Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Tag: Real Estate

  • Bill Gates’ house

    Bill Gates’ house: Found this on Wikipedia’s Unusual articles page. Pretty amazing stuff; some things that jumped out at me:

    • Assessed values (as of 2002) of $113 million, with over $1 million in annual property tax
    • 66,000 square feet
    • The wood columns from main floor to roof in entry area are over 70 feet tall.
    • Some of the interior passage doors weigh over 800 lbs, but are balanced for easy use.
    • The roofing is stainless steel.
    • Hidden cameras are everywhere, including the interior stone walls.
    • Gates insisted on saving a 40 year old maple adjacent to the driveway. The tree is monitored electronically 24 hours per day via computer. If it seems dry, it gets just the right amount of water automatically delivered.
    • All woodwork is flawless. Much of the woodwork is of various rare types from all over the world – imported especially for this house.
    • The theater (underground in a concrete shell) is the most state of the art theatre in the world according to specialty contractor.

    Picture? Of course!

    Bill Gates' house, aerial view
    Photo from Flickr

    More photos can be found on this Flickr group.

    I’m not sure I can even get my mind around a place like this. Some of the photos look like a Disneyland attraction.

  • Trump/Bend on Google

    It seems I am the number one search on Google for “Donald Trump Bend Oregon“. That’s awesome. I think I should win something :).

    Even more amusing is reading the comments I got on that post, with the variations on the rumor people have heard.

    How about this? Start a weblog called BendRumors.com (the domain is available! Grab it up quick!) and run just this sort of thing… (Actually, Shannon’s boy suggested something similar, doing “BendTabloid.com.” That one’s available, too.)

  • Hobbit holes in Bend?

    Now this is some kind of crazy:

    The hobbit holes will hold lawn mowers instead of diminutive, barefooted halflings from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, but The Shire aims to bring some Old World styling and a fantasy setting to Bend’s east side.

    “We call it the place of enchantment, and we are building to that (motto),” said Ron Meyers, the developer whose business card identifies him as Lord of The Shire….

    The application submitted to the city for development calls for a mix of 31 cottages and townhomes on 6.2 acres off Benham Road east of the Parrell/Sisters Mobile Home Park. The project also will have 1.5 acres of common open space that will include trails, ponds, landscaping and an amphitheater, some of which are in place.

    Hobbit holes already are cut into the side of the hill, and Karl Anthony, whom Meyers describes as a “spiritual artist,” held a concert at the amphitheater a few weeks ago.

    It will be the homes themselves, however, that give The Shire its unique look.

    Cottages will evoke English country homes. Townhouses will be built to look like medieval city streetscapes.

    Yeah. Good luck with that.

    …actually, I’d be real curious to see what it looks like when they’re done. Jeez, just when I thought the real estate market around here couldn’t get any weirder…

    One thing the Bulletin forgot: the web site address for “The Shire.” Kind of important, there.

    But that’s okay, I found it: The Shire of Bend, Oregon.

  • The Donald Trump/Bend urban legend

    Note: This post was originally written way back in 2005, when most of the world still considered Trump to be (at best) an orange-skinned clown with questionable tastes and shady dealings. Of course now it’s 2022 as I update this and we all know he’s even more of a racist shitbag who absolutely destroyed our democracy, so there’s really nothing more to see here.

    I just heard about this at work today, people claiming that Donald Trump said the number one place to invest in/develop/buy/smoke real estate is Bend, Oregon. One guy—a local land engineer even—claims that Trump said this on Larry King Live. He may even be developing something here!

    Folks, it just ain’t true. Someone’s blowing smoke up your ass. It’s a rumor someone started to get people talking about Bend real estate. There’s no information online alluding to this, and even the transcripts of the Larry King Live episode in question don’t bear it out. Bend is not even on Trump’s radar.

    Let’s move on now, m’kay?