This week’s Power Poll topic came about in honor of what has effectively become James Franklin Week here at OTE. In our Slack, I mentioned that if I were James Franklin, I’d take my $50 million and flit
off to a castle in Italy, never to be seen or heard from again. This lack of killer instinct is but one reason I’d be a terrible big-time football coach. I’ve since rethought this choice a bit, and think I’d actually buy both a city apartment and a country cottage in one of the Scandinavian countries instead, since I don’t really fancy being hot, and for $50 million, I’d never have to be. $50 million is a lot though – maybe I could still get a place in Italy as well. For the winters.
But this line of indulgent thinking has brought me to this week’s theme: Zillow Gone Wild. I’m sure you’ve heard of this by now, but ZGW began as an Instagram account devoted to showing some of the most noteworthy homes on the internet. Sometimes they are noteworthy because of the sheer size and cost; sometimes because of questionable decorating decisions. Still others are noteworthy because a prosaic exterior belies an entirely different and surprising interior.
So, with ZGW as our guide, let’s see what insane real estate decision YOUR favorite team is.
1. Indiana – European-Inspired Castle Estate
First Place Votes: 5 High: 1 Low: 2 Last Week: 3
So first, a note: it’s rare for Ohio State to not hold #1 in this poll. I don’t know the stats, but I have written over 40 (!!!!) of these things over the past decade, so I can say with some authority that the Buckeyes are here the lion’s share of the time. BUT NOT THIS WEEK. True, this is by the thinnest of margins. Both Indiana and OSU received five first place votes this week, but the Hoosiers gained 175 total points to OSU’s 174. All hail our new overlords!
For Indiana, I have chosen this ugly and soulless 17,506-square feet “European-Inspired Castle Estate” (Europe: “Um, lol, we would literally never do anything this dumb.”) Nearly everything in this house is white or beige, much like Indiana’s state government would like its state to be. There is a point in these mega-mansions where it’s clear that the owners simply have too much money and are simply reaching for ideas to fill out a square footage flex. The two biggest examples in this house are the “Hammock Room,” which is exactly what it sounds like, and the “Camping Room” which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. The Camping Room has some half-assed outdoors murals on the wall, and a couple of tents set up. Worth noting, this home is located in Utah, a state with five National Parks and oodles of other recreational areas.
Indiana football currently has everything it needs, and more (like an 11-car garage?). It’s a good time to be a Hoosier.
2. Ohio State – Potato Shed
FPV: 5 H: 1 L: 3 LW: 1
This sounds like a knock, but if you’ve followed ZGW for awhile, you’ll know that the Potato Shed is an icon. Yet another example of the rich having to spend their money somehow, the owners of one Connecticut mansion installed a storage room that seemed to be filled only with tubers. This quickly became iconic, because, well, dedicated potato storage rooms are funny. If Ohio State’s roster were a mansion, its deep bench of top-tier talent would be the potato shed – a completely unnecessary flex of your wealth and privilege.
I’m also guessing that many football players must also consume a LOT of carbs. Perhaps a potato shed’s worth.
3. Oregon – The Neighborhood Mullet
H: 2 L: 9 LW: 2
The crux of the mullet house is that the front is extremely traditional – all bricks and symmetry. But the back is a glass and steel modernist dream! It’s hard to call Oregon traditional in any way – they’re not a historic blue blood, and they embraced the corporatization of college football long before it was cool. But what we do know about Oregon is that it is having a bit of an identity crisis right now. Are they good? Or does a close win against now-disgraced PSU and a loss to Indiana mean they’re kind of not?
Side note: this house has an awesome library. However, the matching sets of books indicate to me that no one in this house actually uses it. As usual, the privileges of wealth are absolutely wasted on the rich.
4. USC – Historic California Water Tower House
H: 3 L: 6 LW: 7
Honestly, this house is freaking cool. It is, as the name implies, a water tower that was built in 1892. Now, it’s a beautifully done house with kick-ass views and a stained glass turret! I’m obsessed. This is probably better than USC deserves, but they did have a solid game against a high-profile opponent last week, and had a nice bounce-back after a close loss to the Illini. Whether that qualifies them for a house this cool or not is open for debate, but it did get them up to #4 in this poll, which is pretty damn good.
