Good Enough Homes & Destinations: What You Get for $750,000

Do you have $1,700,000? Awesome. Why not buy a compound in Texas?

Both contemporaries have open floor plans with polished concrete floors and walls of glass facing the courtyards. Ceilings rise to more than 14 feet, some with clerestory windows. The sleek kitchens have granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.

One of the new houses is single-story, with a master bedroom and common areas in one section, and across a breezeway, a second bedroom and a painting studio. The other is two stories, with one bedroom downstairs and one up, as well as an upstairs office and a perch-like deck. Here, the living-room floors are white oak, which the owner selected because it offered his piano a nicer reverb than concrete. The room is accented by a porthole window.

It must be fun to have so many houses. You could have breakfast in one and then lunch in another and then make an indoor ice skating rink out of the third like Catherine the Great did in her Summer Palace. (There was a Winter Palace and a Summer Palace, but they were both in Russia, so …)

Just because you don’t have nearly two million to spare, though, don’t think you can’t get a palace! I found you an actual castle for $750,000:

Seriously, it’s called the Joslyn Castle, it’s in Omaha, NE, it dates back to the 1890s, and it’s available for under three-quarters-of-a-million dollars via Trulia. Eight bedrooms, ten baths, hardwood floors, un grand escalier, pointy roofs, insane numbers of windows, fireplaces everywhere, a porch, two kitchens, and hardcore rich-person wallpaper. Sure, you need another $750,000 to furnish the thing, but you look at that masonry and tell me it’s not worth it.

In the mood for more of a summer palace? Here’s a five bedroom, four and a half bath, 4500+ square foot, Southern Style estate in Cape Coral, FL, for $749,900, via Movoto. Glassed in pool, gorgeous fire pit, gazebo, and, you know, a house, too, on nine sprawling, partly wooded, partly grassy acres. Private pond, wraparound deck, outbuildings for horses and a dog kennel.

Or you could cozy up to this five bedroom, two and a half bath, 3800+ square foot Tudor/Provincial in Milwaukee, WI, for $749,000, via Realtor.com. (Every time I say Tudor I want to make some lame joke like, “Tudor? No, thanks, I’d prefer a four-door.”) Full basement, spacious yard, cathedral ceilings, lovely kitchen with an island and a prep sink. It even looks good in the snow!

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