people would
do?)

One home had a walk-in refrigerator the size of a small kid's bedroom.
Also had small doors which accessed shelves for things like milk. The lady
who had the house built wanted that to store her full length mink coats
and other clothes! (Cold storage?)

On a lesser scale, I've seen a few houses with separate refrigerators and
freezers side by side. That's a pretty nice feature, but the downside is
that the high dollar freezers like Subzero, Viking, Monogram don't offer ice
or water in the door like the ones found in most homes, for some reason.



Then some of these homes have kitchens with ranges and stainless steel
refrigerators you would find in a restaurant kitchen.

One had what's called a French cooktop on a Wolf stove. It had regular gas
burners on the 4 corners of the cooktop, but the middle had what looked
like, but was NOT, a griddle. Instead, it had concentric cast iron rings to
diffuse heat from a burner beneath. You changed the cooking temperature for
your pans on it by shifting them to the outside edges or center. For most
people, that appeared to be impractical.



One had an exhaust fan system in the living room to remove the smoke
during parties (designed in the 60's).

Nice feature,



One had living room windows so long left to right, they *had* to have
electrically operated drapes. Otherwise you would be there all day pulling
on the cord to open/close them! Press a button and the drapes open to a
fantastic view - quite dramatic...


They're putting that in hotels here, also. You control the drapes and
curtains by a control near the thermostat, as you enter the room.




Then massive amounts of space in the rooms. And massive amounts of rooms.

One master "suite," in a home had a huge area for the bed, dressers, night
stands, footboard bench and chair, and the adjoining "sitting room" was
larger than most living rooms.



One very large mansion had a regular 3 bedroom ranch size house with it's
own pool for the guest house. Had a 5 car garage, maid's and gardener's
quarters. A sunken 3 story high living room the size of my house. His and
hers bathroom with gym in his area and bidet/Hollywood make-up lighted
mirrors in hers. Heated towel racks, Jacuzzi, steam room, etc. Wine
cellar, and on and on.

Outside of the mega mansions, most guest houses associated with a home here
would have one bedroom, kitchenette and bathroom for the guest. . . or for
use as an office. Many of the bigger homes offer a recessed entryway, with
a separate door leading to an adjoining den/office. That way if a business
client comes to the house on business, he enters directly into the office,
rather than through the house. Offices don't generally have built-in desks
and cabinets, though. Presumably, that's so they can be used as bedrooms if
desired.


Real estate taxes here run about 1% of the sale price, and that's usually
around $175/sf for the custom homes like we're discussing. They generally
run in the 4500sf to 6800 sf range and are one or two story with no
basement. Most offer a 3 car garage, but some might have 4 or more.
Unfortunately, they're so crammed into the lot that the driveway barely
permits the cars to maneuver into the garage, if it's at right angles.

Nonny