The Beverly Hills Mansion once belonging to William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies can be yours! The 1920's-era, 29-bedroom, pink stucco spread is for sale for an asking price of a mere $165,000,000.00 - which, by the way, is the nation's single most expensive piece of real estate. Now, the estate boasts six separate residences: four houses, an apartment and a cottage for staff; three pools; a disco; and a state-of-the-art movie theater. After all, this is Los Angeles.
The compound is part of the "Platinum Triangle" which includes Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, and Holmby Hills. New residents include Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, David Beckham and Victoria Spice Girl, and a few others. Hearst bought the place in 1947 for the paltry sum of $120,000.00, so clearly it has increased in value, proving once again that real estate is the way to make your money.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Oh, wait. Not anymore. Not anymore. No, now we want to send them all back. Or dump them in front of homeless shelters. Or deny them health care. Or deny them education. Or housing. Or food. We can spend close to $450,000,000,000.00 on a disaster of a war in Iraq, but we cannot care for our needy. But we sure as hell can list a house for $165 million dollars. And you know what? Some self-centered yahoo with more money than heart is going to cough it up.
I'm deeply saddened by what this nation has become.
8 comments:
Diva Jood,
It makes me so sad. In the mid eighties, driving through Mexico, I said, this will be the US one day, no middle class, just fabulously wealthy living in compounds to protect themselves from the teaming, angry hordes of the hungry. When middle class blue collar men started making tons of money in their 401ks in the 90's I said this won't last, the money makers will not share the wealth. Hundreds of thousands of baby boomers with large chuncks of stocks could swing markets, taking the power away from the money makers. Then came Enron, before that Bill Clinton single handedly, in one day, burst the biotech bubble saying no patents on genetic discoveries, and I saw young, hard working men and women go underwater in their stock option portfolios owing uncle sam more than they could ever pay and walking away from their expensive suburban homes. They had been fooled. They had been lulled into believing that like their grandfathers and their fathers, they would be a generation better off, that they could become middle class, upper middle class. I know some of them in their forties, so broke they have moved back in with their parents. All they did was buy a used house in the burbs but when their stocks went south they ran out of the ability to pay. Then they lost their jobs and couldn't find new ones. The money makers cannot tolerate the middle class, the middle class dilutes the power. The middle class today is overextended and one paycheck away from losing everything because their homes are too expensive, their cars are too expensive, their private schools are too expensive and their credit card debts to high. Like my friend says, the middle class today, they loathe the poor. They look into their eyes and they fear them. So fuck them. Fuck them. They are the problem. Mass consumerism and trickery by the money makers have turned the country into precisely what they want, the haves and the have nots. The haves have everything, including the security to protect themselves from the angry poor.
Me, too Jood. In fact, I think I am depressed by it or my inability to cope with it. Today, I have the blues.
Excellent article,
We have forgotten the poor and homeless in America.
40% of returning veterans from Iraq and Afganistan are homeless.
20 million homeless are single mothers and their children.
The wealthiest nation in the world has the money to pay $2 trillion to destroy Iraq, yet they refuse to take care of the nations homeless and poor.
Doesn't it say alot of what America has become?
I can't believe a home, if you want to call it that, could have a price of 165,000,000.00 -.
I know you are correct about some well off man or woman will pay that price with ease.
What a waste when Americans can hardly pay health care bills.
I concur with your post, I to am deeply saddened by what this nation has become.
When I worked for the Hearst Corp in SF, I was forever asked when I was going to the Castle along the coast, S of SF? No one could believe I would not go in my 18 yrs there. I simply said: with the treatment we get as worker bees, why would I give them more of my time (and back their own money) to see their crazy house, even at a small discount.
I met many street people and in small ways did what I could. Not all were bad people, just rough times. Alas, it has only been getting worse.
We are all only a few steps away from the same lifestyle, thanks to, well, you know......Mother Nature and the other guy! ; (
It's indecent.
Pursey, it's true. We are becoming a third world nation with extreme wealth, and extreme poverty, and no middle class. This is what happens when the president is the worst ever.
Peacechick, I'd like to interrupt this blog with some fluff, but I can't.
Larry, we've certainly got the resources to kill people. Personally, I'd rather see affordable public housing built than kill another Iraqi, or US Soldier.
Let's Talk, it's exhausting.
Coffee, many of the street people are returning Vets. As for the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, it is a real piece of our history - it describes an era of excess.
Sumo, exactly.
dija - thanks for your comments the other day on the drug post.
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