Patrick

Ah, good to hear from you, "CS". I cleared my address book one day and lost your email. I have a question. What house did you rent on 14th? Was it the brick one? Was it on the canal? Just curious who you rented it through also.

I used to think that the most "frightening" thing about those huge houses was that they are all second homes, almost none of them are the primary residence for the owners. But then I was informed I was wrong. Most of them are third houses. The owners have their primary residence somewhere up north, then their northern beach or lake house, and then this is the third. That's even more frightening. And yes, that is the case with the friends building their 40,000 square foot one. But for what it's worth these people have five adopted children (all either foreign born or special needs children), and now two of those children have more children, so at least I know the house gets some major use when they are in residence --small comfort.

LilMsFoodie

Hi Patrick, still would like to meet you someday for lunch on Third St. S. Regarding the outsized homes in Naples and almost everywhere else these days (how about a mere 5 million in Cape Coral): A home can not be seized in Bankrupcty in Florida as long as it is a primary residence. Thus Florida is a good place to stash some money in a home. You can always declare it a primary residence and be protected if your company get s shaky: think the scoundrels from Enron, Worldcom, Conseco, etc. who all have mega homes in Boca, Miami, Naples, etc.

Also, it doesn't do if you own a small, extremely profitable company in nowhereville, midwest, to flaunt your wealth in your home town. Naples is the perfect place to come. The Budweiser distributor for New York can live next to a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and a tool and die shop owner can be across the street and life is then complete.

I've decorated homes for 35 years and it seems we are topping out and people are stashing cash in Florida homes at a rapid pace.

This sort of building frenzy has happened before amongst the super-rich and it came to an end. It remains to be seen if this frenzy will end like the houses of Newport, early Palm Beach, etc.

Patrick

You bring up a good point, LilMsFoodie, and I realize that my former remark should be edited. While these residences are not the REAL primary residences for these people, most are the OFFICIAL primary residence, both for the reason you mention and more importantly for the tax laws and inheritance laws here. These people need to establish Florida as their legal residence to protect their assets from the inheritance laws of most other states. I know one couple who carefully plans their round trip flight to and from Naples one day longer than 6 months and makes sure two of their cars are transported here on those dates too, to protect them should there ever be a problem with their home state of Massachusetts saying that their home in Florida wasn't really their primary residence. But meanwhile during that six month period they still end up taking flights back up north and spending much of that time there. Only on paper it looks like they are residing in Naples all that time.