patrick.net

I’d really like to own and live in the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park.

I would prefer to live in a compound with multiple, smaller buildings instead of a single, huge structure.

For a European dream house, I'm thinking of the fortress Hohensalzberg above the city of Salzburg. Good security, great views, and a convenient funicular railroad to take you downtown.

I've already found the land!

5 acres looking over the Pacific from the Santa Monica mountains, with a peek-a-boo view of the San Fernando valley. I'm just waiting for the price to come down, to make it affordable to build from scratch.
No easement, but I'd need to put in 500 ft of road. Dirt will do.

As for the house itself.. I'm really intrigued by strawbale.
L.A county recently rescinded its stupid 'alternative building materials' prohibition, so it would finally be possible to build with strawbale, at about the same time and cost of 'conventional' materials.

It would be small - under 2000 sq ft. Although with a well-designed living area (kitchen, living room, dining room) and small bedrooms (3) it might well end up around 1600 sq ft - its only for 2 humans, after all. Lots of outside space, like covered patios, to sit under and use as outside rooms.

Small efficient bathrooms (only need 2 at the most) .
Floors of bamboo (cork in the kitchen), counters made from cycled glass and concrete, and white goods of appropriate size for 2 people and with good energy star ratings. Skylights throughout to let in natural light and reduce costs.

And the full monty of 'green' - totally solar powered, maybe with a small windmill in the yard for external energy needs.
There'll have to be a septic tank, but I do believe that some companies have found beneficial bateria that will do a lot of the work in breaking down human waste.

I don't know if there's any water on the plot, but if it did, I'd have a well built.
In any case, there would be a seperate 'grey water' tank for irrigation etc....

No lawn - or maybe just enough to lie down on, or wiggle your toes in - all the rest would be planted with native coastal plants irrigated with a drip feed system and heavily mulched.

I'd also have a decent sized vegetable plot, plus maybe some fruiting trees on the parts of the lot not set aside as house-and-yard. I'd be interested in either growing walnuts (an old staple here in L.A before the increase of population) or almonds

No need for a pool or hot-tub, as the ocean is just down the hill.

And all within a 10-mile commuting distance to Santa Monica.

Now, if only I had the faintest idea of how hard it is to build from scratch... ;-)

Small efficient bathrooms (only need 2 at the most) .

I want large bathrooms, at least 1 per bedroom.

No shower-over-tub! :)

For a European dream house...

I would settle for a nice "townhouse" in Knightsbridge. ;) I am a sucker for English architectures.

Speedingbullet, that's a cool dream. Good luck.

Peter, the problem is that the expression "dream house" is somewhat vague. I can "dream" a whole lot. ;)

For a "reasonable dream house" the one I bought here in Boise isn't bad. It's a faux-craftsman-bungalow style but all modern in terms of energy efficiency. Small lot since I'm not all that fond of gardening, although I get all the water I want for the yard for free. Most of all I could just write a check for it when I bought it. That's the most reasonable part of all - part of being a dream house is being able to just write a check for it. :)

Here's one of my model for sale elsewhere in my subdivision.
www.jagenrealty.com/DetailFeatures.asp?Mls=98351337&id= This FB paid around $300K last year and is now asking $270K. The dummy moved here from Texas, bought the place, and put it back up on the market about 8 months later - what's with that? I beat an FB down to $270K when I bought mine. I think mine has a much better location and looks better in earth tones paint.

There’ll have to be a septic tank, but I do believe that some companies have found beneficial bateria that will do a lot of the work in breaking down human waste.
Some alternatives:
1. Clivus Multrum
2. Biolet
3. Sawdust toilet (Google Humanure Handbook )

Maybe you could try erecting a yurt on the home site to "test" out its location. I know that some folks have ended up using these as permanent "temporary" structures.

Dennis, like the FBer home listing. Nothing like a bed on the floor to signal desperation.

