Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Pallotta Palace

There is simply nothing like 21 damn thousand square feet in which to empty nest, right kids? Thanks to the good people at Glitterati Gossip (via The Boston Globe), Your Mama has a little something to say about the massive fieldstone and slate Georgian style mansion that Boston Celtics co-owner Jim Pallotta and his wifey Kim are currently erecting on 27.5 acres in Weston, MA, a tony but quiet suburb of Boston.

Lawhd children sometimes Your Mama gets stuck in the LA/NYC/Palm Beach Bermuda Triangle of real estate and forgets that rich people everywhere like to build themselves big ass monuments to the buying power of their extreme wealth. Now children, really, Your Mama is no fool and we understand full well that this is the U-ni-tuhd States of Amurica where rich and poor people alike are entitled to build houses as big as they wanna build 'em and furnish them as luxuriously as their bank accounts will bear. It's the American way. Just look at that philandering media mogul William Randolph Hearst and his crazy castle up in San Simeon, CA. Or all those rich and famous folks up in Beverly Park where 21,000 square feet is merely medium sized.

But that don't mean that Your mama cain't ask, "Why?" Why, when they will be shipping their youngest of two children off to college in a year or two, do the Pallotta's want 21,000 square feet to rattle around in all by themselves? Don't they know that with no one else living up in that monster mansion the live-in help will have nothing better to do than follow their private life and intimate moments like it's a damn soap opera? You think we're kidding? Just ask someone who's lived and worked as full time staff up in one of these big manor houses. Shocking what the staff knows. Shaw-king! Which is why no matter how much paper and coin might be making even more money in Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's various bank accounts, there is no way in hell you could pay us to have live in staff. Pleeze!

According to The Boston Globe, the Pallotta's unfinished 20 room house will feature 5 bedrooms, including a master suite with two walk in closets and an exercise room, living and dining rooms, a wood paneled kitchen with breakfast area, family room, and a sun room. Down in the finished basement will be a 12-seat theater, a game room, music room, and a wine cellar with a separate area for magnums and jeroboams. Outside will be a 4-car garage, a fifty foot swimming pool and cabana, and natch, a basketball court. A separate carriage house with 8 garage bays will house Mister Pallottas muscle car collection.

Current taxes on the incomplete structure are reported to be just over $125,000 per year, an already huge number that will surely sky rocket when the property is given its final certificates of occupancy.

Interestingly the article in The Boston Globe noted that the original plans for the house were for it to measure around 28,000 square feet, but the "prohibitive price" required the size be scaled down somewhat. See puppies, even the filthy rich have budgets and such are the funky financial machinations of a man who reportedly earned $200,000,000 in 2005 alone.

Your Mama wishes these Pallotta people all the happiness in the world in their new airport hanger sized home. We do. But we also predict this place will be for sale within three years of completion with all sorts of quotes in The Boston Globe about how they just don't need that much space anymore. You watch. It happens all. the. time.

Source: David L. Ryan/Globe Staff (photos)

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

it looks like a pretty house, but isn't there a point when big is simply too big for two people?

Anonymous said...

Joan Collins invented a word that I think applies perfectly to this house, yes, it is a: hideosity!

Anonymous said...

What do they need all those rooms for? Rhetorical, yes. The property taxes seem a lot lower than I would have thought for Taxachusetts. Why not put your money into something of more use to the world? Damned idealist in me.

Anonymous said...

I know a thing or two about size queens, Mama, and all I can say is, no matter how tastefully it's decorated, 21,000 SQUARE FEET is just plain vulgar.

Anonymous said...

Take out the big earth moving equipment and workers' vehicles. Add a coach and four with sable lap robes. Add the Tsar and Tsarina. A Russian dacha. The family hunting lodge. Bring on the Bolsheviks.

Anonymous said...

I don't know...Windsor Castle is (according to Wikipedia) @484,000 square feet, and no one could ever call that vulgar.

Well, not and have any credibility.

