Vacation Planning with the Gitzels...

Dave has booked a weekend at a very fancy, chintz-laden bed and breakfast (I'm so proud, I could cry) in Newport, RI. We're working on dining reservations, etc tonight and naturally we're taking suggestions from friends. I just happened to mention that a good friend of MINE is pretty familiar with Newport and that I could maybe ask for recommendations:

Me: “Robert’s going to Newport, but the week after we are.”

Dave: “Good”

Me: “What? It’s not like I’d suggest we all have dinner or something, we’re not going there to hang out with people we know. We’re going for other reasons...I assume?”

Dave: “Well yeah…we’ll be doing ooey gooey stuff. Or screaming at each other. Either way, no one needs to be subjected to that”

Point taken.

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Words

from Grey's Anatomy tonight.

"Don’t wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don’t."

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Gonna file this under...

I'm definitely a HUGE fan of real estate porn. New York Spaces magazine is a favorite monthly read, not for the interior design aspect (usually too modern for my taste), but for the sheer delight of peeking in to my "neighbor's" apartments. This month one of the feature stories is on an Upper East Side landmarked apartment that was once owned by Baron Guy de Rothschild. We're talking 18th and 19th century Portuguese and Indian crewelwork wall panels restored, original oak paneling, poly-chrome ceilings--it looks like a musuem, and some lucky bastard gets to live in it. That kind of real estate porn I love. Yes, I'm jealous as all getout, but on the other hand really happy that those interiors were preserved and are being loved and lived in. This next story however, makes me want to vomit. Or kill someone.

Go check out Inside the World's First Billion Dollar Home" on Forbes.com. Nita and Mukesh Ambani (apparently the fifth richest man in the world) and their three children will be moving into a custom built 27-story skyscraper in downtown Mumbai (their current 22-story home is just not cutting it these days). 400,000 square feet of interior space costing about $2 billion. Words cannot describe how hideous it is:

Trust me, I really don't see a damn thing wrong with spending $2 billion on your home. If I was the fifth richest person in the world you should see the real estate I would own...but there is just something really ugly about throwing up a 27 story building for five people. I assume there will be some major entertaining going on and it's always handy to have a huge ballroom and movie theater on hand for those days, but this thing is just ugly. Physcially ugly and there's also something that just really bothers me about the ostentatiousness of this in a country where so many people live in abject poverty. My 750 square feet on the Upper East Side is pretty ostentatious to some people I know, not by size, but by the stupid amount of money it's worth. I try not to point a finger at people who want to throw their cash around, it's none of my damn business to judge, but something about this just rubs me the wrong way. Mumbai's per capita income may be higher than the rest of the country of India, but we're still dealing with a country where the per capita hovers around $1000. But, hey--good for you, you can build a $2 billion dollar eyesore! Isn't there an old Maharaja’s palace lying around somewhere you could snap up and renovate instead? Save some of your people's cultural heritage AND have ample entertaining space? They are however "where possible" "using Indian companies, contractors, craftsmen and materials firms" it's the least they could do.

And NOW I'm uncomfortable with myself because I'm only disgusted with this ugly thing because it's purpose built for these five individuals. If they'd bought an older property I don't know as if I'd give a damn. Is it because I hate modern ugly? Is it because of the bizarreness of people building a fucking SKYSCRAPER for a house? Do you ever even see each other if you live in a skyscraper? If you lived in Versailles I guess you wouldn't see each other either. But I somehow doubt that these five people need this much space, corporate entertaining notwithstanding. Who's uglier? Ostentatious rich people who build modern palaces to lose themselves in or me for feeling sick at the thought of it? I need a drink.

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