You can see a video of the home I've wanted to buy since I was a kid at the URL below. On Caddy day I used to walk off the 12th fairway and look around the property thinking of the changes I would make after I bought the place. Back in the late 70's I remember guys telling me that "the home would probably sell for a MILLION dollars" (but I never did find out who built the home). Last year it was on the market for $18mm
http://www.turnhere.com/sampleplayer2.aspx?filmname=apr_floribunda

There's a great graphic in today's Idaho Statesman, but sadly they didn't post it on their website.

It plots "average new home size" in three local cities (Boise, Meridian, Kuna) versus time. There was a sharp peak in square footage around 2006. For example, in Boise it went from 2,105 sq. ft. in 2002 to 3,401 sq. ft. in 2006 and now back down to 2,945 sq. ft. in late 2007. I guess as the RE bubble swelled up the builders kept adding square footage in order to increase their profits.

EBG, I'm not sure what's up with that house. Perhaps several "guys" from Texas bought it when moving to their new jobs here, expecting to "flip" it for a profit a year later. What a surprise for them!

I want the house from the old CDROM adventure game Phantasmagoria. I'd have to move to New England, but that won't be a problem after I'm discovered for the genius I am and put in charge of a little $200mm macro fund.

This house looks pretty good:

http://www.sothebysrealty.com/PropertyDetails.aspx?R=4100006145&in_merch=Showcase%20Property

My next house will hopefully be in South La Jolla, or Mission Beach. I want to be on the coast or maybe one or two blocks away at the most. I'd like to get something in a modern style. A big yard is not necessary if the beach is right there. Something nice was about 1 million but now costs 800K. I'll buy a dream house for about 500K. I don't really need much, location is most important to me. I was in Julian today and you can get 5 acres in the country for mid 300s. I say that only because it is noteworthy how drastically the prices in rural areas of San Diego County have fallen.

Hi, nothing relate to this topic, but relate to housing. One guy I know, he just did a scam with a bank, he and his appraisal pump up the price of his house 200k from the current market price (his house worth 800K, the appraisal 1milion), then he did home equity loan (heloc) 150K. After he got the loan, he foreclose his house. The question I have is how stupid is the bank? How could they not verify such thing? And one thing, they guy I know says that the reason for the bubble was part of the bank's fault. They never check any documents, any loan broker can fake a document and work with the approval, even janitors can have 600K of loan to buy the house.

As bank's stock holders, I really want report those scams to those stupid CEOs, make sure they do internal investigation and tighten up their internal process.

I did not comment on the previous thread - but my sincere condolences Patrick on the passing of your father.

oh yes a water powered car is complete nonsense

Agreed, since water is hydrogen ash. Burning hydrogen releases energy and makes water. It takes energy to extract hydrogen back from water be it electrolysis or fuel cell.

But if some new physics was discovered, you now have a cheap way to power your dream home.

TOB,

HeadSet is right. Extracting hydrogen from water requires more energy than you can get by using hydrogen in non-fusion reaction. Physics 101.

"The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car's tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car"

So, there is "something" (A) that extracts hydrogen from the water. And then, instead of using the extracted hydrogen, they go after (sic) "electrons that produce electric power"?

And where is the power source for (A)? Does it consume less power to break the H2O bond, than the output of the generator?

Quantum-mechanically speaking, the location of a macroscopic object is merely statical. If we can manipulate probability perhaps we can change location with very little energy.

Does God play dice?

In point of fact, Reuter's is a bunch of idiots.

Likening the water engine to cirumnavigating the glove is silly.

We know, as a fact, that the universe heads to its lowest stable energy state. Hydrogen, as the most reactive element in existance will bond with Oxygen to form water. You lose energy both in seperating the hydrogen as well as losses when allowing it to recombine. I think Hydrogen fuel cell has a max efficiency of somethig like 50% but you have to use a ton of cells and limit the draw.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Efficiency

For the record, cold fusion is a myth.