I'm not saying this manse is remotely in the same category as Windsor Castle, just that for some, more is....more.

Personally, I think 6,000 sq ft is the upper limit for true usefulness.

Anonymous said...

John Edwards has a love child. DrudgeReport. Down and dirty time.

Anonymous said...

Even your cleaning lady knows more than you want her to,and as for the live in staff,well we're writing a book honey!

Anonymous said...

WHY?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but Windsor Castle is a national monument and for the use of more than two people - hardly an "empty nest."

Unknown said...

You wanna know why? Because they wanted to have the biggest house in Weston, and in order to do that, they had to beat the Karp family, whose 20K foot mansion is located not too far from this new monstrosity. I happen to live in the next town, I've been in the Karp home for a fund raiser, and I know that they have three cascading living rooms, a basement with an indoor pool, a full size 'malt shoppe' for their two teenagers, neither of whom live at home anymore, an entertainment room, and a huge exercise guy.

For the Pallottas to best the Karps, they had to go beyond big. They had to do ginormous.

(Karp is a mall builder and one of the richest men in the Northeast)

Anonymous said...

Don't forget the Charleston house he picked up earlier this year. Just under 10,000 feet. and it has a name the mama will love, "O'Donnells folly."

21 king street
"The Patrick O'Donnell House, a three and one-half story brick on a high brick basement, stuccoed was built in 1856-57 and is one of the city's most elaborate houses in the Italianate style of the mid 19th century. O'Donnell built his "ltalian palace," according to tradition, for his prospective bride, but took so long at the task that she married another. Consequently, local wits called the house "O'Donnell's Folly." O'Donnell modified the traditional single house plan by adding to the north side a slightly recessed wing (balancing the slightly recessed end of the piazza), containing the formal entrance hall and stair. The plan allowed the main rooms to flow into each other. The exterior has a rusticated first level, vermiculated quoins, an elaborate cornice with both dentils and modillions. Each tier of the piazza has a different entablature on fluted Doric columns. The interior has very elaborate plasterwork in the taste of the period. An unusual feature is the face of Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale," which is reproduced repeatedly in the ceiling medallions of the double drawing room. O'Donnell was a building contractor whose projects included St. Luke's Church at 22 Elizabeth St. Josephine Pinckney, the novelist, lived here from 1907 to 1937, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina was organized here in 1920. lt was also the home of Mrs. Thomas R. Miccahan, who is said to have been the model for Melanie in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind. (Ravenel, Architects, p. 224-227; Stoney, This is Charleston, p. 60; Stoney, News & Courier, April 15, 1964; Stockton, DYKYC, Aug. 7, 1978.)"

Anonymous said...

Karps. Pallottas. Sounds suspiciously like a pissing contest between skunks...and we all know how that game ends up!
Peace
JD

Anonymous said...

I agree with Mama that running a house like this is more trouble than it's worth.

But at least they had the good sense to build it on a huge lot buffered by woodland, and to choose a style of architecture that looks (at least in the main facade) like a big comfortable country house someone might have built in 1920.

An aside, I spent a few teenage years at school in Southborough (a few towns over from Weston) and haven't been back for years -- this post is making me a little nostalgic for the neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

i agree with mama that they will be outta there in 3 yrs.
maybe it has something to do with the size, its hard to get comfortable in a house that big, probably feels like a hotel, with staff, so probably no real attachment, just a big ass monument.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, just mike, for the info on O'Donnell's Folly - interesting reading.

Though it's design is bland and uninspired, the Pallotta house does remind me of the old estates on Long Island in its planning and layout; but when it comes down to it, some Saudi price will be living there in 3 years.

Anonymous said...

That's "prince" not "price" - what a slip!

Anonymous said...

