QOTW: What is your Super House?
You are Bill Gates rich. You can build any style of house out of any material anywhere you want. You want a flying stone castle hovering over the Swiss Alps? A steel tube at the bottom of the ocean? A boring single story house in the Bay Area? You name it and it is yours.
Remember…
1) Style (castle, fort, cave, condo, whatever)
2) Location (mountain peak, Canadian Rockies, floating in the middle of the ocean, etc)
Crawford’s Answer
I thought about this during my whole ride home from work today. Sure I may enjoy my house in Lafayette but in reality it’s pretty dull. It’s made of wood, it has no hidden passageways, it doesn’t have a basement or a second story. There is a nice yard and trees but my neighbors are dull and there are no cool wild animals cruising around (except friendly squirrels).
I could do SO much better.
So I came up with this question…with (yes this is cheating) a specific thought in mind. I want a really cool house. But it’s gotta be out of the ordinary…
So this is what I came up with…
Imagine, if you will, up in the Sierra’s. Not too far mind you…I still want people to be able to come and visit me when they want. But it’s far enough away from everyone else that I am able to be loud (like that will matter as you will soon find out).
You drive up the driveway and find a modest home. It’s rather mountain-cabin like…rough wood, lots of windows, tall peaked roof. The yards are nice…natural up front and very well landscaped in the back (pool, hot tub, bar…great for parties). You walk up to the front door and knock. Through a loudspeaker you hear “just a minute!†A minute passes…then another…2 more and suddenly it opens and there I am. But…what’s this? The house is EMPTY! OK…not 100% empty but pretty sparse. There is a kitchen, bathroom, living room…nice stereo, plenty of elbow room. Perhaps a pool table. OK, DEFINITELY a pool table, ping pong, some arcade games and comfy couches.
But where do I live? What is going on here?
This is no ordinary house. This is an UNDERGROUND house!
Imagine it. Think about it. Something simple, approachable, party-able on the “ground†floor. A place where people can hang out, have fun, make noise, run around…but the whole living space is all underground. It would be cool, quiet and totally out of the ordinary. I imagine 2-3 stories of living space underground with quick access to the outside world. It would have all the usual stuff…bedrooms, bathrooms, skylights (clever concealed mind you), home theater, dining room…you name it. Just hidden from the world and full of surprises.
So yeah…it was a slow commute home and I had nothing to think about. But it would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it?
Moe’s Answer
I’d want my super house to be up in the Berkeley hills on around 1,000 acres. I’d want it up in the hills so looking over the city so I would have an awesome view. I would also like it to be up there because I would still be somewhat close to the city and it wouldn’t be a big hike to get anywhere.
I would want a really long driveway, which would be setup like a race track, a nice windy road, lots of runoff space to the sides in case I screw up, driving up to my house would be a blast. When you get to the house the driveway would end in a caldasac with a fountain in the middle. The garage would be huge and be under the house, spanning the size of the house for the most part with enough room for at least a twenty cars.
The house would have a modest amount of bedrooms, lets say five. Each bedroom would have it’s own full bathroom. All of the bedrooms would be on the second floor, the master bedroom would be on the third floor and would be massive. The master bedroom would have a deck off of it with a hot tub, telescope, mini bar and lots of comfy furniture.
My house would have to have a bar. The bar would be underground and behind the bar itself there would be a big window that looks into my swimming pool. The bar would have at least a dozen different beers on tap and of course be fully stocked with all the liquor you can imagine. In the bar there would be a couple pinball machines, a couple dart boards, a pool table, some slot machines and maybe even a mechanical bull.
On the main level would be my home theater room. I could go on and on about this room as it is something I have fantasized about for a very long time. I would have dual G90 Sony CRT projectors mounted behind the screen, all Wilson speakers with 7 channels. For the bass I would have an infinite baffle setup with, I don’t know, lets say twelve 18″ subs. The subs air space would be a specially designed concrete bunker under the home theater. As I said, I could go on and on so I will stop there. Oh wait, one more thing. The entryway going into my home theater would be guarded by two Stormtroopers.
Outside of the home theater would be a lobby. In the lobby I would have tons of movie memorabilia, another pool table, video games, pinball machines, and another projector and sounds system hooked up for all of the video game consoles known to man. Actually, there would be two projectors so you could have awesome two player battles.
There would of course be a kitchen and a dining room and all the other stuff a house needs. And there would be several secret rooms and secret passage ways hidden throughout the house.
For the overall look of the house I wouldn’t want it to look ultra modern or anything, I would just want it to look nice, nothing to extravagant.
I could keep on writing but I am sure you all get the idea and I am sick of typing.