Lifestyle controversialist Ayelet Waldman and novelist Michael Chabon, but mostly Waldman, overshare the decor of their Craftsman bungalow with Remodelista. Pick your favorite line. ("The house was built in 1907 by a physician," Ayelet says. "Someone in the historical society told us he did abortions.")
Do you absolutely love playing chess but you are a giant bigger than a schoolhouse so every time you pick up a bishop or rook from a set designed for humans, it crumbles to dust in your hands? Perhaps you should consider purchasing frowning icon Kristen Stewart’s childhood home, which is ugly as sin and will surely give you nightmares, but does boast an oversized chess set in the backyard. I guess it depends how committed you are to playing a giant game of chess.
Looking for a home in the DC area? It's likely you will be unable to locate a Master Bedroom. Not because it's the newest architectural trend to hide these rooms behind a discreet bookshelf door or to shrink these suites to the size of a pantry. No—the phrase Master Bedroom is being wiped from the blueprints.
Longtime Gawker readers may recall a bygone era in which Laurel Touby, founder of media job board-etc. site Mediabistro, was a regular Gawker "character," famous for her feather boas and inability to use email properly. After she sold Mediabistro for $23 million in 2007, she became more famous for being a Can You Believe The Lady Who Started Mediabistro Is Now Super Rich, What The Fuck Is This World Coming To? Well. Years have passed. Now you must hear all about Laurel Touby's multimillion-dollar apartment.
Homeowners' associations were supposedly created by Real Estate God to fundraise for and oversee neighborhood maintenance, and to help developers to efficiently manage and market their properties. But it often seems that their true purpose in life is to drive homeowners insane.
An empty house in Marblehead, Mass. seems to have called 911 on its own after months of enduring a leaky pipe that covered the walls with toxic mold. And you thought that dog that called the police was smart.
Even during the worst days of the collapse of the housing bubble (Sundays through Saturdays), it was widely assumed that the real pain would be confined to Vegas, and Florida, and other places where people woke up and realized that they'd just paid $1.3 million for a particleboard McMansion in the middle of a desert and/ or swamp.
The American Dream is owning your own home. We heard that so many times in the past decade! Remember that? That was before the recession and all. Now, a brutal landmark: all the past decade's home ownership gains are gone.
When reporting on The Rich, it's critical to prove that they are, in fact, rich. This is most easily accomplished by showing their homes, because every reader can immediately tell that they couldn't even afford the solid gold horse stable, much less the platinum guest house or uranium master bedroom. But most of The Rich aren't gauche enough to allow a photographer to set foot on their property. What to do? Hire a helicopter, of course. You can spy on wealthy barons from the air all you want, and it's perfectly legal! Here's the proof, and the pudding:
