Mansionmania Tournament: Round 1, Heat 21
 

Mansionmania continues. I'm going to show you the most expensive homes in every state and a few territories, with a few extras thrown in from the largest states to get the tourney up to 64. It'll be a single-elimination tournament.

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.

Your entries in this heat are:

Colorado:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...1_M90269-65083

Arkansas:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...3_M89754-02378

This is an interesting one. Upon seeing the seedings, I had a strong initial bias toward Colorado before I saw the houses. But Arkansas makes a darn good showing here.

Colorado - That house has no pool. No pool! For 51 large I should get a pool. But other than that, the house is really nice. I could move in without changing a thing. The setting is spectacular, and while 5 acres isn't large, it's a top-notch five acres. Now the Aspen location? That's a little tough. Aspen is a great town with a lot of services for its size, but it's remote. The only notable place you can reach in your 100 mile range is Glenwood Springs, which is another nice town, and neither Aspen nor Glenwood has 10,000 people. We're talking really remote. And the snow? It's measured in feet, not inches. So you're going to be inside that house a lot.

Arkansas - That's a heckuva house. It looks like it sits up on a hill, and it's stately. It's got pretty much everything a fellow could want in a mansion. I'd want to change up the style a bit, but the large stipend would make that an easy and fun project. On the down side, it's got 20 acres, but those acres don't seem to be used very well. Other than a great front drive if you look at the google satellite map, the yard seems to be just a sea of grass. And this house is as remote as the Aspen house, but in a less interesting area. You can reach a few Indian casinos and the Walton family tax-cheating museums in NW Arkansas, but that's it.

I actually seriously pondered Arkansas, but in the end the Aspen setting with the rocks and trees wins me over, even without a pool and with major snowstorms. I'll just live inside and then go to the nice Aspen restaurants in a snowcat.

I'm not living in fracking Arkansas. And how many birds are dying smacking themselves against all that glass?

Colorado home is sweet. And I can ski a lot.

No contest: Colorado.

No ****ing way would I ever live in Arkansas.

The Boston mountains are just north of Ft Smith, and Fayetteville is a fairly fun college town.

Still going with Aspen, even if I would have to modify or get rid of a bunch of mags.

I chose the place where the beer flows like wine, and women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano.

Aspen is the dream life. Normally I’d take the cash because I guess I’m a greedy bastard but living in Aspen would be a dream come true. Location wins out over cash this time.

And that Arkansas house is a little too pretentious for my taste. There have been a couple that way. I don’t know why that turns me off so much. Like a ****ing spiral staircase around a glass elevator isn’t excess for the sake of excess but I just can’t handle pretentious douche I guess.

Just get yourself a top hat and monocle to wear when answering the door., and criticize all guests for not being “fancy’’ enough.

I'm talkin' about a place where the beer flows like wine, where the women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talkin' about Aspen

Who the hell builds a mansion right next to an airport? What's worse is it's just next to the approach lanes for the airport. Sounds exactly like what someone from Arkansas would do. Screw that.

Gotta go with the Colorado place.

It annoys me how small the screen is in the theater room of the Arkansas house.

At Aspen, my brother would be within the 100 mile limit - and I like my brother.
It is a beautiful setting, and while Colorado lets winter linger longer than i would like, there would be plenty of outdoor activities available.
Also, I like good quality beer and Colorado has plenty.

On the other hand, Arkansaw can be sweltering.

Nice houses... for a fancy schmancy house in Arkansas, it's really well done. Right next to the airport. :spock: Great kitchen and bar/game room. Both have large living spaces as opposed to 20 bedrooms, which is nice (even though the 3 beds in one kids room is a little amusing for a 15k sqft hose).

I suspect the Aspen house will be in a tough round or two in the future... great house, remote, can buy a snowmobile and bring the ATV. However, as mentioned, that's pretty damn remote. Not sure it can beat other houses that are on plenty of land and also within 100 miles of civilization.

Pretty easy choice this round though.

Colorado for me too.