I hardly mean to trash creative thought but every fool out there claims to figure out the cheap energy trick and if someone had, the idea would be worth trillions. It would solve hunger, poverty, social injustice. Cheap energy is truly the Holy Grail of ideas.

It would solve hunger, poverty, social injustice.

It has already been invented. It is called Free Market.

I also have the concept of a new energy source, it is completely powered by hot air.

What about this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motionless_Electrical_Generator

Anyway, realistically, I think solar energy is the future.

Currently, any source of energy, with the possible exception of atomic power, directly or indirectly, efficiently or inefficiently, comes from the sun (or the moon).

sun - plants - dinosaurs - oil
moon - tides
sun - climate - wind

A small house is ideal.
1. It forces you to think twice before accumulating stuff which will clutter your life.
2. Property taxes are less on a small house.
3. Smaller house = lower ulities bills.

Add in good neighbors, a short commute, and the right price, and you've got a dream house.

What is small?

If I cannot extend my arms and spin around in the bathroom, it is too small. I am not a fan of overly-large homes, but a bedroom should comfortably accommodate a king-sized bed, nightstands, a dresser, and a daybed.

I do not want more than 2 bedrooms. But I want an office AND a library.

TOB,

>Simply reciting junior high school physics doesn’t make the possibility of >water powered locomotion go away

Yes it does. Junior high school physics need to be completely rewritten in order to accomodate water powered locomotion. It is not a mere innovation we are talking about, it's a complete revision of human knowledge about the world around us. While I am all for that kind of breakthrough it has to be based on something solid (just like Einstein's theory of relativity was based on facts and observations that were not completely covered by classical physics).

As much as I share your desire for cheap and clean energy the second law of thermodynamics is stronger than both of us.

Let's settle on more realistic goals - like orbital power arrays or mega-kite windfarms.

Or Dyson Sphere.

Peter P,

Dyson shell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere) is our ultimate goal! In addition to full energy output of the Sun we'll have a nice bonus -real estate agents will be having hard time arguing that they don't make more land when you have 600 million Earth surfaces to build on :)

Bork,

Yes, energy is there. We just need to harness it.

Similarly, abundance is everywhere. We just need to attract it.

TOB,

Genepax "news" have been debunked several times since they were announced. The only difference between their announcement and thousands other nutcases is that they managed to dupe major news agancy into believing them (it happens sometimes). Either that or Reuters managed to omit the fact that the car has an additional power source (gasoline or electric engine).

Yes, I've posted here before, why?

Freeman Dyson was a bigwig in the Manhatten Project IIRC.

A small house is ideal.

It would be interesting to see what people here consider a "small house". My house in Cambrian Park SJ was only 1,040 square feet and was too small even for a single guy like me. My new home here in Boise is approx. 1,985 square feet which fits me just about right. The master bath has a separate large "Roman orgy" tub and walk-in shower which should satisfy the "Peter principle". :)

RE: Peter principle

Well, with a market like this the growth in home square footage will soon peter out...

TOB,

Google -> "Genepax hoax".

Detailed explanation of why it can't work :

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/06/perpetual_motion_via_fuel_cell.php

I can provide more links, the story is fresh but bloggers are faster nowadays then traditional news outlets.

Question:

What unusual features will your dream home have?

Here is my Zillow rant about the absolutely worst "best" house you've ever seen. And it's only $5.5mm. Click through, you won't believe it. Trust me. (The link is in my first comment on there).

And on topic ...

I like the speedingpullet's house, its "green" side anyway. Solar panels, windmill and my own well were always on top of my list. With enough money and a bit of imagination you can easily build your own "platinum LEED" house, especially in California, where sun energy is abundant.

What is that? LEGO blocks?

If you scroll down, someone later posted a NYT article about that house which gets even more bizarre. Be sure to scroll through all the pics. Unbelievable. Trust me, you've never seen anything like that. It makes the Winchester House look reasonable.

If I am allow to dream (and be bizarre), I want my own 6000x100 landing strip.