Mansionmania Tournament: Round 3, Heat 4
 

Mansionmania continues with our Sweet 16 3rd-round contestants. You will choose among each pair of houses with the following assumptions:

• The purchase price for you is $0.
• All maintenance, utilities, property taxes, HOA fees, and cleaning is included.
• You must live in the home for the rest of your life.
• You can't travel more than 100 miles from home (via google maps drive time) other than 1 two-week vacation each year.
• You get $250,000 per year as a living allowance
• You get an additional living allowance at the cheaper home, which will be valued at 1% of any cost difference annually. I will note this amount in the poll.
• You get the furnishings. If unfurnished, you get an allowance that will give you mid-grade furniture in every room.
• You get any vehicles in the garage. But only the garage - nothing parked outside.

I encourage you to click on the maps in the listings to see the general location and neighborhood.

Also, I will only enter contestants if they have a sufficient number of photos to judge, as determined by me.

Your entries in this heat are:

Connecticut:

https://www.sothebysrealty.com/eng/s...nwich-ct-06830

Maryland:

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...9_M54526-03101

These are both pretty awesome houses.

Connecticut is a lot smaller, at 9,890 square feet, but that's still big. It's on the ocean and has easy access to New York. It's got perhaps the best indoor pool we've seen in the tournament, and the climate on the ocean's not bad. In the most nitpicky of critiques, I'm not an enormous fan of the stone facade, though it's still nice. My nitpicks lower this property from a 100 to a 99.

Maryland is huge at 35,000 square feet. It's on Cheseapeake Bay, and also has a nice indoor pool, though not as nice as Connecticut's. It's on more acreage to give me room to wander, and also has a mild climate. It's got access to Washington DC and the Delaware coast. In a nitpicky critique, I'd change some of the interior decorating, but that lowers it from a 100 to a 99.

Both of these are superb. I'll go Maryland by virtue of a much larger house on more acreage with a much larger stipend. I will rule the world from this house.

Tough one, these are two of my favorites. Between them I'd probably pick CT just because of the proximity to city life. Would be curious to know when it was built, didn't find it in the listing.

The Annapolis house gets you Baltimore and DC

Yeah, no offense to the Smithsonian, I had NYC in mind.

It was built in 2008. I think that's why I question the stone facade. It looks like a new fake facade. Don't get me wrong, it's nice, but it doesn't have that venerable look that I like.

Those grand homes from the 20's like MD are my favorite. There are a few in my city from that era, built to suit the local oil tycoons of the time.

Two houses pretty evenly matched. I really like them both.

I will go with Maryland. Now, can I get a tray of Chesapeake oysters up here?

I will select Annapolis, Maryland.

The house is so big I will make new friends by taking in the homeless from DC.

Well, maybe not.

I have family in Maryland and Northern Virginia. I'll take them in. Although they aren't homeless.

I refuse to become a Raven or Orioles fan.

Both nice, would have to go with the NYC access. Tough decision though.

I'm going to go MD on this one.

This is a tough one. Both these houses are a little hoity toity for my taste.

I'm taking the MD home and the stipend. Even though I'll probably never get over the insane asylum look of the outside.

The indoor pool is better in CT, but the MD house has one, even though I'm not smart enough to know WTF kind of pool that is.

MD all the way. Better house, better weather, and more money.

Easy choice.

Maryland house: Old Money
Connecticut house: New Money

Give me the new money house

This Maryland house is the one that is annoying because it's basically on the water, but doesn't look like there is any good view of the water.

Nothing that a week or so with a chainsaw wouldn't fix...

I wonder if it's got good views from the higher floors. These 35,000 square foot houses tend to underreport photos of the bedrooms.

This is tough. Ultimately I like the style of the Maryland house more then Connecticut.