Could you imagine living in JoAnn Ussery’s plane home?

Her brother-in-law, an air-traffic controller at Memphis Airport, invited JoAnn to the plane moratorium the very next day where she fell in love with a 1968 Commercial Airlines Boeing 727. The plane didn’t look like much when she found it, she says, “but I knew I could make it a home.” Of course, she couldn’t just drive a 127-ft plane off the lot. After several months of clearing red tape, a moving company transported the plane the 70 miles to her property on Whittington Lake.

When an ice-laden tree flattened her home in 1994, JoAnn Ussery began her search for new digs. Needless to say it never occurred to her that living in a grounded plane might be an option.

Another benefit: JoAnn’s unusual home confounded the taxman. “The first year I paid $1 in taxes,” she said. “They didn’t know what to charge for living in a plane.” If her curious choice of abode stunned municipal officials, it certainly caught the attention of a wider audience. “I’ve been on 28 TV shows in five countries,” she says, a highlight being her appearance on the Late Show on CBS. “(Host David) Letterman was the funniest person I ever met.”

Joseph Hollak is a California Realtor. You can contact Joseph 24/7 with California real estate questions.

How you design or redesign your small space can help your return on investment (if it is an income-producing property) or make the smaller space more fun to live (if it is your current residence).

THE PENGUIN HOUSE

If you had only 900 square feet to work with, how could design a larger feel into the property?

Here is a perfect example of what smart design can do for a small space. It is nick-named ‘The Penguin House’ and the architect has done a nice job of designing around the size limitations of:

1. 899 total square feet
2. 322 square feet of total property foot-print

You and your designers may have more room to work with than in the above example, but the concepts of The Penguin House still hold true.

• Raise ceiling height.
• Offer plenty of natural light.
• Expand the view of the rooms by using strategically placed windows.
• Light, height and sight.

$9,700 PER SQUARE FOOT

For example, a penthouse in the Hong Kong residential project called Cullinan Towers gets you the 91st, 92nd and 93rd floors. The 4,000 square foot penthouse will only cost you $38,700,000 or $9,675 per square foot. Get your financing ready.

BEFORE THE ELEVATORS

The penthouse has not always been the most expensive floors in a building however. In fact, before buildings housed elevators, getting up to the top floor of a residential building was not prized by the wealthy. Back before elevators, the top floors were reserved for servants’ quarters, water towers, laundry facilities and washing lines. The wealthy wanted nothing to do with hiking up floor after floor of stairs.

The first distinguished penthouse apartments appeared in New York City in the 1920s.

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It’s easy to recognize a Tudor once you know what to look for. Classic features include stone work or brick work on the exterior walls with exposed beams on the exterior and the interior usually stained dark.

Tudors have taken on quite a variety since their beginnings and some of the extreme Tudor looks have been updated to fit into modern-day American suburban neighborhoods. Originally, Tudors were not known for an open floor plan that many of today’s modern families require.

Today, the modern Tudor can be found in neighborhoods from modest sized homes to large mansions with modified floor plans that have opened up the floor plan.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The English Tudor is a classic style that enjoys a strong following with both a traditional and modified floor plan. The English Tudor can be found scattered around various Fresno and Clovis neighborhoods.

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Tens-of-thousands of families have.

HOMES BY CATALOG

From 1908 to 1940, Sears an Robuck sold and delivered more than 75,000 homes to consumers across the country. Believe it. The homes were offered for sale in the Sears and Robuck general merchandise catalog and consumers had several styles to choose from.

Once a home style was chosen and ordered, Sears delivered the entire home via rail cars and the delivery could include upwards of 30,000 separate parts. And you thought putting together your children’s bedroom furniture was difficult. Imagine 30,000 parts.

Once the home was delivered to the home site, it was assembled / built by local carpenters and other skilled laborers.

The price of these catalog homes ranged from $600 to $6,000.

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