Saturday house

India's richest man Mukesh Ambani moves into £630m 27-storey home:

Ambani, his wife and three children have moved into the building which is named Antilia, after a mythical Island. It contains a health club with a gym and dance studio, at least one studio, a ballroom, guestrooms and a range of lounges and a 50 seater cinema.

There is even an elevated garden with ceiling space to accommodate small trees.

The roof has three helicopter pads and there is also underground parking for 160 cars, which will come in handy for guests at Ambani's forthcoming housewarming party.

From the top floors of the 173m high property are spectacular views of Mumbai and of the Arabian Sea.

The 53 year-old tycoon is not only the richest man in India but the fourth richest man in the world. In total there is reported to be 37,000 square metres of space, which is more than the Palace of Versailles.

To keep it running smoothly requires 600 staff.

Farmhouses

Odd houses

From Recycled homes:

In 1994, a hairstylist in Benoit, Miss., named JoAnn Ussery lost her 1,400-square-foot house to an ice storm. Ussery had a relative who worked in aviation, and the two came up with the idea to salvage a Continental Airlines 727. It cost her $2,000 to buy the plane, $4,000 to move it to her lakeside lot, and about $24,000 to outfit it comfortably. Ussery did much of the renovation herself, and took advantage of the ample windows and storage bins, as well as the lavatory. Ussery told reporters that she was mainly attracted to the idea because of the plane's low cost and durability.

In the 1920s, a Southern California architect and recycler by the name of Miles Minor Kellogg built two distinctive homes in the shape of boats, out of bits of material he found locally.

From Cave houses:

Tucked into a 17,000-square-foot hole left by a sandstone mine in Festus, Mo., is the spacious, beautiful home of William "Curt" Sleeper, his wife, Deborah, and their three kids. The Sleepers almost lost their unique three-bedroom house to foreclosure, but they recently received backing from a private investor after media exposure.
...
He says he doesn't need to heat or cool the home because the natural insulation of the cave walls keeps the inside air 65 to 70 degrees year-round. The Sleepers constructed the façade of their dwelling out of 300 sliding glass doors purchased from a local resale shop. "I stripped the aluminum and resold it to the local recycle center," Sleeper adds. "We pull more than 100 gallons of water per day from the air with our dehumidifiers and then pump that outside to water our gardens and feed chickens."

For centuries, people lived in homes carved into the soft sandstone of the Kinver Edge escarpment, on the border of Staffordshire and Worcestershire in England. The most famous cluster was under Holy Austin Rock, which at one time served as a hermitage. The last cave dwellers moved out in the 1950s, but the site is preserved by the National Trust, which has restored some of the cave houses to the Victorian period.

Some observers have wondered if the cave homes and their small cottage gardens had inspired J.R.R. Tolkien in his imaginings of hobbits, since he grew up nearby.

Saturday houses - more beach cottages

Saturday houses

Saturday houses - forest cottages

Million dollar views

How much does a view cost?

In the West it costs about $100 per square foot to build an ordinary house. If you want fancy materials like marble, the price is higher. Since these houses are at the high end, I'll figure an average of $150 to $200 per square foot. Land prices vary greatly but you can still get some idea of how much the view costs.

Views of the Bridger Range greet you from nearly every room in this $2.48 million residence, which sits on 40 acres in Bozeman, Mont. The four-bedroom, 5,620-square-foot home was designed to look like a collection of buildings gathered over time — just like old homesteads in the area. The home also features hand-hewn timbers reclaimed from a dairy barn and unusually shaped logs from huge old-growth trees that were salvaged.

I figure the 40 acres of land cost at least $500,000. The building cost about $800,000. Therefore the view cost about a million.

In a valley full of impressive log homes, the Bighorn Lodge in Jackson Hole, Wyo. takes the (antler-studded) cake. This five-bedroom, 16,000-square-foot lodge was built in 2008 in the style of the grand lodges of the national parks, complete with antler chandeliers, several stone fireplaces and huge beams framing grand views of the Tetons to the west and the Gros Ventre Mountains to the east. The $12.75 million home is surrounded on three sides by Grand Teton National Park, with the Snake River and private fishing and hiking access nearby.

The house probably cost over three million but it does not specify the acreage so it's hard to put a price on the view.

Quick, before the fog rolls in — soak in the panorama from this penthouse, which occupies the top floor of an apartment building in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. It has uninterrupted views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the North Bay, Alcatraz and the city. The three-bedroom apartment also has high-ceilinged public rooms, a spacious kitchen and a doorman downstairs during the week — all for a cool $3.4 million.

Yes, it's a million dollar view but it it's marred by that slab of an eyesore and you are living on top of your neighbors - and, like most homes in San Francisco, it probably has no off-street parking.

Not too many places have both front-row views of big mountains and access to sandy beaches, but this home in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., does. The rear of the four-bedroom, 4,139-square-foot home has wall-to-wall picture windows, so the living room, dining room and family room always invite the West’s iconic vistas inside. And when it’s time to head outside for a cocktail and the sunset, the $3.9 million home has a rooftop deck.

The building probably cost over half a million but Tahoe lots are small. Of course the price of the lot is not only for the view but for the beach access.

You can’t even see this private Laguna Beach, Calif., home from the street ­­-- but, boy, can you see once you’re inside. The contemporary home seems to float above the white, sandy beach and the cove below, with the Pacific Ocean and Laguna Beach coastline spreading out from beyond the walls of glass. Inside, the four-bedroom, 5,300-square-foot home has a Gaggenau gourmet kitchen, a meditation area and a garage with a commercial-grade hydraulic lift with subterranean parking. All this — and that view — doesn’t come cheap: $10.6 million.

The building probably cost a million but once again you're paying for beach access.

Saturday houses - Presidents' homes

Everybody knows these but some of the pics are nice and big. Click to biggify. I'm sure you can guess which one's my favorite. Yep, Reagan's Rancho del Cielo.

Washington's Mount Vernon:
















John Adams' Peacefield:

















Jefferson's Monticello:

















Madison's Montpelier:













Teddy R's Sagamore Hill:

















FDR's Springwood in Hyde Park:

















FDR's "beach cottage" on Campobello Island, Canada:















Reagan's Rancho del Cielo (Ranch of Heaven):


















The Bush estate, Walker's Point:











The main house at Walker's Point: