Tara's house

[Alexa]

In IFS magazine they showed some pictures of her new house in South Carolina. It is very beautiful...she is one lucky girl! (and hard working as well :-) )

[marlyn]

I saw that article too!! WOW! What a house.

[Blue Ridge]

Not just a beautiful house, but a house on a beautiful private beach! Whoa! I am jealous! :D

[Schmeck]

I'm sure its great on the ecosystem there too :roll: 9600 square feet is huge!

[Lark]

I am sure that Tara is not intentionally non-"ecosystem" friendly, Schmuck. Some people just want a home, especially after working as hard as she has for the last 15+ years. :roll:

[Schmeck]

I know, and I don't want to start a nasty problem here about it either, it's just that I've seen photos of the house on her website, it's all brick patios, it looks like it's right in a wetland area, and as a marine biologist/botanist by training, the whole idea drives me nuts!

But at least she sounds like she's planning on keeping the house, not just using it as a tax shelter, or turning around and selling it...

Schmeck, always trying to save the planet :roll:

[Schmeck]

PS, Lark, it's Schmeck, not Schmuck. If calling me Schmuck was deliberate, then I've got to mention it to Adrian, since Schmuck is not a very nice word...

[adrianchew]

Originally posted by Lark

I am sure that Tara is not intentionally non-"ecosystem" friendly, Schmuck. Some people just want a home, especially after working as hard as she has for the last 15+ years. :roll:

I would hope that wasn't intentional slight, but an honest mistake. ~adrianchew~

[Rachel]

Tara does not have a private beach. She has a private beach access, which means she has her own boardwalk to get there from her yard. I don't know what it says in that article, but I've been to Kiawah many times and there's no such thing as a private beach there. You can walk from one end of the island to the other as freely as you like. I've seen Tara's house twice, once while they were building it and once this last August, and I was standing on the beach right in front of the house both times. Access to the island is restricted to guests of the residents or resort, but there is a public beach down at one end accessible to anyone and there is nothing to stop those people from trekking down to Tara's except for the fact that it's a long walk against the wind. Resort guests can and do wander down that way all the time. All the good shells are down there and if you go all the way, there's an uninhabited island you can explore a little (most of it is too marshy to wander around in).

Her house is not built on a wetland. It is built right behind the dunes at the ocean edge of a large and dry neighborhood, much of which has been there for years. There are many lagoons on Kiawah, but every one of them is manmade and all of them were engineered to control the water level on the island. In cases of hurricanes, for example, the lagoons will drain as the flood waters rise, so the water has somewhere to go. The other side of the island is bordered by a salt marsh; that side isn't quite as built up. When they were building Tara's house, there wasn't a plant in sight around it, so all the vegetation you see is landscaping, not natural flora.

Her house is typical in size of many others in the area. It is actually smaller than some. Kiawah is not the place for the budget-conscious or poverty stricken.

If you are concerned for the environment, then Kiawah is about as good as a tourist development gets. It has been very carefully planned and managed to maintain the ecosystem as much as possible. There are hundreds of alligators there, as well as bobcats, foxes, snakes of all kinds, turtles, birds, etc. etc., and the town of Kiawah Island has all kinds of laws in place to protect them and ensure they have living space. Sea turtles nest in the dunes, so there is a law that all lights facing the beach must be turned off at night so as not to disturb the turtles, for example. Tourists and residents are asked to ride bicycles and walk rather than drive. There are zillions of rules regarding property use that all the owners have to adhere to. They recycle and encourage the guests to do so as well. If you walk on the dunes, a sniper will take you out. Litter, and you go to solitary for months.

There's a definite Stepford Island quality to Kiawah, but it's a great place to go and relax. It's not crowded, the beach is gorgeous, everything is kept very low key, and there's simply nothing trashy on the whole island. If you get bored, you can run to Bohicket Marina and go boating, and Charleston is just 20 miles away. If I could afford to build a house there and I could convince my snow-loving husband to live in South Carolina, I'd do it.

But if you go, take your American Express. And your Visa. And your Mastercard. And lots of cash.

[Schmeck]

Rachel, thank you for the response - from some of the photos on her website, it looked like areas that were being made into brick patios were covered in dune grass. I still have issues with how we as humans try to 'fix' nature to serve our needs (it always backfires, and ruins the ecosystem) but that does not have anything to do with skating, does it?:oops:

My apologies for sidetracking this thread!

Schmeck

[NorthernLite]

Well, I'm going to further sidetrack. But I'm not singling out Tara, because *lots* of people, including elite skaters, live in mega-houses.