5. Illinois – Former Ohio Firehouse for Only $100,000
H: 3 L: 13 LW: 4
Illinois lost by quite a lot to Ohio State, but neither our voters nor Illinois’ own fans seem too upset about it. The performance was better than hapless, and OSU is beating up pretty much everyone this year. Illinois is still full of potential in the Bert era, just like this firehouse could be really something if the right person gets ahold of it. I’m pretty sure the right person isn’t Bert though – I don’t see him taking that spiral staircase particularly well.
You could buy 500 of these Former Ohio Firehouses for $50 million dollars, James Franklin.
6. Washington – Seattle Spite House
H: 4 L: 8 LW: 6
This house has the coolest front door! It also is only 15’ wide on one end, and 5.5’ wide on the other. This being Seattle, the entire 860 sq. feet was listed for $799,000 lol. Allegedly, the spite house was built because “someone had offered the owner of the property a ridiculously low amount of money so they did it out of spite.” This sentence doesn’t make much sense (a low amount of money for what?), nor does any reasonable filling in of the “what” answer why building a weird-shaped house would be a fitting rebuttal. I mostly picked this for Washington because it too is in Seattle, but to torture a metaphor, I’ll say this is because in spite of Washington’s 5-1 record, the data is still incomplete enough that we don’t really know what shape of team this is.
7. Iowa – Barbie Themed House
H: 4 L: 11 LW: 8
This one is definitely worth the click, I promise. It also has quite the opening sentence: “This Barbie themed Pink house in Hudson, WI is the perfect way to live your Barbie Dreamhouse dreams if you want to live in Wisconsin.” What an impressive number of assumptions in only one sentence! The overwhelming pinkness of this property is, of course, a nod to Iowa’s famous pink visitor’s locker room. It’s stunts like that that make me laugh – men who actually find that intimidating or an insult are invariably the same one that think women are “too emotional” and not as tough as men. I’m sorry, but if a little Sherwin-Williams “Impatiens Petal” gets your goat, you are extremely NOT tough, and need to get a grip. This house would probably have given Hayden Fry a stroke.
8. Nebraska –
H: 6 L: 10 LW: 9
9. Michigan – San Diego Waterfall House
H: 6 L: 15 LW: 5
I think this house is a classic example of “this looks and sounds better than it actually is.” I remember having this exact daydream when I was a child, when I thought having a house with a pool and maybe even a little river running through it would be The Coolest Ever. As an adult, I can’t help but think of the not-cool parts of that – the humidity, the smell of water chemicals, pets drinking out of it, having to constantly walk around a pool/river. There’s a reason most homes don’t have this feature, and it’s not just cost.
This season, Michigan has sounded better than they’ve looked, still benefitting from the afterglow of recent success and being Michigan that gives them more benefit of the doubt than they perhaps deserve. While expectations were generally modest (at least with our saner-than-average Michigan fans here at OTE), a solid defeat at USC has even these expectations looking a bit wet.
10. Northwestern – Pope’s Childhood Home
H: 7 L: 12 LW: 16
I’m not Catholic, but I confess I waited with baited breath to see the new Pope selection. Francis seemed like a pretty good egg, and I was hoping that his successor would not be a major step backwards at a time when it seems so much of the world is hurtling into social regressions of all kinds. The jury is still out on Leo, but he does seem willing to speak some truth to power, which is nice. Of course, we all know that the coolest thing about him is that he’s probably eaten at Culver’s and maybe even sent off for an 11% rebate at Menards–he’s a good Midwesterner, after all. Chicago’s Pope, for Chicago’s Team. There you go, Northwestern.
The Pope’s childhood home was recently up for auction. Unfortunately, the soulless renovation of this property must be considered a mortal sin, all Millennial Gray and vinyl flooring. 11% is the least that Menards owes for enabling the tragic neutering of this domicile.
11. UCLA – Maximalist Retreat in Upstate New York
H: 7 L: 13 LW: 14
At no point while scrolling through the photos of this house did I know what to expect next: zebra heads? A deep red carpeted… kitchen? Bold floral wallpaper with a tiger-striped rug? All of that, and more! Much of it doesn’t work, but there are glimmers of promise (I like the jacuzzi room). Likewise, a few weeks into the season, we had UCLA’s narrative down – the worst team that ever was (non-UMass Division). But then came the massive upset over Penn State, followed by a throttling of MSU, and suddenly, none of us know what to make of the Bruins. What comes next? No one knows, but they’ve stepped into the role of chaos team with aplomb.
