Well, Warren Buffett won't be my new neighbor after all.
 

I guess it wasn't meant to be. At least not yet anyway. A home I've had my eye on for quite a number of years in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, came up for sale earlier this year. It was darn near perfect in meeting my personal criteria: commercial construction, move in condition, reasonable property taxes, elevator, 2 bedroom, 2 story, lots of bathrooms, massive fireplaces, lots of garages (3) / garage space for approx. 10 cars/45' RV, under roof, excellent location, secluded, large lot 1.6 acres, affordable, and - Warren's building across a large thoroughfare, on the same street. Unfortunately, I didn't notice it before a contract was slapped down and accepted on the property. Although it sold, it would appear that the new owner (s) are indecisive with what to do with it, (it's up for rent) or, not ready to move into it, or perhaps cannot afford to. Who knows.....anyway I'm going to keep a closer eye on it for the time being..........

That'd be quite a jump from your motorhome to that, but you'd have room to park it inside.;)

Another plus would be you'd have room to take in 10 or 12 homless people too.;)

Tom, given the wild card nature of this residence and lot, it cannot and did not garner anywhere near what a total home and lot would cost to construct. Although I can afford a 45' coach, I'm perfectly suited for my 24' E450 7.3 Powerstroke diesel unit. I'd have a lot of extra SF in the main coach garage. There's space for four more cars further down the drive at the other end of the home. The garages take up nearly 50% of the 1st floor's square footage. 4,956 total SF in the home.

BTW, I've owned a home over 30 consecutive years now. Home ownership isn't a new thing for me. ;)

big place for only 2 bedrooms.

They don't have architects in Omaha?

American excessiveness. :puke:

Why is the average American have 1,000 square feet each? Does little Johnny and baby Suzy each need each that much? No, it is not reasonable or sustainable.

One living room, none of this formal and informal rooms. Who cares about what guests see, as if we keep up on this path, there will be no opportunity for guests to come over.

Only one area to eat also, big enough for the actual needs. Meaning if have 12 people over for for dinner regularly, then sure, have a big dining room. But, the average family is only parents and one or two children.

And speaking of children, if the same sex, why do they need two separate large bedrooms? My brother and I shared, made it work by making a divider down the middle of the room when older (used to have bunk beds).

A bedroom only needs to be big enough for two twins (child's bedroom) or queen bed (parents), a end table, dresser, and have a closet (no excessive walk ins that are large enough for a bedroom). No need having the bathroom be as big as the living room with a shower big enough to be a room itself. Not like the shower is used for anything else.

No need having a spare bedroom either, just put up a screen partition when company comes over. Or the den do also for nursery and/or guest bedroom. I mean, guest bedrooms are rarely used, so therefore excessive.

One and a half bathrooms is plenty for even six people. Has people forgot to share? Forgot how to go to pee outside?

Urban heat island and urban sprawl are true facts and leading to increase of warmer climates. We must be reasonable and take part in the solution: ending sprawl.

the wealth procurator will not like reading your comments. the more bathrooms you have, the more pictures of Warren Buffet you can hang instead of mirrors.

Sure...

Many more think like I do, just look at tiny house movement. I am not that extreme, but shows how little one needs to live in.

We are talking about a single older man who visits walmart 32 times a day and whos chief concern is appearing to be rich. If he doesnt have a giant house to display his daily purchases hes not going to be happy.

^^^^^^ this. I think this is how many people keep score. Tbey have to have a big house and many fancy cars. You look at the popularity of McMansions and you can see that people "need" more than 1k sq ft per person.

We have a l 1400 sq ft house. Perfect size fo us. The idea of having to clean more makes my skin crawl. Skid is lie many others. He has to show off or he feels he has failed.

I have about 6000 SF finished but that includes two rental units generating $1200 plus per month, together, income at my house.

The trouble with a big place is you tend to fill it up with lots of stuff you really don't need.

No, this is the house across the street.

I was trying not to be mean to Joe, but my comment was directed at his "need" for this excessive house and that the house existed.

Surprised based on your espoused political views don't seem to agree.

I know a few people who own such excessive houses. They don't live in them; they just use them for special occasions.

