Number One on Forbes' recently-published list of the most expensive things for 2005 was the World's Most Expensive Home - Updown Court in England. On sale in February for AU$175 million, it has an estimated annual running cost of around A$180,000.
The home has (at least) 13 bedrooms, 24 bathrooms, two kitchens, a helicopter pad, an eight-car garage, squash courts, a gym and a bowling alley, an 8-seat cinema, a floodlit and under-heated outdoor tennis court, a (heated) marble driveway and five swimming pools.
After that the Most Expensive Home in the U.S. just seems almost cheap, at a mere AU$103 million. However, the 60-acre waterfront estate in Hamptons, New York does include a U.S. Golf Association-rated golf course with its own pro shop, a 75-foot-long swimming pool with pavilion, grass tennis court, fourteen gardens, orangery and three fish-stocked ponds.
