Tasteful Friends: DataLounge Basement Dwellers’ Paradise

I saw a few photos of photo portraits of three Nancy Beth and Marshall Marmillions on the wall and thought I wonder if those lucky children were raised as nasty Republicans. Then I saw the basement. A Democrat [italic]might[/italic] live in a house like that, but only a Republican could dream up that basement.

What a great house from the outside. The trim inside is so elaborate I feel like the decor needs to be super simple and minimal. Scarlett could have made a lifetime of dresses out of all those curtains. The bathrooms need updating and so does that awful countertop in the kitchen. Love the pool house.

The basement creeped me the fuck out

My god, all that for $4.5 mil? What kind of dump is Rockville, Maryland?

I desperately need a floorpan to begin to make sense of all that Ethan Allen - it looks like there are two forma dining rooms and a few spaces that qualify as living rooms -- I have no idea how they all interrelate. The basement looks like a Cracker Barrel -- it's exactly what I would have done had I been independently wealthy as a 13 year old in 1976.

The carpet in the foyer is very Mormon Temple/Homewood Suites by Hilton.

Ah. No.

R1, I thought the same thing: that's the home of a Repuglican--and worse, from the tired, dated decor, a Reaganite Repuglican.

What D.C. grandee has the initials T. L. B? (On the tacky bathroom towels).

To be more precise: The monogram reads: Small t Large L small b (so could the grandee's initials be "L.T.B"?)

R9 - judging from the monogram on my parent's 1960 stemware it's more likely for the couple -- Thelma & Bob Lincoln

I have to admit I've never seen a house with so many places to eat ... even a table and chairs in the bedroom. And a double set of washers and dryers?

Could one of you tasteful friends please rank the DC suburbs according to prestigiousneʃs?

The house belongs to Thomas L. and Alice Blair.

The exterior is surprising good I will say, nice massing, fairly solid understanding of Virginia/Mid-Atlantic regional vernacular architecture, and well executed details and finishes. It falls apart at the far right (1st/main photo) with the mansard roof wing that's rather big and distracting.

Inside the detailing is not bad, but it lacks confidence and an overall sense of program. I can see where they borrowed certain details but they were not always adapted to the best effect (the entry hall in particular) and there's no hierarchy or sense of progression. R6 is dead on with the "very Mormon Temple/Homewood Suites by Hilton" summation. The furnishing is a disaster, everything new and Henredon Furniture middle-high range, the stuff for conference center lobbies and corridors. To be so interested in 18th Century architecture and design, they could have filled the house with good 18th Century American furniture for less that what they spent on insipid watered down and ironed out copies, and had a much better house as a result. Maybe the next owners will spend money (wisely) on furnishings instead of trophy cars in the kitschy basement. The only old things I spot are the gun (maybe old) over the fireplace and some of the framed maps and documents for which bits of Americana you can be sure the guy was fleeced.

The exterior is a little more Busch Gardens than Colonial Williamsburg, I suppose in keeping with the basement. But the interior of the house and the gardens could be rescued without much work, taking off the hard edged look of people who don't know better, who have never been inside the house of a rich person that wasn't built yesterday.

Washington DC and its suburbs are a place where many people have $4.5M houses with nothing of any value in them. No art—unless you count $30 posters acquired in college and put in ugly frames for $950 each. Careers, careers, careers, houses, private schools, cars, and maybe a bespoke cigar humidor. The worst taste of any city of any account on the East Coast.

too many rooms with wall to wall carpeting... I just don't understand why houses of this status have w-2-w carpeting in 2020/

R15 probably because the owners are aging out of it... their kids must be in their forties by now... the older you get the more you are inclined to look around the house and take a much tougher view of what you can live with. "That carpet should go but if we sell in the next few years it'll just get ripped out anyway."

This place belongs to some tacky D.C. bureaucrat who came from a trailer park, full of officious ambition and Karen-ing, but who was then suddenly vastly over-promoted just for covering up her boss's failures and couldn't believe her luck just for a bit of casual corruption.

Then she decided to branch out and make illegal deals on the side with foreign governments, one after another, after another, knowing she could never be fired, and thereby becoming a multi-multimillionaire, all while officially making $100,000 a year and collecting the most generous retirement pension package available in the entire world.

Mock her house all you want. She's laughing at you while drinking hundred year old wines every night - all bought with your tax money.

Welcome to D.C.

R17 Much of the $ in DC which supports the life and high times of those you abhor, are NOT public dollars. Rather are lobbyist and corporate "influencer" dollars trying to shape policy that lets billionaires pay no taxes, corporations abuse their employees, and commerce devastate the environment. The "pensions bought with taxpayer money" is part of the playbook. Like Trump's "drain the swamp" posturing while aggressively creating the most corrupt administration in 100 years of insider-trading, conflicts of interest, prioritizing stock market performance over economic development that helps lift folks out of poverty...

r18 Nothing you have said contradicts with what I have said, except that you underestimate the amount of taxpayer money involved.

How do you think Dick Cheney became so rich?

Not only did he officially make $39.5 million off the Iraq War, but Halliburton was then accused of overcharging the U.S. government 61 million for rebuilding in Iraq.

This is in Potomac, MD, one of the poshest suburbs of DC. Part of Zip 20854 is in the city of Rockville, but not this house.

As I said, a tacky trailer trash arriviste, promoted suddenly via corruption.

Explains the basement.

It's so busy it makes my head spin. No, no, no, no, NO.

As said above, DC has the worst taste. I’ve been in similar houses and they all look like hotels and the interior doors are hollow Home Depot. I’ve never seen real antiques or art. Sometimes the older houses in places like Georgetown are better, but not the new mansions in Potomac or a McLean. You know they’ve all hired interior decorators, too. It’s all the same bland, corporate look for everyone. They have richy rich basements with home theaters, gyms, and wine cellars. The amount of money in the Washington area is unbelievable, and gets more and more outrageous every year.

D.C. has a "refined" version of classic mafia taste, r23.

Beautiful outside but a bit too formal for me.

It's a bit too "Republican" for me.

It's VERY Republican DOJ bureaucrat, r26.

Again, r18. In English this time, please.

DL's Shady Pines Retirement Home.

William and Pat Buckley would have felt at home here.

The theater in the basement is offering a double feature of Mary Poppins and The Exorcist, so there may be one person with a sense of humor among all that chintz.

Oh, well. Got to sell up sometime.

I like the look both inside and out but its waaaay too big. I could quite happily live in the two bedroom guesthouse. I'd pass on that basement, its bizarre and what function does it serve? I love busy, fussy overly ornate decor, but it must also be functional.

I'd definitely consider a house like this if I was buying as part of a collective. My partner and me and flatmate and friends have considered doing exactly this, its actually a really logical way to own a grand home like this, share the purchase and running costs, much more manageable spread over several people. Effectively it'd be a commune. I wonder how that'd go down in that neighbourhood?

Too many rooflines and window types---the prototypical mini-mansion from hell. They don't reference the high school which makes me think that despite a nominally Potomac location, it's in a slightly subprime school zone that draws from Rockville. The area is an odd one--very clos eto Rockville's ugly poorly executed little new urbanism neighborhood of Travilah. At least it isn't in "North Potomac" which is the cheaper area fro Potomac wannabes.

The Historic Main Street was scary obsessive.

Somebody probably ran all the cars and asphyxiated them in their sleep

OP only just possibly if it were a Bösendorfer . . .