Big Fancy House/Real Life

Examples of s in include:


 * Windsor Castle, home of the British Royal Family, is the largest inhabited castle in the world and, dating back to the time of William the Conqueror (1066), is the oldest in continuous occupation. The castle's floor area is about 45,000 square metres (480,000 sq ft); it contains over 1,000 rooms and the surrounding parkland is over 20 square kilometres.
 * And this is only one of the British Royal Family's twenty-plus official residences, one of which is the sprawling Houses of Parliament in the heart of Westminster (though only technically, since the monarch no longer lives there at any time). The numbers are staggering - the Crown property portfolio is collectively worth something like £5.6bn (around $8.7bn US), includes over 50% of the UK shoreline, and covers in total well over 1,000 square kilometres.
 * The residence of the Emperor of Japan. A palace, several Big Fancy Houses and several square kilometres of open parkland. In central Tokyo. One estimate of its "market value" (if a market for it existed) is that the palace and grounds is worth, roughly, California. There are bigger, fancier palaces out there for heads of state, but no real estate in the world more expensive than this one.
 * Canadian Governors-General are lodged at Rideau Hall, a superb manor in Ottawa where the GG holds receptions and diplomatic events, though the vast majority of it is working offices for various Crown functions. In contrast, the Prime Minister and provincial Primiers lived in smaller houses or condos. Except for one, the Prime Minister of Newfoundland, who lived in a beautiful house. Newfoundland is one of the poorest provinces in Canada, if not the poorest.
 * While not on the same scale, 24 Sussex Drive, the official residence of the Prime Minster is still quite large and fancy (if so dilapidated by neglect that it's unsafe to live in as of the mid-2010s - no Prime Minister wants to be seen to be spending tax money on something only his or her immediate family will get to use). Stornoway, the home of the Leader of the Opposition, is similar.
 * The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, the country estate of railroad heir George Washington Vanderbilt II and largest privately-owned house (175,000 sq ft) in the United States. It's been used in several films as the residence of somebody who obviously has enormous amounts of money, especially old money. Examples:
 * Mason Verger's mansion in Hannibal, set in Virginia and shot at Biltmore.
 * The movie adaptation of Being There, the Rand estate was represented by Biltmore.
 * The movie adaptation of Richie Rich was also shot at Biltmore. One of the kids idly speculates that it must have its own ZIP code.
 * The Barclay Brothers have built a faux-gothic castle on the private island of Brecqhou, with landscaped gardens covering most of the rest of the island. Features include the Servants Helipad and an ornamental lake.
 * After the Great Fire of Rome in 64, the emperor Nero had a gigantic new palace built. If Suetonius is to be believed, the entrance hall alone was a mile long and had a 120-foot statue of Nero; there was a huge artificial lake, gardens and woods rife with plants and animals, petal- and perfume-sprinklers and a banqueting hall with a constantly revolving roof, and gold, jewelled and ivory decorations throughout. When it was finished, Nero is supposed to have said, "Good - now at last I can begin to live like a human being." No wonder people accused him of starting the fire (though it's now generally agreed that he didn't). As Nero was less than popular with the Roman establishment by the time he died and the palace was a gigantic reminder of him, most of it was later demolished.
 * Of course, Nero's profound unpopularity means that this description should be taken with a large grain of salt.
 * The White House is pretty damn fancy, though its size comes more from the fact that it's also full of a lot of office space for the President's staff than the residential part. Still, the President's residence is quite big and quite fancy.