I came across this website showing pricey pads (!!!)
Definitely awesome, but I wouldn't want to pay the HVAC bills on all the ones I've seen, which look to have about 95% exterior windows in places like Minnesota. (Don't these people realize that Minnesota gets rather cold in the winter? Oh, well, if you're rich or poor enough, you don't have to stay there in the winter I suppose.)
Looking at the place on Lake Minnetonka, I am reminded of the picture of my father's family in front of a huge house circa 1905. I could see that Minnetonka pad as a hugely rebuilt version of the home my father's father lived in, which was on the north side of lake Minnetonka (?). But when my grandfather died, my father and his wife were forced to move out to a very downscale cottage some ways away, a place where many tragedies occurred, including the soon untimely deaths of my grandfather (who fell down the basement stairs) and several of my would-be aunts and uncles (mostly from infectious diseases).
That move-out was because of the way the grandfather's will was interpreted. The house went to my father's somewhat estranged sister, and she summarily kicked everyone else out. My grandmother was very unhappy about that, and protested until she was locked up, for the rest of her life (about 30 years!) in a mental hospital. Much later, in the 1940's, my mother visited her mother-in-law in that hospital before she died, and said there was no reason at all for her to have been locked up all that time, she was perfectly sane.
Actually, I can't remember if this lake of family fate was actually Minnetonka. But decades later, Minnetonka became one of my mother's favorite places to stay, she was virtually living there in some separation from my father, who was still living and working in Minneapolis. She even tried to get my sister enrolled in school near Lake Minnetonka, but it was not to be. Finally, by the time my sister was to finish high school, my mother had whisked her to California, where she attended Hollywood High School among future stars and celebrities. Strangely, though, a few years later the Coen brothers graduated from the high school in Minneapolis where my sister would have graduated, had she continued living in Minneapolis. And my sister and I have enjoyed Coen brothers movies far more than those in which her Hollywood classmates played a part.
Definitely awesome, but I wouldn't want to pay the HVAC bills on all the ones I've seen, which look to have about 95% exterior windows in places like Minnesota. (Don't these people realize that Minnesota gets rather cold in the winter? Oh, well, if you're rich or poor enough, you don't have to stay there in the winter I suppose.)
Looking at the place on Lake Minnetonka, I am reminded of the picture of my father's family in front of a huge house circa 1905. I could see that Minnetonka pad as a hugely rebuilt version of the home my father's father lived in, which was on the north side of lake Minnetonka (?). But when my grandfather died, my father and his wife were forced to move out to a very downscale cottage some ways away, a place where many tragedies occurred, including the soon untimely deaths of my grandfather (who fell down the basement stairs) and several of my would-be aunts and uncles (mostly from infectious diseases).
That move-out was because of the way the grandfather's will was interpreted. The house went to my father's somewhat estranged sister, and she summarily kicked everyone else out. My grandmother was very unhappy about that, and protested until she was locked up, for the rest of her life (about 30 years!) in a mental hospital. Much later, in the 1940's, my mother visited her mother-in-law in that hospital before she died, and said there was no reason at all for her to have been locked up all that time, she was perfectly sane.
Actually, I can't remember if this lake of family fate was actually Minnetonka. But decades later, Minnetonka became one of my mother's favorite places to stay, she was virtually living there in some separation from my father, who was still living and working in Minneapolis. She even tried to get my sister enrolled in school near Lake Minnetonka, but it was not to be. Finally, by the time my sister was to finish high school, my mother had whisked her to California, where she attended Hollywood High School among future stars and celebrities. Strangely, though, a few years later the Coen brothers graduated from the high school in Minneapolis where my sister would have graduated, had she continued living in Minneapolis. And my sister and I have enjoyed Coen brothers movies far more than those in which her Hollywood classmates played a part.
