Interesting Houses and Architectural Features

I've been interested in architecture for years, especially residential architecture. These are some of the more interesting houses and features I've seen.



Ickworth - Suffolk, England. The main feature is the Rotunda, which was, and is, very unusual for a residence, but leave it to the Italians. There are also two huge wings at each end that are estate houses in their own right.



Also sticking to England is the Cascade at Chatsworth Derbyshire. This landscape feature is the most spectacular in England.

 

I want this house:



Bruce Makowsky’s Bel-Air spec house returns to market at $150 million

 

The Colonnade and Stair Tower at Blois Chateau France. This French chateau was one of the inspirations for the Vanderbilt Biltmore house in North Carolina.




Biltmore - North Carolina:

 

How's the Wi-Fi...?

 

That cascade is impressive!

 

I bet it has every cool toy you ever wanted. But I got to say visually, it looks like a parking garage.

 

Another pic of the Blois colonnade (the previous pic disappeared).

 

I visited there in the late 80's. it was quite interesting.

 

15 Most Unusual Houses Around The World And Their Insane Designs

10 Of the Most Unusual Homes in the World

 

Two of my favorites:

Fallingwater


Integral House in Toronto


Exterior pictures of Integral House don't do it justice. It's a five story house built on the side of a ravine. Only the top two floors are visible above street level. The third floor contains a performance space that can seat up to 200 people.

 

And the garage on the bottom floor includes $30 million' worth of classic cars!

 

Fallingwater is about a 90 minute drive from my house, and I've been there a few times. An impressive wonder.
Where I grew up there was a small Wright Usonian house a few miles away that was built in the 1950s. The house actually blends in with the other more conventional suburban homes built around the same time (it was the 50s!). It's the Joseph Euchtman House in Baltimore.

 

This door to the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, MD so impressed Thomas Jefferson, that he sketched it from across the street. The sketch was among his papers, and is preserved.

 

Does it come with Thunderbirds 1 through 5, the whole Tracy family, and, of course, Lady Penelope?

Thunderbirds Are Go!

 

I always wondered, "what did they do to the architects, engineers, and contractors for the Tracy compound? Were they all killed in order to keep their silence? And how does Jeff Tracy get tanks of liquid oxygen and other kinds of rocket fuel shipped out to the island without arousing suspicion? How come the pool and the fake palm trees don't burn up every time they launch a rocket? How does John Tracy ever get laid if he's stuck out in space on Thunderbird 5 for months at a time?" I have many questions.

 

Strange stuff, indeed. No doubt higher-ups are involved. Somebody's pulling the strings.

 

I was thinking that the car collection might be an impediment to selling the house, as anyone who's inclined to spend $30 mil on cars is likely going to want to build the collection themselves (or already has their own carefully-selected collection). But a bit of googling turned up a Jalopnik piece listing some of the cars, and it appears that the majority of the collection's value is in the 1936 Mercedes 540K roadster, valued at $15 million. That is a no-doubt, blue-chip classic that would easily be the centerpiece of most collections, and one that any dyed-in-the-wool car guy would love to own. The Allard is the only other vintage car I see, and it's probably "only" worth several hundred thousand dollars.

Most of the other cars look like much more modern exotics that, while expensive, are relatively common toys of the rich and famous (OK, the Pagani Huayra, with only 100 built, and the Bugatti Veyron, with 450 built, aren't exactly common), exactly the sort of cars you'd expect to see in the garage of a screamingly expensive Bel-Air mansion.

https://jalopnik.com/check-out-the-cars-that-come-with-the-most-expensive-ho-1791348250