The Wall Street Journal Mansion?

The Wall Street Journal Mansion?

by Bill High

Friday, September 8, 2017, and the Wall Street Journal is talking about mansions. They note the following:

  • The former 4,800-square-foot home of Green Acres star Eddie Albert listed for $19.5 million. The current owner, Jay Griffith, bought the home for $7 million in 2006 and renovated it. He’s moving to Santa Barbara to a larger home.
  • Actors Emily Blunt and John Krasinski put their Brooklyn, New York, home on the market for a cool $8 million. Their reason for listing the house? Their frequent travel prevented them from spending much time there.
  • Here’s my favorite: Buy one-third of the Island of Molokai for a modest $260 million. But the buyer should beware. Locals have fought every attempt at developing the island paradise. You’d just have to be content with the sand and palm trees.
  • Then there are the Mailouxs, 69-year-old retirees seeking to downsize from their 10,000-square-foot home in Scottsdale. Their solution? High-rise living in the Kierland. So they bought three three-bedroom units and two one-bedroom units and combined them into a single three-bedroom, 6,500-square-foot unit with three terraces.
  • These opportunities are not limited to the United States. In Shanghai, you can buy the Crystal Palace, an 8,600-square-foot house that belonged to a hat merchant, Ye Fukang. Ye survived Communist rule until 1966 when Mao’s Red Guards tossed him out. While in need of renovation, the house lists for $24 million.

I suppose ironically The Wall Street Journal captions their mansion section with this Nathaniel Hawthorne quote: “I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.” Today, the average size of homes continues to grow, as does the self- storage industry (what does that tell you?).

On the other hand, there are those who subscribe to the theory of being “time rich” instead of house broke. But there are those who can afford those bigger houses—nothing wrong with that as long as we continue to address what purpose they serve. Certainly, the goal would never be to let them rule our lives.

Related articles:
Where Is Your Orphanage?
“All I Want to Do Is Change a City…”—Part I
“All I Want to Do Is Change a City…”—Part II

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Published November 14, 2017

Topics: Culture Commentary

American ValuesMoneyWealth

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