I don't get why people have this need to build big houses. Sheesh. Middleclass people raise a family in 1000-sq.ft. ranch homes. But the upper middle class and wealthy seems to have this obsession with building Monuments to Themselves. :P: And such homes *are* using up more resources in terms of increased utility use and taking land which once sheltered other lifeforms.

In wealthy towns near me, people tear down perfectly nice homes in older neighborhoods to put up giants that stretch from property line to property line. So your neighbor is *right next to you.* I have that situation too. It's called an apartment. :lol: I'd rather have some open space (or trees!), thank you.

In other areas, developers have eaten up what used to be farmlands, woodlands, horse farms, etc., to put in McMansion subdivisions. Then the residents complain about a "deer problem" in the neighborhood. :roll: (I'm sure from the deer POV it's a people problem.)

[Blue Ridge]

Even if its not a private beach, I'm still jealous. :P

[flippet]

Are these photos scanned online anywhere yet? I keep forgetting to go buy the magazine.

[Rachel]

Well, Schmeck, it's a resort on a barrier island, so they have definitely affected the ecosystem; it's not untouched. But at least they have made an effort to control the land use, unlike a lot of other places. My husband and I went there for the first time about 15 years ago; there are a lot more houses now, but much of the island remains the same.

As for house size--I'm middle class and I have about 2400 square feet to rattle around in, which seemed like a lot of space when my husband and I moved in but doesn't now that we have active, busy children. I would love to have something bigger, where I could have a separate playroom for the kids and my own office instead of having to share one with my husband. It's not a necessity, certainly, but it would be nice and if I could afford it, I'd do it. I don't think those houses are monuments, exactly; most people want the nicest things they can afford, and that includes houses.

I think the houses built from lot line to lot line are hilarious, too, but I know why people do it. Part of it is to get as much house as they can on the the lot, and part of it is so they don't have to do lawn work. But there's a development down the street from me where the houses are so close to the street that you can practically eat dinner with some of those people without leaving your car.

[Mariposa]

That is a GIANT house for such a small person. Does she live alone? I wonder if this means she wants to start a family.

[jcspkbfan]

Some photos of Tara's new home have been posted here (may take a little while to load for people with slower connections; they're huge!):

http://www.tararulz.com/gallery/scans/magazines/ifssept02/index.html

I don't know whether or not Tara's parents live in the house with her, but I don't think she's planning on starting a family of her own anytime soon--last I read, she was too busy to even have a boyfriend! ;)

BTW, I think this house is much more tastefully designed than 90% of the other "celebrity houses" I've seen pictures of in the past.

[Lark]

Originally posted by adrianchew
I would hope that wasn't intentional slight, but an honest mistake. ~adrianchew~ It was a totally honest mistake, I promise. If someone would have called my attention to it, I would have edited my post, instead of making it look like I have a problem with someone I can't even remember seeing on this board before. Sorry.

[Melanie Z]

there's a development down the street from me where the houses are so close to the street that you can practically eat dinner with some of those people without leaving you car.

LOL

[adrianchew]

Originally posted by NorthernLite

In other areas, developers have eaten up what used to be farmlands, woodlands, horse farms, etc., to put in McMansion subdivisions.

McMansion - ROTFLOL! :lol:

That describes to a tee the kind of development taking place near where I work... subdivisions with McMansions that go for half a mil or more apiece... I wonder where people get all the money to buy them. :x

Anyhow - I'd rather have less land... grass needs cutting, leaves need raking, etc... though if you can afford a McMansion, I suppose you can pay to have your grass cut, etc too. Oh well - maybe someday. :(

[Rachel]

if you can afford a McMansion, I suppose you can pay to have your grass cut, etc too.

Oh, you'd be surprised. I know several people who live in those places and a lot of them don't have furniture in most of their rooms because they can't afford it. They buy the houses with the idea that they will grow into them, but in the meantime, they are flat broke and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The small lawns are good for them because they are working so much overtime to pay the bills they don't have time to mow the back 40.

Some of the ones who do have furniture have the junkiest, cheapest stuff you have ever seen and nasty carpet to go with it. And some of those places are pretty dirty, too, because it's too much work for one person and the owners can't afford to hire a cleaning service. Or they did all of their subcontracting themselves to save money and it looks it.

Then of course there are those places that are decorated to the nines and spotlessly clean, run by women who make Martha Stewart look like a sloth. I know three or four homemakers who should be running countries, not homes. I drop my kids off at the end of their driveways and when it's my turn to play hostess, I suggest we meet somewhere, like a park or something.

Don't be so sure you want lots of land. We have just over half an acre. When we moved here, my husband didn't think it was nearly enough. Now that he spends three hours every Saturday all summer mowing the grass, he's sorry we didn't make do with something a little smaller, although he would never want one of those places with a foot-wide strip of grass all the way around it.