I wondered two things that I checked before commenting: who is this guy on a personal level, and who's designing this place; both were feel good answers. Jim Pallotta is self made, he's a verrry generous and conditionally discrete philanthropist, appears to be well-liked, and he played by the rules at every phase of this property's development. As for the integrity of design, his AD 100 team knows their stuff, with a jaw-dropping awesome portfolio to back it up. Why he wants an estate of this magnitude doesn't need to make sense to me. I'm left with the sense that it will be a happy home, which to me is all that really matters.

Anonymous said...

He sounds like a fun guy. This from Boston Magazine:

At this January’s “Back to the Prom”–themed Big Brothers’ Big Night fundraiser—an event that has raked in nearly $14 million since he started it in 1999—Pallotta showed up in a tight black prom dress, long black gloves, and a corsage. (“He was a great-looking girl,” says Demirjian.)

Anonymous said...

Get your hands off me!

Anonymous said...

The scene the historic Eisenhower building Washington DC 9.30am......................
"Dick don't do it"screamed Condi"That furniture was left to the nation it's some of the rarest 18th century pieces in the State dept collection"Dick turned to her and with a snarl said"I don't give a fuck about some liberals donation of junk,if I have to burn it all with my papers then up in smoke it goes.Get out of my way Condi".

Anonymous said...

Way back when... I had been on a self-guided tour of Greystone in BH during the filming of Dark Shadows (the movie). About 10 minutes into my little tour, I saw a group of studs trying to move the grand piano down the stair case. They spotted me and asked if I could give them an extra hand. So, I did the best I could do. Oh, and I also helped them with the piano, down the last few steps in the foyer. And what was my thanks? Well... I was shortly thereafter being chased out by a burly security guard (something about a closed set and "I don't care who you had to suck-off just to get this far"). And as it happened, I was even more impressed with Greystone. Seems everywhere I turned there was another gorgeous room (if a bit blurred by my speed), fabulous marble floors, (albeit slippery at said speed), and wonderful woodwork even in the closet(!). However... sometimes a big house is just big, and ugly. Like Aaron Spelling's monstrosity and some of the others we've all seen thanks to Mama. I wouldn't spend that sort of money (assuming I had - any!)to create this sort of grand estate. But, from what I can see - it does look like a great design and appropriate for the land and region. Now, Mama dear, about the Help. Do tell us about some of the juicy stories you've heard. I'll tell you some of mine if you tell me some of yours!

Anonymous said...

hippie canyon, whatever were you doing back in the closet?

Anonymous said...

I was just talking to a friend and he said I was NUTS (a medical term. Nothing really). Seems it wasn't Dark Shadows. It was Batman. Oh well. And anyway, the closet was necessary for the moment. Don't worry, it didn't take!

Cod Peace said...

The thing about a house of this monstrous size is the amount of electricity and natural gas required to run it will just drive up the prices for the rest of us.

I don't see any solar panels or windmills going up to offset its resource use.

Why should Pallotta be entitled to consume so much just because he's rich?

Anonymous said...

It feels cold and empty. Money never guaranteed good taste - this is a perfect example. What a waste.

Anonymous said...

Nobody cares about anything anymore our Vice President can set light to a historic building and get away with it!

Anonymous said...

snicker


I too that Dick was at it with his Bic lighter.

Anonymous said...

I remain Switzerland the whys and wherefores of this property's "green" concerns. And I'm not gonna become a poster of commonly known published data, okay? Simply sharing what I've read on this subject, for better or worse. According to local ink:
"Pallotta’s plans breezed through the approval process [also referred to as Weston’s thorny planning boards],… because he agreed to all the town’s recommendations … He removed 20 of the estate’s exterior light fixtures (leaving 113 behind); downgraded the size of his lawn from 10½ acres; drilled new wells rather than draw water from Weston’s reservoirs; and [another requirement] planted an additional 50 trees to screen the house from Wellesley Street. … The planning board voted unanimously to approve Pallotta’s plans." Source: Frances Storrs, Boston magazine; 4/07.

Anonymous said...

Mama, every time I see this picture I can't get Omar Sharif off my mind.