This is it. Pick the mansion where you will spend the rest of your life. You will choose among each pair of houses with the following assumptions:
The purchase price for you is $0.
All maintenance, utilities, property taxes, HOA fees, and cleaning is included.
You must live in the home for the rest of your life.
You can't travel more than 100 miles from home (via google maps drive time) other than 1 two-week vacation each year.
You get $250,000 per year as a living allowance
You get an additional living allowance at the cheaper home, which will be valued at 1% of any cost difference annually. I will note this amount in the poll.
You get the furnishings. If unfurnished, you get an allowance that will give you mid-grade furniture in every room.
You get any vehicles in the garage. But only the garage - nothing parked outside.
I encourage you to click on the maps in the listings to see the general location and neighborhood.
Also, I will only enter contestants if they have a sufficient number of photos to judge, as determined by me.
Okay, this is it. The final decision. And let me tell you why I'm picking Maryland.
First off, I'll acknowledge that Hawaii is amazing. It's a gorgeous house in a fantastic setting. But when I think about what's really going to be important, the Maryland house wins easily for several reasons.
First, the house is enormous. If I'm going to live there forever with a lot of free time, I want room for hobbies. I want to be able to tackle any new thing I want without having to make room for it. Sure, Hawaii is almost 9,000 square feet, but Maryland is a freaking 35,000 square foot estate. And as near as I can tell, it's most or all under one roof, which is a big advantage.
Second, the lot is large. Maryland has 23 acres. I'll want to do some outdoor things like archery or jousting, and I can't do that in Hawaii on a 1 acre lot.
Third, Maryland offers variety. I can go see new exhibits at the Smithsonian. I can get good Chinese food and good burgers and, to the extent that it exists, good Sri Lankan food. I can hit up Rehoboth for summer beach food, and I bet there are lots of concerts and shows to go see in the area.
Those are the three things that have lasting power because they'll keep me fresh. People have mentioned that the 100-mile limit is basically a big bird cage, and I think that's the case in Hawaii. The strengths of Hawaii are strengths that I'll eventually get bored with.
And I'll also confess that I like the old-world charm of Maryland. Is Hawaii more stylin' and hip? Yeah. But I like the concept of wandering around my massive brick estate that's built for mid-level royalty. If I'm going to live in a mansion, I want a legitimate mansion. [Reply]
Yeah, that's a very convincing argument for Maryland, even if I kind of want to vote Hawaii out of spite... and there's plenty of outdoors stuff to do, you have almost the entire island to explore, including the top of a volcano with an observatory. Yet, that's not really a sustainable 'rest of your life' sort of thing, at least not at my age. [Reply]
What Rainman said. You have some room to roam around your property. You have room to roam around inside your house on your property. You have access to vast amounts of entertainment, diverse dining, and activities within easy driving distance. You friends and family can more easily visit you. You don't have to learn to appreciate spam. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bearcat:
Yeah, that's a very convincing argument for Maryland, even if I kind of want to vote Hawaii out of spite... and there's plenty of outdoors stuff to do, you have almost the entire island to explore, including the top of a volcano with an observatory. Yet, that's not really a sustainable 'rest of your life' sort of thing, at least not at my age.
I read his post after I already posted my intention to vote for Hawaii. He changed my mind, but at that point, I decided to live and vote by my post. [Reply]
What Rainman said. You have some room to roam around your property. You have room to roam around inside your house on your property. You have access to vast amounts of entertainment, diverse dining, and activities within easy driving distance. You friends and family can more easily visit you. You don't have to learn to appreciate spam.
On an unrelated note, I visited the Spam museum this summer. I was driving through the area and had to check it out. It was essentially a big Hormel propaganda display, but moderately interesting. They had someone walking around with a tray of spam and I ate it for the first time. It was shockingly good. I might go buy some at some point. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
After we work through the Hawaii/Maryland debate I'll post the entire list of properties and I'd love to hear what everyone's #1 property is.
Not to make more work for you, but would be interesting to include the full-field stipend for each. [Reply]
I like that MD house more each time I look at it, it's got about everything. I voted against it once for the CT house because of proximity to NYC, other than that it's shaping up to be the Kate Beckinsale of this tournament. [Reply]