[Dustin]

Originally posted by adrianchew
McMansion - ROTFLOL! :lol:
Anyhow - I'd rather have less land... grass needs cutting, leaves need raking, etc... though if you can afford a McMansion, I suppose you can pay to have your grass cut, etc too. Oh well - maybe someday. :(

Im with you on the less land, but if you have a lot - hint: rider lawn mower :P I hate when the crowd houses together though. I am about 20 feet from my neighbor, not too close but not too far. I have seen some houses that are built 2 feet away from each other - literally. And then there are those houses on Ft. Lauderdale Beach, FL with houses right next to each other - and I mean a few inches.

Back to Tara's house. It looks so much bigger from the back than it does from the front. I would love to have her house - especially right on the beach.

[Mokah]

I have a friend who lived in a home the size of Tara's and downsized. Financially they are fine but when you have an intercom system to try and find your kids it borders on the ridiculous. Also the house was so isolated that Mom was always driving kids to play dates. Now they are in a smaller home in a neighborhood full of children. But Tara's house does look so lovely.....

[Beth2000]

my husband and I went through some million dollar homes that are being built not far from where he works. I am amazed at how big the homes are but, you walk into the bedrooms and they are dinky 8O

We are upper middle class and our home is over 4000 square feet. We live on about an acre of land. We are the type that loves big bedrooms and we built our house and we have big bedrooms. I know some of these people entertain so, they need bigger areas for entertaining. We aren't into entertaining.

Tara's house is nice though :) Although I have given up the two stories. I got tired of going up and down. Every time I wanted something I would be down and it would be up or the other way around. I like our ranch with everything on one floor.

[Sk8tfan]

I used to think that people who built/purchased homes so large you could probably drive around in them were motivated by ego or the "keeping up with the Jones" mentality. The first home my husband and I purchased (14 years ago) was modest, but suited our needs. As our income grew over the years, we quickly discovered that our commitment to the US government, via taxes, was growing right along with it. After our 5th year of writing what we considered to be a big fat tax check to the IRS, we wasted no time building a new house that is much larger than 2 people need. I guess it's the America way - the more you earn, the more (tax deductable) debt you are encouraged to create. I suppose it's also why you see so many mega-millionaire celebrities living in mansions, investing in businesses and starting/contributing to charities. As a taxpayer, your choices are spend it or sign it over to the government. The socially concious among us may continue to live modestly and happily make the larger contribution to the care and feeding of the country. Most of us flawed human beings opt to spend it on ourselves.

[Gaela]

We have this obsession with space and sprawl in North American, which is one reason why European cities are more eco-friendly than our own; urban centres concentrate their population in central apartment/row house type neighborhoods.

But is is nice to know that Tara is not terrorizing the ecosystem, intentional or not. Given that she was a multi-millionare at 16 and is now what? 22? I can't say I'm touched
that her hard work has rewarded her with a mansion. Many folks work extremely hard for many years to buy a moderate bungalow or duplex, sans Tara's shopping sprees and luxury vacations.

I have never owned property and am thrilled to pay reasonable rent for a small, sweet two bedroom house with yard space for my dogs, and I work REALLY hard. Tara is a lucky, lucky girl, for sure. The sun stars and moon lined up for her the day she was born, allowing her to make the most of her talent. I like to look at beautiful mansions, but save my envy for more attainable dreams, like a small cabin by a lake sometime in the future. . .

[Tripleflutz]

The house on Kiawah island is Tara's summer retreat. She went there after the SOI tour ended and spent most of the summer there.

3axel

[JDC1]

I think it's a lovely house but it's too big for me. I house sat for friends of mine who have a 5,000 square foot place and IT felt too big for me. :-) I also have a friend who had a 10,000 square foot house and it seemed like a museum. My guess is 3,000 square feet is as big as I'd want. I don't have any plans to have kids so all I'd really want was 1 big bedroom, 2 smaller guest rooms w/private bath and a big open space for an office work area. I love the open kitchen/dining/family room thing I've seen in some houses.

[Aravis]

Originally posted by Tripleflutz
The house on Kiawah island is Tara's summer retreat. She went there after the SOI tour ended and spent most of the summer there.

Sort of off topic:

I was walking on Madison Ave. in NYC two Saturdays ago and saw Tara and her mother shopping. I almost didn't notice her but when I was about 20 feet away I noted the self assured stance of what I thought was a 12 year old girl in front of me. Having raised a daughter, I can tell you that most girls of that age do not carry themselves with confidence. Tara is so tiny. Once you are next to her and you see the makeup and clothes you realize that it is an older person. She and her mother were very tan and rested looking....I wonder if they had just come up from her vacation home. They were obviously having a nice time and had not been recognized.