Best Homes 2012: Coolest Houses of the Year
After rounding up the biggest celebrity deals, weirdest buildings and worst listing photos of 2012, we'd like to take a moment to stop and reflect on our personal favorites. The homes below were the ones that our hearts beat for this year. Some of them are strange, cute, star-studded and risque, and they are why we do what we do. Here are our picks for the coolest houses of 2012.
Naomi Campbell's Spaceship Home
We're not sure what the Russian boyfriend of supermodel Naomi Campbell was on when he signed off on this "Battlestar Galactica"-esque mansion designed by architect Zaha Hadid, but we'd sure like to try it. The master bedrooms are housed atop a 65-foot tower rising from the back of the oddly shaped home, which requires a glass elevator to get to. We guess it's cool -- if you're looking at it while tripping on acid or something.
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Hedonist's Fantasy: A Home With Stripper Poles
Yes, that's a stripper pole in the shower. (You know, for safety in case you slip.) And that's not the only one in this ultimate bachelor pad, which had us blushing and giggling when we came across it. There's another stripper pole in the home's disco ... right next to the in-house casino. Yeah, it's party time.
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Wet 'n' Wild Backyard Water Park
We couldn't help but laugh when we found out that this Boulder City, Nev., home with a lazy river, several water slides and a bridge-- all in the backyard -- was a foreclosure. Who on earth could afford to keep all that up? Maybe the Texas dentist who built an even bigger water park in his backyard.
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NYC's $100 Million Octagonal Penthouse
It was the Big Apple's most expensive residential listing, an octagon-shaped penthouse with three floors -- and a wraparound terrace on each one. We thought we lost it to the prime minister of Qatar, but luckily, that was just a rumor. The listing is still open, and we're still counting pennies to buy those 360-degree views of Manhattan.
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A Penthouse With a Slide
We call this NYC penthouse a rich man's playground. Isn't it obvious why? There's a slide smack dab in the middle of the home! We loved it so much that we had to go there and slide down it ourselves (we took video!). It's fun, we promise! ! We heard, though, that since being snapped up, the new owner has removed the slide. Ruin our fun, why don't ya?
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Swim Laps in the Living Room
We thought we'd seen it all, then came this gem in Saddle River, N.J. -- with a swimming pool in the middle of the living room. The living room! You'll sit poolside on lush couches -- the kind that would be the centerpiece in anyone else's living room. But no, in this living room, there's a pool. We just have to keep reminding ourselves.
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Jeffrey Dahmer's Childhood Home is Nice, Not Scary
So it might seem a little strange to have an infamous serial killer's former home on our list, and, well, you got us there! But we were just so taken with how cute Jeffrey Dahmer's childhood home in Ohio is. We imagined raising a nice family there, despite it's terrible background. We also were taken with the home's owner, Chris Butler, who put it simply: "The house didn't kill anybody."
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A Star-Studded Home
The celebrity pedigree of this home is why we loved it so much. Who lived here? Harry Cohn, Betty Grable, Diane Keaton and, finally, Madonna. Need we say more? (You know you wish those walls could talk.)
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