Just visited the home of a dude w/$300 million net worth.

palmera · Post by **palmera** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:02 pm

My friend is a nanny there.
They are re-decorating their mansion.
I'm speechless...as in, $1.5 million dollar television budget speechless.

Post by **jacob** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:13 pm

Did they have a gift-wrapping room?

Hoplite · Post by **Hoplite** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:20 pm

Did they have a gift-wrapping room?

A gift-wrapping room? What a quaint bourgeois idea! Wealthy people don't wrap gifts, they hire Christo to wrap the neighborhood

George the original one · Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:34 pm

Nice, $9 million/yr ERE income @3% if it's all invested...

Dragline · Post by **Dragline** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 10:27 pm

Yeesh, how obnoxious.

C40 · Post by **C40** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:50 pm

If you have 300 million, why not?
Well... $1.5 million on TVs is probably ridiculous no matter how much money you have. And if you only have 300 million, it's a very big chunk of that. They must really like watching TV.

DividendGuy · Post by **DividendGuy** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:09 am

I agree.
$1.5 million TV budget? How is that even possible? I'm not saying I'd be going without anything with that much money, but that's just ridiculous. I really don't understand how that's possible. Are they coated in gold and diamonds?

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:20 am

Neighbors spent $50K on a tv/av system for their new poolhouse. It only has *one* tv, and they were already complaining that it was too small. I'm sure a large house with several tv/av systems could easily top a million.

dot_com_vet · Post by **dot_com_vet** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:38 am

I visited a $10 million house that was decorated 20 years prior. It looked dated and tacky to me, not desirable at all.
The free scenery outside the home was gorgeous.

palmera · Post by **palmera** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 9:59 pm

Jennypenny: wow so it IS possible to spend THAT on TVs. $50k on ONE system for the poolhouse.
The world is crazy, I tell ya.
But you know, props to this richie rich family because they started with nothing and in 1 generation built an empire (or something to that effect).

elai · Post by **elai** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 5:16 am

Seriously?? The top top top huge TVs top out at around 20k. If I wanted really huge I would just go for a quality 1080p projector. It's the biggest you'll get. At those budgets it's starting to reach theatre setups.

Post by **jacob** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 6:03 am

But how much does it take to set up a bonafide iMax theater?

Their system is probably somewhere between a 13" CRT and that.
When I was looking at houses in Oregon I saw a listing for a mansion (that looked like 10 houses glued together in a somewhat bizarre fashion) which had an INDOOR shooting range.

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 9:06 pm

So $1.5 million just happens to be the cost of an IMAX installation (the "mini" version that's still huge, not the biggest size)
Maybe that's what they installed, but that's more than a tv budget - tv has nowhere near the resolution for this setup to make sense. I wonder how much it costs to buy IMAX content for viewing!

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 10:29 pm

Haven't you guys ever watched MTV Cribs? I'm telling you, you can spend 1.5 million without the imax setup. It's not that hard if you factor in theater lighting and sound in several rooms, the motorized cabinets to hide the TVs out of sight when not in use, total surround sound, wiring up remotes (like security boxes) all through the house, etc. You can have TVs mounted in the wall (or the ceiling for bedrooms--no kidding) that play other scenes as well.
I'd rather have the imax setup with the dome, but only if I could also put in a planetarium projector.

ICouldBeTheWalrus · Post by **ICouldBeTheWalrus** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:31 am

I have not in fact ever watched MTV Cribs. I suspect I'm not alone on these forums.

C40 · Post by **C40** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:45 am

For $1.5 million you could hire a full time Jester for the rest of your life. Or maybe 3 or 4 of them.

MySavingStyle · Post by **MySavingStyle** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 3:34 pm

I'm curious, do you know what did they do to earn their money?

palmera · Post by **palmera** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 10:47 pm

A fulltime Jester...AWESOME idea. Along those lines, I'd love a 4 piece string quartet to play at dinner every evening, just like being in a restaurant B)
@MySavingStyle - software.

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 11:11 pm

By the way, it's my impression that most empires are built in a generation. By the third generation, only 15% of the businesses still exist (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/1 ... 07291.html)

palmera · Post by **palmera** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 11:22 pm

@dragoncar excellent point, particularly when it comes to family businesses that generate 6 to 8 figure revenues/profits (i.e. smaller businesses). Example, my grandfather built a successful business, which he then turned over to his 3 sons (and not my mom...). The sons, in turn, embezzled and pretty much ran the company into the ground.
The super-duper wealthy *seem* to squabble less, maybe because the pie is so much bigger and they're kept at arms length of the company (if it's public) anyway (think P&G). Though there are some families where things are apparently tense (Hermes, French company that makes $500 scarves).