12. Minnesota – Oklahoma City Church
H: 5 L: 13 LW: 12
This might sound crazy, but I actually love the move of transforming an old church into a living space like this house. It’s unorthodox, and I think the high ceilings could be a utilities nightmare, but churches often have amazing light, great old woodwork, and stained glass – I can think of worse things to have featured in a home. More importantly, I love to see old things repurposed and given a new life, rather than simply torn down and replaced with something ugly and cheaply built. Minnesota has been paddling along on the Peej plan for awhile now with few signs of reinvention – but that seems to suit the fanbase and athletic department just fine, so who are we to judge?
13. Maryland – Historic 1675 Home with Link to Salem Witch Trials
H: 10 L: 14 LW: 10
Spooooooky! This (actually very cool) historic home has a grim link to the past. Its builder was the son-in-law of Giles Corey and Martha Corey, unfortunate victims of the 1692 Salem witch trials. Giles is one of the better known victims, being one of only a handful of men convicted of witchcraft, and also for his unusual manner of death – being slowly crushed to death by stones. Giles’ resentment of the Massachusetts colonial government was apparently acute, because he refused to enter a plea – which lead to the aforementioned torture by pressing, since a person who did not plead could not be tried. Allegedly, whenever the torture paused to allow him to enter a plea, he said instead “More weight.” By doing this, Corey died in possession of his estate, which passed to his sons-in-law, rather than to the colonial government as it would have done had he been found guilty in a trial.
While Corey and the other victims of this mass hysteria were almost certainly not practicing witches, Maryland probably believes in the occult as much as any Puritan–how else to explain the cursed tenacity of October Maryland?
14. Rutgers – Wild Astoria, Queens Home
H: 12 L: 16 LW: 15
A New York City home for New York City’s team? Sure! This one is completely bonkers – I don’t think “eclectic” even begins to cover it. It also heavily features red, just like Rutgers and the Big Ten more generally. My favorite part is the circular sofa – I can see a small entrance to get into it, but it doesn’t seem quite adequate, and I have a lot of questions about this particular home design choice. It’s reminiscent of Rutgers’ fate in the Big Ten – one endless, inescapable circle of mediocre to bad. Womp womp.
15. Purdue – Train Lead Singer’s Seattle Home
H: 12 L: 16 LW: 17
You are right, I chose this one just for the Train pun. I had really hoped there would be a house with some kind of massive underground model train room, because it seems like the kind of thing a rich dork would do, but apparently not. So you get the Train lead singer’s house, which is admittedly very nice and has wonderful views. I need Rod Stewart to sell his house for this one – did you know that he’s a committed model train enthusiast with an impressively modeled 1940s-themed layout? Anyway, Choo Choo Purdue.
16. Michigan State – Milwaukee Home with Skatepark
H: 15 L: 17 LW: 13
So first of all, love the Albania flag outside this house. Way to represent! But the real standout of this home is that the garage has been transformed into a skate park. Skate pit? I’m not sure of the terminology here. I’m sure this is terrific if you are into skateboarding (side note: there has actually been quite a resurgence of this – I have numerous students who roll up to class on them). However, it’s also nice to be able to park your car under cover in an upper-Midwest winter, no? I have to imagine it also really undercuts your resale value, since the percentage of potential homeowners seeking a skatepark in their garage must be small. Anyway, like MSU, who once seemed to have stumbled upon a good thing in Jonathan Smith, fans are now wondering what the ROI on that is going to look like.
17. Penn State – Swinger House in Tempe
Last Place Votes: 3 (ouchie) H: 14 L: 18 LW: 11
Warning: This house is potentially NSFW. A conventional (blue and white!) ranch house from the outside, what’s inside is something decidedly UNconventional. Lavishly equipped for reenacting several different categories on PornHub, this house already had $74,000 worth of future AirBnB bookings for the new purchaser. That’s a lot of money, sure, but I’m not sure where you’d even start with a cleaning fee on this one.
Penn State started the season looking like a conventional title contender: experienced coach, top-notch roster, a confidence-building run in the playoffs last year. And now, after Week 7, they’re 3-3 and just fired the second-winningest coach in school history. You never know what lies just beyond the front door of a given season, do you?
18. Wisconsin – Former Missile Silo in Kansas
LPV: 7 H: 17 L: 18 LW: 18
This listing is as grim as you think. Decommissioned creepy missile silo? Check. Apparent water problem in said missile silo? Check. Kansas? Check. The good news is you don’t have to live in the silo itself – there is a home on the property. The bad news is that it’s made from a converted Quonset hut. Overall, it’s every bit as bleak and hopeless as Wisconsin football.