One guy I know owns a home in Bel Air, California, but he lives in a tiny turn of the century house in Colorado. The big house is just some place to throw parties when a new project is unveiled or released. To hear him tell it if he lived there he would just tear it up and then where would he hold his parties?

And really, in his case, he lives in a hotel. He is always on the road making a project. The place in CO is just somewhere to hang out until the phone rings and his Agent tells him to pack his bags.

what political views? If you got it flaunt it. SRJ is my inspiration, Ive rented an aircraft hangar and parked a westfalia in it to live in. Surrounding me are a sea of earthly treasures procured from walmart.

I bet NO ONE has that copy of big mommas house/ big mommas house 2 for 5 dollars that I have.

That's a lot of SF.
What's your lot dimensions?
What's your garage capacity/SF like?

To be perfectly frank, a 60' X 150' lot with a 2K SF, 1.5 story, 3 bedroom, 3 bath - with garden apt. 1 bedroom, with a private entrance, and a 3 bay garage in the rear of the dwelling is more to my liking. The shotgun lot, with the private drive on the side to the rear has always appealed to me. My father was a GC & builder for our family for many years and he built one such home in Omaha when I was 9 yrs old. Just a super efficient use of space!

Originally we had a one acre lot in downtown Lafayette which had long ago had a large brick home which possibly burned. I always liked it because it was steeply sloped and had large trees on it. Other people looked at it and said "tough build". I looked at it and said "interesting possibilities for the home built there" and bought it at a bargain price when the realtor told the seller the lot had bad soil conditions. (Not in my mind).

We built a two story with full basment home with five br and 3.75 baths and the rest of the basement semifinished for kid stuff and a couple large storage rooms.

Then I built a stand apart carriage home with two levels of garage with concrete floor structure in between and a 900 sf living quarter above with its own systems and a nice one bedroom with laundry etc.

When my son was in college we divided off a nice area of the basement for him to live in with a private entrance. Through the years I have finished that so that it has all the amenities so we rent that and the upper part of the carriage house.

The garage/carriage house has two bays on the bottom accessible from the west from fifth street. The main floor level has three bays accessible from the East, sixth street.

I started out to build a basic home but the lay of the site fooled me and the project sort of ballooned (doubled) during construction.

Having the two rental areas makes it like living in a 1500 story and a half with basement cost wise, with the tax benefits of rental property too. It all really helped us through the recession owning a significant amount of commercial real estate.

I've never liked paying rent and always have liked others paying me rent.

A lot of folks turn their nose up at being landlords but to me its an honest living. Not free money but not like doing manual labor either.

I offer quality products in desirable locations and am able to attract quality tenants who almost never give me trouble.

Quite an accomplishment! 👍👍👍

The 1.5 story 3/3 my Dad built in 1960 was built into the side of a hill - as was the 4-plex and 6-plex he and Mom also built in that general timeframe. You can do the garden level apt. or garages into the sides of hills - and in your case, garages above the lower ones!

I have snapshotted the 1960 home here before. I just loved that little home built in a now somewhat eclectic/blue collar neighborhood.

The thread subject home here took me by surprise in July. I would have bought it at the price it closed at - however I had no idea it would sell for (low) what it did. $662K. Experience has taught me patience in real estate, so, I'm not so sure the buyer is all that financially strong, since it's up for rent $3,750 per month. It tells me that the buyer may not have been able to sell their other (primary) residence. I'd buy it in a minute for what they paid, but won't feel a loss if it doesn't come up FS.

The rent does not seem to justify the purchase price, but the money may well do better there than in any other form of investment. He also may be getting places to park valuable cars while the house renter pays for the majority of the cost.;)

That's how the rent figure hit me too, on a $662K single family, two bedroom home! Doesn't add up......it certainly isn't worth making that kind of expenditure, for that return. Unless, the buyer has other plans of some sort??

BTW, it's undergone a reduction in rent asking price since September - a couple hundred bucks less. No takers!

I rent my 2 br. 2 bath apartment for $1,300/ month.

Ugly house. It has no character or soul, Typical McMansion garbage.

