I was wondering they checked the zoning and plans for the land across the street and were ok with it, if they built it after the ball fields were already built, or if the zoning was changed after they built it.
My question is—what is .4 of a bath or is it one bath has 1.4 baths. What the heck is that?
It’s 8 full bathrooms and 4 half bathrooms.
Agree about the location, with nearby baseball fields…… and big white house next door.
Ah, I’m obviously unfamiliar with the shorthand used — oh well not interested in leaving paradise anyway.
The softball fields were added to the park in 2006. The land purchase for the home was in 2007. Bob Jones park is 500 acres and has many thigs besides the softball fields, such as amphitheater, trails, dog park, fishing, … I wouldn’t be surprised if the type of people who want to live in a castle house also don’t mind seeing kids playing sports at what sounds like a nice park. More detail about the sale history is below. The home owners have a history of asking $5m for the castle, then selling the property for much less.
2007 – Purchase land
2008 – Construction?
2009 – House listed for $4.9M
2010 – Prince decreased to $3.7M
2011 – Changed from for sale to for rent at $100k → $10k
2011 – For sale again at $3.5M → $3.3M…
Aug 2011 – Finally sells
2015 – For sale again at $4.9M
2016 – Price drops to $4.5M
2017 – Price drops to $3.75M
2018 – Price drops to $3.5M
2019 – Goes to auction with starting bid of $2.5M, Sells for $2.576M (listing at https://www.conciergeauctions.com/auctions/3716-north-white-chapel-boulevard-dallas-fort-worth-texas)
2021 – For sale again at $5M
Well, I’ve always like the strategy of, if you can’t sell for $5MM, then raise the asking price and not sell it for $7.5MM. 
They’re obviously not serious about selling the house.
1 Like
We have friends who live near there . We call it the property with “turrets” syndrome.
3 Likes
We have friends who live near this property. It’s not nearly as fantastic as you might think. We refer it as the “ turrets syndrome” house. Sorry for duplicate post. CC is act
It’s not the park itself or being near kids, it’s the massive lighting structures that made me wonder. Ball field lights are not subtle.
1 Like
Interesting history.
It’s just too specific a style to appeal to a large sample of buyers. It’s not the kind of house you can un-castle, no matter how many coats of paint you apply.
Additionally, even most wealthy people don’t want an almost 20K sq. ft. house to take care of.
3 Likes
8 bathrooms and 4 1/2 baths is already way more than I’m interested in cleaning or paying to have anyone else clean regularly. All those 20,000 square feet need to be cleaned by someone or something. Cleaning is expensive when that much space is involved and if it’s not done regularly it will get musty or worse.
Nope, we have enough on our hands to keep our 1200 sq ft house clean enough. They couldn’t pay us to have a huge monstrosity — folks we know with huge homes say it’s a ball and chain, especially if they do all cleaning themselves.
1 Like
That is like 12 toilets!! Yikes.
If I had an extra $5M burning a hole in my pocket, I would splurge on a nice tropical place or something in San Diego.
4 Likes
This house reminds me of the old saying: An ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure.
5 Likes
I live alone in a house with many bathrooms. The bathroom cleaning isn’t a big deal since the bathrooms that get little use also accumulate little grime or other things requiring cleaning. My far bigger concern with the bathrooms would be keeping the toilets/showers/sinks/plumbing in good maintenance and avoiding potential water damage.
For example, I recently learned that a 2nd floor toilet that don’t regularly use was on the verge of overflowing, with the water, right at the top of the tank. It only required a few turns of the adjustment level screw to fix, but if I had not caught it, the damage could have easily been in the 5 figures. I think that toilet may also need a new fill valve and/or better seal, as there were some bubbles. With 12 toilets, there is far more potential for things to go wrong that aren’t noticed immediately and far more things to maintain. Similarly for other rooms, I’d be more concerned about maintenance and repair, rather than cleaning.
2 Likes
The idea of having and maintaining a place where I am only mostly using a very small portion of it does not appeal to me. Our 1200 square foot house and yard and carport are perfect for our current needs—anything significantly larger would be a lot more effort for us to maintain and something we would NOT want to do. We are trying to simplify our life, not complicate it.
The “cottages” like San Simeon and other places were maintained by a bunch of employees. One of my acquaintances maintains a 6000 squ foot home. It’s gorgeous and great for entertaining but the dust from the high 10 or 12’ ceilings set off D’s allergies. Dusting a ceiling that high is very difficult but it’s very impressive.
Ok, climbing down from my tangent—back to the thread.
3 Likes
I’ve found the key is to use an electric leaf blower on a low setting to get dust off the ceiling, then vacuum the floor. This is far easier and faster solution than the more traditional approach of standing on a ladder and brushing a duster on each spot of the large ceiling.
5 Likes
We also want smaller, not larger, when we look for another place (vacation or just plain old move). For us a 2/2 is ideal, pending the view, a 2/1 would be considered. We’d be downsizing from a 4/1 with a gorgeous view, albeit farmland vs Big Water. Big Water is our next plan since H deserves a lot more time sailing than he’s had during our working years. We just don’t know whether to rent and wander around or buy and rent it out when we aren’t there.
Covid slowed down our visiting and checking out areas plan.
1 Like
Data10 - that leaf blower for the 2 story ceiling cleaning is a great idea! We haven’t dragged in a big ladder/scaffolding in years (more than would care to admit!).
I 100% agree about wanting simplicity and smaller space as time goes on. I don’t even covet the extra-big homes (same as BunsenBurner - even if I had a spare $7 mil would rather travel or buy a small place with a great view on a mountaintop or in an amazing city).
3 Likes
Wow—would never have thought of using leaf blower in house. That’s a fascinating thought. Our ceilings are much lower, so not an issue.