50,900-square-foot Connecticut mega mansion among largest in U.S.

It is the two-level, 33,500-square-foot (3,110-square meter) basement complex, complete with a 103-seat movie theater, ticket booth, concession stand, game room and music annex, that will make it the largest occupied single-family home in the New England states in the northeast U.S. At nearly 50,900 square feet (4,730 square meters), the Chase home will be slightly larger than billionaire Bill Gates’ home in Washington state, about 4,000 square feet (372 square meters) smaller than the White House and 20 times larger than the average-size home in America.

The average U.S. home measures about 2,500 square feet (232 square meters) — up from 1,995 square feet (185 square meters) in 1988 — according to the National Association of Home Builders. But while houses are getting bigger, rarely are they built as big as the new Chase house.

“What you’re talking about is mega homes,” said Gopal Ahluwalia, the home builders association’s vice president for research. “There are few homes larger than 50,000 square feet (4,645 square meters).”

The brick and stucco colonial can be seen easily from the road. But the Hartford-based businessman, who plans to vacate a comparatively tiny 8,900-square-foot (827-square-meter) home when he moves, does not want too many people to know about it. He refused an interview and had a freelance photographer seeking permission to photograph the house for The Associated Press cited for trespassing.

Besides the two-tiered movie theater, soda fountain and men’s and women’s bathrooms, the Chase home will include a 400-square-foot (37-square meter) “observatory,” five bedrooms, eight full bathrooms and five half bathrooms, according to documents filed with the West Hartford planning office. The game room, in the “upper” basement, will take up nearly 4,900 square feet (455 square meters) — nearly twice as big as the average-size house.

“It’s the same thing as why people buy a US$150,000 car when the same function can be performed by a US$25,000 car,” Ahluwalia said. “I can afford it. I can have it. I want to have the biggest house in the world. Things like that.”

Some question the morality of building a private home that large.

“Do you actually need to have that amount of space to live a good life?” said Susan A. Eisenhandler, a sociology professor at the University of Connecticut. “There are homeless people. There are impoverished people. There are serious social concerns, and we’re not addressing that.” The only single-family residential structures in the New England states larger than Chase’s are two mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, which are now museums and no longer occupied.

The largest private home ever built in the United States is the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, comprising more than 174,000 square feet (16,165 square meters). Also on the national list are the 109,000-square-foot (10,125-square-meter) Oheka Castle in Huntington, New York, and Donald Trump’s 80,000-square-foot (7,430-square-meter) Maison de l’Amitie in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Chase house was designed by Allan Greenberg’s architectural firm in New York, which has worked on notable projects at the White House, State Department and the Holocaust Memorial in New York. The firm declined to comment.

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