World’s Most Expensive Home
Wednesday, 30th April 2008 by Alex Turnbull
Ira Rennert is the billionaire founder of Renco Group1, who is best known for the palatial property he had built in the Hamptons, New York. It is the largest privately owned house in America It is purportedly the largest privately owned and occupied house in America, and is estimated to be the world's most expensive home.
The beach-front complex is known as Fairfield, and it nestles in a mere 255,000 m² of land (63 acres). The buildings themselves have over 10,000 m² of floor-space, and contain 29 bedrooms, 39 bathrooms, a 28 m long dining room, a bowling alley, a squash court and by all accounts a $150,000 hot tub!
Outside we can see the obligatory tennis and basketball courts, a modest-sized swimming pool and this ground level picture proves that money can't necessarily buy good taste...
In 2007 Mr Rennert reportedly paid a staggering $397,559 in tax on this property, and based on these figures, the building has been estimated to be worth at least $170 million.
Read more about Mr. Rennert and his house at Wikipedia. Thanks to Bob and mesmart.
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The Renco Group is a holding company which basically owns other companies, and they're far from popular with environmentalists. Until recently Renco owned the company that makes Hummers, and they continue to operate mills and mines across the US and South America that have provoked "public outcries, environmental lawsuits, and hundreds of millions of dollars in environmental penalties and fines". ↩︎
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
@ Alex – I have a correction. The largest privately owned home in America is the Biltmore Estate. Here are a few links to supporting information.
wiki page.
Google Search: “america’s largest privately owned house“
Biltmore website
And a nice GE aerial shot
LiveMaps Birds Eye view
Also, I was curious about what is meant by “world’s most expensive home” I haven’t found any information about that.
There was a flat in London that sold not long ago for over 226 million dollars.
Here is a link to a Bird’s Eye view of “Fairfield”.
just thought you would also like to know, the biltmore house is worth considering CPI index original about $10 million back in 1895, in 2009 dollars $289,546,168.25
Also interesting to note…The Biltmore Estate has not been featured on googlesightseeing as of yet.
I clicked over from my RSS reader to point out the Biltmore House, and was pleased to see that the other globetrotting readers here were already on top of things. I’ve been through the Biltmore House, and it is really incredible. I’m sure Rennert’s house is too, but probably somewhat less so. 😉
I’ve always wondered whether those millionaires ever play basketball on their, as you said, obligatory basketball field.
Basketball field… snickers
@nova72: I think what Alex meant to say was that it is ‘… one of the largest occupied residential compounds in America …’ and not a museum like the Biltmore Estate.
As for largest and most expensive private homes: My guess is they’ll all be dwarfed by Buckingham Palace … which is technically the monarch’s property. It has a whopping 77,000 square metres floor-space and who knows what possible value. Of course it’s hardly likely to come onto the market any time soon 😉
@Tammo, yes it would appear I edited that bit out by mistake – thank you, I’ll edit the post.
@nova72 – In the article you linked to it states that the £115m building that was sold “is to be carved out of a seven-storey 1930s office block, which will be used to create a total of six extravagant apartments.” – so I’m afraid it doesn’t count, as we’re talking about 1 single home.
Here’s a forbes.com article about the world’s most expensive homes in 2007, which puts the most expensive sale at $165 million dollars.
(Giving me justification to stand by my statement that Fairfield is “estimated to be the world’s most expensive home.”)
However this is the crux of the matter – although it has been repeatedly claimed to be the world’s most expensive home, nobody could be sure unless Mr Rennert actually chose to sell it, which I don’t suppose he has any plans to.
@ Alex – I realized it probably wouldn’t count.
I guess my main point in mentioning it was that the author of the TimesOnline stated, “A flat in central London has become the most expensive HOME in the world, with a price understood to exceed £115m.” With that said, it really depends on how one defines “home.”
and thanks making the edit clarifying the largest occupied…
There could be a large post on the topic of expensive or large single family homes, similar to other “World’s Most…” posts featuring numerous locations. I certainly don’t have the time though 😉
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mukesh_Ambanis_home_worlds_costliest/articleshow/3002586.cms
Just read about this one today…
All he needs is an ice rink
I wonder what No10 Downing street or the White house are worth.