Jul
30Who Wouldn’t Want to Own a Lego House?
Tagged Under : House
What would you do with three million Lego bricks? If you’re Britain’s James May, you’d build a house with them. Admittedly, for most, the multi colored 20 foot tall, two story house would be a bit of an eyesore in the otherwise picturesque Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey, but for the right buyer, it could have been a steal. We wonder what the homeowners insurance premiums are like on a Lego house?
The house’s exterior consists of alternating stripes of Lego’s most common colors: white, red, blue, yellow, and black. Transparent colored blocks are used for the windows.
On the inside, all of the home’s furnishings are crafted of Lego blocks, including beds, other furniture, and working sinks, toilets, and showers, complete with running water. May insists that the house is a fully liveable house.
Or it was, anyway. When May originally set out to build the house, with the help of over 1,000 volunteers, he had an agreements with Legoland in Britain for the house to be moved to the theme park. When that fell through, the house went up on the market. Alas, it turns out there really isn’t much of a market for houses built out of Legos. And just when we were hoping to go into business building them.
Because the land was needed for growing grapes, the house had to be torn down and the Lego bricks donated to charity. Apparently, Lego was concerned that if the bricks were sold to recoup part of the cost of the project, it could seriously dig into Lego sales in Britain.
I’m not sure the homeowners insurance industry even has any actuarial tables that deal with covering houses constructed of Lego bricks, but wouldn’t it be a fun house to live in? In a day when most homes being built are modular construction anyway, maybe we should all build Lego houses for ourselves. It would have to be cheaper than the average cost of construction. And, let’s face it, most of us have experience building Lego houses (albeit a little smaller). We could start a whole new cottage industry.
With the instability of the housing market, and the rapid decline of house and property values, you can never tell if you’ll be able to get back what you put into a house anyway. With a Lego house, even if it falls apart, you will at least have something to play with.So, you go ahead and build your house out of brick and mortar if you want to. As for me, I’m skipping Menard’s and heading to Toys’R’Us for some Legos.
