U.S. home to set world price record at $155 mln

[Herman Munster]

NEW YORK, Jan 25 (Reuters Life!) - If you're looking for a new home and have $155 million to spare, you could be the proud owner of the world's most expensive abodes.

Forbes.com, the online site of Forbes magazine, on Thursday said timber and real estate baron Tim Blixseth has just upped the ante in the price of the world's most expensive home, planning to build and sell a home for $155 million.

The 53,000-square-foot stone and wood mansion will be built at the Yellowstone Club, a members-only, residential ski and golf resort near Bozeman, Montana developed by Blixseth.

That tops the $139 million asking price for Updown Court in Windlesham, England, which was listed No. 1 in the Forbes.com list of the world's most expensive homes in 2006.

It also exceeds the $125 million that U.S. media mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump is asking for the renovated estate he owns in Palm Beach, Florida.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-01-25T211639Z_01_N25460726_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-HOME.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

pictures:

http://www.forbes.com/realestate/2007/01/24/most-expensive-home-forbeslife-cx_kd_0125blixseth_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=7000

[LisaM]

1. Home? Home? It sounds like a warehouse.

I hate how the housing industry has co-opted the word home.

[PDJane]

2. That's just ridiculous.........

talk about conspicuous consumption.........

[marmar]

3. If Donald Trump can afford a $125 million house...

You'd think he could afford to go to Jean Louis David and do something about his ragged hair.

[WI_DEM]

4. that is just plain obscene for anybody to live in a house for that kind of money

[Lautremont]

5. The world's most expensive house is in Montana?

Now I've heard everything.

[xxqqqzme]

6. and guess who will clean & maintain those

53,000 sq ft?!?

[Morereason]

7. This outlines the absurd amounts of money the rich have. It's wrong!

I am sorry,
But spending that kind of money on a dwelling when others in the world are without places to sleep is just plain inhuman.

[Sapphire Blue]

8. The Haves & Have Mores buy $155 million abodes; meanwhile the Have Nots...

[Hardrada]

9. In Sweden they limit the size of single family houses

and that makes damned good sense. One excuse here is if this place could employ an army of people to keep it up and are paid well (and who can live in it or on its grounds like an English country house) and then later it can become part of a state or national trust for all to see.

[AX10]

10. And look at this! The builder, Tim Blixseth is a REPUBLICAN!

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=Blixseth%2C+ti&txtState=%28all+states%29&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2006=Y&txt2004=Y&txt2002=Y&Order=N

Contributor
Occupation
Date
Amount
Recipient

BLIXSETH, TIM
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
SELF/INVESTOR
10/3/2005
$10,000
Montana Republican State Central Cmte

BLIXSETH, TIM
RACHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
BLIXSETH GROUP INC/SELF-EMPLOYED
2/25/2004
$6,000
Lungren, Dan

BLIXSETH, TIM
RANCH MIRAGE,CA 92270
BLIXSETH GROUP INC./CEO
4/5/2004
$2,000
Winters, Jackie

BLIXSETH, TIM
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
7/31/2001
$1,320
NRSC/Non-Federal

BLIXSETH, TIM
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
YELLOWSTONE CLUB
5/29/2001
$1,000
Burns, Conrad

BLIXSETH, TIM L
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
BLIXSETH COMPANIES
4/13/2002
$1,000
Hill, Rick

BLIXSETH, TIM L
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
BLIXSETH COMPANIES
4/13/2002
$1,000
Hill, Rick

BLIXSETH, TIM L
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
GLIXSETH GROUP INC
11/27/2002
$1,000
Terrell, Suzanne

BLIXSETH, TIM L
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
GLIXSETH GROUP INC
11/27/2002
$1,000
Terrell, Suzanne

BLIXSETH, TIM L
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
GLIXSETH GROUP INC
11/27/2002
$1,000
Terrell, Suzanne

BLIXSETH, TIM L
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
BLIXSETH COMPANIES/OWNER
5/30/2001
$250
Bono, Mary

BLIXSETH, TIM L MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
10/4/2006
$25,000
National Republican Congressional Cmte

BLIXSETH, TIM L MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
10/15/2002
$10,000
National Republican Congressional Cmte

BLIXSETH, TIM L MRS
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
11/27/2002
$1,000
Terrell, Suzanne

BLIXSETH, TIM MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
YELLOWSTONE/OWNER
4/5/2002
$4,475
Friends of the Big Sky

BLIXSETH, TIM MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
YELLOWSTONE/OWNER
4/5/2002
$4,475
Republican Majority Fund

BLIXSETH, TIM MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
SELF-EMPLOYED/LAND DEVELOPER
8/19/2002
$1,000
Keegan, John Charles

BLIXSETH, TIM MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
YELLOWSTONE/OWNER
10/20/2005
$1,000
Bono, Mary

BLIXSETH, TIM MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
YELLOWSTONE/OWNER
5/30/2001
$250
Bono, Mary

BLIXSETH, TIMOTHY L MR
RANCHO MIRAGE,CA 92270
THE BLIXSETH CORPORATION/PRESIDENT
8/23/2004
$25,000
Republican National Cmte

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Notice that "asking price" for Updown Court? Because it hasn't sold for 18 months

According to one senior agent, the problem is that it is "a footballer's house on steroids". Apparently, the look is 20 years out of date, there is too much marble, the rooms are badly proportioned and extremely difficult to furnish, and there is no good reception room.

"It's hideous," says Joanna Wood of Joanna Trading, an interior design company that deals with some of the world's wealthiest property owners. "The Russians and Arabs are too sophisticated to be drawn in by such vulgarity. The sort of person who might once have fallen for it now protects themselves with a raft of professionals who might advise against it."

In fact, Updown Court's white, heated marble driveway, private bowling alley and gold-embossed pool with a mosaic of Mt Fuji might put off potential buyers, says Daisy Horwell.

"My experience is that wealthy buyers react against somewhere that is done up and aimed specifically at them," she says. "Their sophistication has been underestimated. Even the very rich regard their purchases with care. If they need six bedrooms, they are not going to buy a house with 25. If they only need one swimming pool, why buy a house with five?" However, the sellers of Updown Court dismiss this jaded view of billionaires. Crispin Holborrow of Savills, one of the two agencies marketing the property, maintains a stiff upper lip. "I am sure there is a potential purchaser," he says. "Some buyers don't like Georgian boxes or Tudor beams. We have had interest in the house from all over the globe."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/property/2006/11/25/pupdown25.xml&site=16&page=0

I think the Montana developer ought to think about the fate of Updown Court. After all, in 2001 it was apparently sold to the Dubai crown prince; but it turns out it was all a bit dubious:

The first problem to tackle was the property’s dubious past. Severely damaged by fire in 1987, construction work was halted in 2001 and the house was seized as part of a fraud investigation by Customs & Excise into the property’s then owner, Indian businessman Banjul Singh. The developers, Rhymer Investments, bought the house in 2002 from the receivers with backing from an Irish bank. ‘The house had always been in the limelight but not for positive reasons,’ says Allen-Vercoe, ‘and if things had gone wrong we would be tainted by association.’

http://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/expansion/18427/universal-pixels-70m-gamble.thtml

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Dedicated to Marie Antoinette?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. To add perspective: Six million children under the age of 5 die every year as a result of hunger.

Sleep well in your monument to ostentation Mr. Blixseth.