Oh, it's far from typical. It's definitely a one of a kind structure. Perhaps not the most flattering photo of it. After nearly half a century in construction, I've seen better too! :D

Well if critiquing the design is the topic, the two outside sections seem ok for what it is. I like the roof overhang overall.

The center section is really indicative of not knowing quite what to do with it.

Its almost as if the center section was stretched from a previous design which is 20' shorter and had a well worked out center section.

Exactly.

It strikes me as not being able to make a complete statement on it's frontal view as well. I'm not liking the color of exterior brick used. I was like, wth?? when I saw it's blandness. The absence of exterior landscaping further gives a cold starkness to the front lawn.

The local architectural partnership that designed the place was named in the FS description. Since it was under contract, I declined inspection, however I'd of liked to see it's construct skeleton in person. It was built in '94. Extensive use of Brazilian Cherrywood throughout as indicated in 22 photos. It was dated circa late '80s interior materials. 3 HVAC integrated systems were recently replaced.

You mentioned the overhang of the roof line. I noticed that right away when viewing the side picture of the home, where a massive glass paned commercial garage door where the 45' Prevost motor home was garaged. The view of coach garage door and attractive roof overhang is what greets you as you enter the property. The front of the property has the main thoroughfare East-West through Omaha, - Dodge Street of 6 lanes - home is set way back beyond the feeder road.

The back story on it's owners were living on the property and built this. The Prevost was utilized to make the 100 mile round trip to Lincoln, Nebraska for Univ. Nebraska home football games with guests aboard the bus. I am speculating that the owners became elderly and 1st sold the bus, then moved into smaller quarters in their advanced ages.

The massive living room on your left with massive fireplace and service bar greeted you in the entryway. A winding arcing Cherrywood stairway in the two story entryway. A large library on the right as you enter the main entryway. Certainly a home to entertain large numbers of guests. A half bath and the two garages on the main floor. That's it. Very large, open kitchen, with sitting area, fireplace, formal dining area and living quarters on the 2nd floor - with laundry room, massive master bedroom, bathroom, and closet. 2nd bedroom. 1.5 more baths. Large brass or gold elevator. No basement.

There is a sturdy looking 1940s-ish horse barn on the 1.6 acres, just to the back-side of the home. It certainly doesn't dovetail with the home.

Warren Buffet is rumored to be building across the thoroughfare on the former estate property of the locally famous Leo Daly, since deceased. Founder of a large architectural firm. The Daly home will likely be torn down. Warren's '40s-ish home, 5 miles east has become a small fenced in compound. The security concerns of a man worth over 100 billion dollars, needs some leg room and space to keep PITA curiosity seekers at bay.

Agreed in full. If we wanted to move to a smaller house. Where would we put all the junk? I have also been considering hiring a lady to come in say once a week to take some of the cleaning load from the wife. For all too many years we seemed to have made various components of homes too large.


My pet peeve is the size of master bedrooms. . You just usually get dressed and undressed in them. With the bulk of the time they are in use you are asleep in the bed. Even physical activities usually occur in the dark.


So if enough space is created to take a king size bed and a couple of large dressers and perhaps a chair. As long as you can move freely. What more space is needed? Then there are these oversized entrance halls.


For almost all functional purposes our family room four steps below the kitchen and eating area has replaced the living room almost totally. My guess is the general openness of the whole area makes it more desirable to use. The dinning room is not really being used enough to really justify it's existence either.

Our MBR is basically built around the king bed. Doors open on each side which actually brush the bed. Two built in dressers, two walk in closets, and four doors. No room for a chair.;)

Some asst. photos:

A few more:

Utilities station in coach garage wall.
And the dual single door small garage that holds 4 cars:

Why not rent it?

Looks like it has heated slabs in the garage. I have the insulation under the slab and the tubes in the concrete downstairs in my garage but don't have a heater hooked to it yet.

Tom,
Appreciate your expert analysis of what you can see in the photos.
I am of the feeling that if the home comes back on the market, I may have a second chance to buy it. If so, one of the first projects I'd get started on is commissioning my own architectural firm, in improving the exterior's front entryway facade. Your input was/is valuable to me. If I had as many lifelong friends in Omaha, trained as architects, as I do attorneys, I'd have no problem securing an architect! Ha! In fact, our neighbor in Omaha was employed by Leo Daly Architects, and did design work on his own home, as he did for another neighbor.

