Colossal Cribs

The enormity of the house Arnold Chase is building on Avon Mountain isn't fully apparent from the outside, where only 17,000 square feet of it lies in plain view.

It's the two-level, 33,500-square-foot basement complex, complete with a 103-seat movie theater, ticket booth, concession stand, game room and music annex, that will make it New England's largest occupied single-family home.

At nearly 50,900 square feet, the Chase home will be slightly larger than billionaire Bill Gates' home in Washington, about 4,000 square feet smaller than the White House and 20 times larger than the average-size home in America.

The largest private home ever built in the United States (above) is the Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C., comprising more than 174,000 square feet.

While we were searching for a home recently, I found that one of the most expensive homes on market in Austin right now (photo above) is at 12021 Selma Hughes Park Road. The asking price is $13.5 million for this 9 bed room, 10.5 bath, 15,859 square feet single family home. Not a bad deal. A house of this size (if available) in any major metropolitan city in India would cost a lot more, I think. But then, Austin is a small city.

We decided to buy a slightly smaller home instead :-)