Dallas Bathroom Humor: Why Do The Rich Like So Many Bathrooms in Their Homes?

What’s up with the uber rich that they need so darn many bathrooms? Do they really drink that much water? My mantra is you can never be too thin, too rich, or have too many homes. So the idea of adding “you can never have enough bathrooms’ sounds quite delightful, actually. Seems like that is the mantra of very wealthy homeowners who now, Yahoo’s Ilyce Glink tells us, insist upon TWO BATHROOMS for every bedroom. So you have an 8 bedroom house, that’s 16 baths plus the powders.Personally, that doesn’t make sense. What does make sense is more powder rooms — for guests, for family members, even for the pets. The Hicks do it right — 6 bedrooms, 7 full baths and 5 half-baths, or powder rooms. Brokers in Los Angeles swear this two bath per bedroom is the norm. I mean, maybe if one toilet breaks you have a spare, but I just think that would be too confusing: where do you keep your daily “stuff” — combs, make-up, lotions and medicines? Is one bathroom for actual use, the other for show and magazine shoots?

The reason, says Ilyce, is that luxury homes are getting bigger. Hello! I swear I will punch the next writer who writes that the average American home is shrinking. It’s shrinking about as much as my rear. When you build, you just want bigger. Talked to a developer today who told me how he has tried to cap vacation home size in a nearby second home community to 5500 square feet of A/C space — plenty for a vacation home, a second (or even third home), right? He was trying to be sustainable. People are pushing the limits on that and building porches, breezeways, anything they can to get around it.

In LA, Scottsdale, and I hear even in Dallas, 20,000 square foot homes are not so rare any more. Mickey Munir has a stellar spec on Strait Lane: 15,000 square feet. Yes, I said spec. I am hearing about one I hope to present to you soon, now under construction: 40,000 square feet.

Look at this huge spread up on Frankfort near the North Dallas Forty. There’s another gargantuan project off Lennox building a beauty salon off the master in a custom home — what a great idea and only what, 500 extra square feet? I’ll bet the beauty salon needs a bathroom!

So the more space you have, the more bathrooms you need, lest someone have an accident on that limestone floor.

The top photo in this post is of a home compound in Kings Gate. Here is how a neighbor describes it:

It truly looks like you are walking into an office building lobby with marble walls three stories high and an elevator lobby.  Each kid’s room has a spa and closet/dressing room about the size of a one-bedroom condo!  They also have an actual chefs kitchen with a slot for the food to be served from, like a restaurant, a bowling alley, staff quarters, and a huge garage stocked with Ferraris and Lamborgini’s.  That building next to the house is the kennel for the German Shepherds that patrol the property at night and their trainer.”

Let’s look at some Dallas area mansions, including Sharif-Munir’s Strait Lane masterpiece (above), and see just how many bedrooms and bathrooms they have:

Champ d’Or:  6 bedrooms, 5 and a half baths.

The Crespi Estate: 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 5 half baths.

Mt. Vernon: 5 bedrooms, 5 full and two half baths.

4939 Manson Court: 9 bedrooms, 9 full and 4 half — this make sense.

Dans Bois Crete: 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 2 half baths.

10245 Strait, Sharif-Munir: 5 bedrooms, 5 full and three half baths

6508 Oldgate, Kings Gate (Plano): 5 bedrooms, 5 full and 1 half bath.

The M Mansion: 9 bedrooms, 12 baths and I believe at least one half bath.