When I first noticed this home by driving past it 15+ years ago, I was drawn with curiosity of whether it was a commercial building, or, a unique residence. The massive, custom garage coach door, with the Prevost coach's rear end in view, threw me off. Because of the custom paint job on the Prevost, I quickly realized it was probably a residence.

The initial reaction I had to viewing the sales photograph of the home, was that it resembled a schoolhouse from yesteryear - or, a Government office building. It certainly is of befuddling design!

Once again, thank you for the assessment(s)!

Nah, more like








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The design at least on the front elevation is really strange. At least to me. As soon as I saw the picture I though it might be a good building to convert into medical offices.

Sometimes a minor exterior change of a façade can help a lot. Possibly not in this case. May take a substantial front wing.

Strange some large trees are not present either. Another thing if I were to buy this place to rent out as a residential unit. I would not do it as for that kind of rent expected. I would at least expect it to look like a home. Making it hard if not impossible to find a tennant. This buildings future may be something other than residential. Tough though if it is fixed use by local zoning regulations.

I would try to find the original architect and have a talk with him. There is little chance it was built from stock plans.

Why the unbalanced glazing design? The preliminary drawings must have looked as bad as the finished product. Maybe the client called too many components of the design. A Spanish tile roof might help a little. Although the structure may not be heavy enough to enable it. It could take a raised seam copper roof though.

Unbalanced designs are an everyday build and if done tastefully can work well. The bottom line is pretty much accept it as is or spend a substantial amount of money.

This I know is a hard cruel evaluation. It to me is just what it is. No matter who would want to buy it. Perhaps my vision is not what it normally is right now. I just do not see any easy substantial improvement. On the other hand I might just be having a bad day.

They have heat pumps for water heaters now.


Possibly cheapest operating costs and cleanest operation. About a third of the cost in operation of electrical resistance type heaters. Or maybe natural gas is cheap enough where you are. I have heated garage floors with oil fired water heaters years ago. Oil became so expensive I pulled all our oil fired hot water heaters.

Heated garage floors? You guys need to live in warmer climes...

Not at all. Flame away. I think your perceptions are cogent.

It occurred to me this morning that the residence was conceptually built around not making the 55' X 20' X 20'' RV garage, not look out of place. If that can be made to make sense in the home's design. Well, what it did was make a commercial sized rectangular box of the residence. Because, from the outside, one would never know of the outsized garage under roof, except for the massive, commercial design garage door. I think it got away from them, whether they realize it or not. Just my .02.

When my kids were small we had a saying as we drove along and saw an awkwardly designed builting...."We don't need no stinking Architect!"

I said it for a while then the kids started doing it too....at least the youngest did. She is an Architect now.;)

That's funnier than hell! :bowrofl::bowrofl:

Is she a successful architect?

I was acutely aware of my Dad's comments on lots, buildings and homes as we would drive through Omaha in our family car. All the way up to the year he passed, come to think of it.

He would talk about several life's issues, challenges and choices as we would spend time together. The rental properties he and my Mom built and owned were topical for 3 decades in conversation. Always a lesson with the drive.

None of my brothers or I pursued building or design, but I took everything in that he would say in relationship to design and finances.

My daughter graduated from Ball State (My alma mater too) about 5 years ago. She has been working for a mid sized firm here since in Lafayette and studying for her licensing test. She is married and has a one year old who the Mrs. watches two days a week. I can hear him babbling right now.

They bought a small story and a half historic home in a historic neighborhood that is ten minutes walk from my house.;)

I'd say she is successful in her profession and in her life so far. She has been the lead architect on a number of projects and done well with it apparently.

Her pleasant, youthful appearance belies a mental toughness beyond her years.;)

That's top-notch success indeed. The rigors of spouse, toddler, FT (fulltime) work - and the pressures of the upcoming licensing exam!

Thanks Skid! I'm very proud of her.

She's experiencing a tremendous amount of ongoing success and what her hard work is resulting in.

Back to the home - the frontal view is 100% symmetrical. Total sameness!

