Bay Area Sweet Digs

August 31, 2008

How Do You Define a Mansion?

mansion How Do You Define a Mansion?The word “mansion” means different things to different people.   To someone who lived in poverty all their life, a mansion might be a 4 bed 2 home in a nice neighborhood with enough yard for a garden.   To most of us spoiled Silicon Valley-ites, a mansion means a sprawling home on several acres with a pool and spa at a minimum, and maybe even a vineyard.

This is an interesting question…….and I am of the humble opinion that any home can become a mansion with the proper care and love.  A smaller home with newer fixtures, carefully tended flowers, and beautiful furnishings can be a mansion to its occupants – and much more hospitable than a larger untended home without proper care. 

When I can afford my mansion, here are some of the features I want, and believe will put it in the “mansion” category.

  • At least a 10K square foot lot
  • 5 beds and 3 baths
  • Crown moulding
  • Exotic hardwood flooring, not just simple oak
  • Engineered quartz kitchen countertops and maple cabinets (not just oak, again)
  • A pool and spa
  • A Viking stove with six burners
  • 6 panel doors- solid
  • A fireplace with a stone mantel
  • A brightly colored flower garden
  • Productive fruit trees

All these little touches to me add up together and say MANSION!  Here are some homes I consider to be mansions currently up for sale in the South Bay:

280 Shannon Oaks Lane, Los Gatos   This is a 6 bed 4 bath home set on 3.2 acres with an outdoor kitchen, custom pool, and designer carpeting for just under $4M – great for when IPOs start springing up around here again!  At 4658 square feet, you could get lost in this home…..

18620 Vessing Road in Saratoga  is more reasonably sized at 2766 square feet with one acre of land.  This home has a stunning pool area and patio for entertaining, and room for two horses.  It is a 5/3 with a 3 car garage and gorgeous views of the valley, and is offered at $1.99M

1015 Avondale in San Jose lies on the Cupertino border and has two kitchens, in-law quarters,  6 beds and 4 baths contained within 3708 square feet.  It is priced at $1.695M and has a lot just over 10K square feet.  But alas, it has no pool.

What does a “mansion” mean to you?

Posted by brenda.keener on August 31, 2008 7:09 PM | del.icio.us | Digg

  • Charsusa75
    I think I grew up in a mansion. My parents built it with their own two hands back in1949-1950. There are 5 bedrooms and 4 full baths, 2 large kitchens, a 5 car garage with a single apartment area.there are two formal dining rooms, a fireplace room with a home theater, a huge attic, and an indoor "back porch" that serves as a slightly less formal dining room with gorgeous view of the wooded back portionof the 2-1/2 acre property. There are lake views from almost every window and lake access from behind the neighbor's property.
    There are pear trees, fig trees, peach trees, a rose garden, a lily and iris garden, huge old oak trees, dogwoods, smoke trees, oleanders, redbuds, a huge old jasmine/gardenia bush, next to a huge french mulberry....also a very old brideswreath surroundedby tiny white bells, honeysuckle vines, Carolina jasmine, an English dogwood vine, and many nandinas and wild mountain hydrangias that grow wild. Oh also a palm tree, and various rare sesanqinns and camillias.

    One bathroom features a gigantic luxury shower with glassblock windows and two walls made of the same permastone as the exterior of the original house. It has a marble bench with its own handheld showerhead and a traditional up high showerhead at the other end.

    There is a fishing and sunbathing pier, a back patio with a hot tub, and a partially underground basement bomb shelter.

    Does that qualify as a mansion?
  • Jackgoldman1
    A mansion is any shelter with sewer, water, heat, electric, phone, natural gas, internet, heating, cooling, and all the amenities to support life. The size has nothing to do with it at all. Most homes in America are mansions.
  • As a Realtor for 15 years who also grew up in the biz (my mom was a local Realtor and Broker for 40 years, starting well before I was born), I have seen the gamut of construction and condition, from tear-down to excessive conspicuous consumption.

    I tend to think of "mansion" as extreme oppulance, or ostentious housing which is "over the top". I would disagree with you that any house can become a mansion. No matter how much you cram into a 1700 square foot house, it's not going to be a mansion. Not even if you used gold leave in the paint. It will just be an overimproved house, at best.

    There are mansions in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have been in a few. Truthfully, I find them creepy. Who needs a 10,000 square foot house?? (I don't mean lot size, I mean home size.) I once saw a house with diamonds in the toilet flusher handle - 3 of them in descending size, plus large (2 carat?) diamonds in the faucets of the sink in the powder room. This "Monte Sereno mansion" was big, on a big lot, with many fine amenities but many excesses that I could not see how anyone could possibly justify.

    On the other hand, I have seen 4000 square foot homes that were actually modest - just big - on large lots. I would not find them excessive because the intent wasn't to be a statement of wealth.

    I guess that is my perception of a mansion - it's something intended to display one's accomplishments. Some people even use the phrase "trophy house" to make the point.

    For that reason, I find them distasteful and would not encourage anyone to attempt to make their home into a mansion. . . .
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