Perhaps there's no shame in symmetry, but is there an airtight safety for the architect, in shall we say "not taking any design chances" on its' frontal view?

How about constructing a portico (covered) front drive to break it up? There's a massive front lawn, so there's plenty of space to work with. .....

Your thoughts?

the secret to being a tolal suck up is lots of mucus apparently. eeeeeew.

Those pillars may or may not be structural. Yet they really are an eyesore. I have rotated back to that picture several times. A ideal would occur but as I looked again it was pretty much a would not work. It just does not look like a house.

Yet you might build a stone wall in front of the house leaving a suitable distance from the structure. Say a Trump wall in your case nine or ten feet high. Or a reverse slope. Many variations are possible. Backfill whatever and grade out to the front line. Then you would only visually see the second story driving by.

Fortunately you can easily visually create the effect on a computer program and have a look. It is my guess that only seeing the second story and roof might look like a more secluded normal large house. I think the lot size is large enough to make something like that work. The thread is young yet so fasten your seat belt.

The other thought was at one time houses of this size where usually surrounded by stone walls. Currently it looks like something that does not even belong there as well.

That could work.

Hah hah!

I have no idea why Skid would pick me out for nice comments but Hey, I am sure his motives are pure!;)

Always respect the truth, experience/expertise, achievement/accomplishment(s). Pretty simple.....

Computer modeling of any appealing ideals might be worth the effort.


This is not the first time of great wealth differential in America by some. I lived near the town of Cobourg,Ontario. In the pre or very low American income tax period a ship would cross lake Ontario on schedule. You might want to look up the history of Cobourg, Ontario on the internet as most know little about it. Even Canadians. It is somewhat very interesting..


Very wealthy Americans constructed large mansions with staff etc. They used them in the summer. Some of the largest names in earlier American industry were involved.


Then the ship sailing stopped and the mansions sat empty until converted into apartments or were torn down. I suspect the boat sailed out of Rochester. It was rumored that some wealthy women kept a variety of stable boys on hand.


I think this as the first time I saw what to me were odd large residential buildings. Some where still very nice with the passage of time and some grotesque.


An old fellow that sailed with me every Wednesday afternoon when the weather was good. Both owned one and sold me my first Mercedes a fintail. He would show up like clockwork at the yacht club with his dog.


Even with the real age spread we enjoyed those times sailing. He had a thirty five or forty foot motor boat built made totally out of stainless steel. He only used it once or twice a season.


He even offered to sell me the converted mansion as he had gotten older eventually. I consider without knowing for certain that it may have been a misteak not to buy it. Still no one visualized the future then with great accuracy.


A new 1400 square bungalow then in that town was about 12k. He wanted 80k from me for it. Peanuts today of course. Odd in that you could not build the gated stone wall around the place for that today.


Perhaps the buildings time was over when oil prices went through the roof. Those cut stone places had no real insulation and would be difficult to retrofit with insolation. At least that one looked good even after his converting it to 13 larger apartments.


Why the details in this post? In the second world war and the years after. My grandmother would throw her fur coat on. Load me into her Buick and she would go out buying houses. If nothing else she showed me by example as she would buy about 2-3 houses a week.


Send a crew in to refresh them as soon as she got the titles. Sell them off for usually about twice her total cost.. She was a very successful early house flipper.


There were endless times I remember she said the house did not look right. Tell me why and we would leave. It is odd what you can pick up when very young. I think I absorbed how to really inspect a purchase before sealing the deal from her.


Looking back from todays perspective. She knew the business inside out. I grew up in one of her acquisitions for a time. She purchased a small private hospital and a doctors residence. Converted the hospital very little. Rented each room out for women working in the war industry. She sold the doctors residence to my mother and father while dad was still overseas. I accidentally eventually burnt the place substantially but insurance rebuilt it.


As a young tyke I was allowed to visit the young ladies in the converted hospital. They usually were young girls far from home but there for the big dollars of war work. Grandmother had really strict rules for the place. When the war ended she sold the old hospital. She made a ton of money at a time probably very few women did.


So in an abstract way when I look at a building my grandmother conditioned me. Perhaps that is why I still like to look at them? Looking back today. I wonder why grandmother never did commercial property basically?