I Paid To Stay In A 19,400-Square-Foot House And It Was Too Much House

The Eight-Car Breakfast House is a 19,400-square-foot private residence with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, two staircases, a catering kitchen, a main kitchen, a morning kitchen, and a room described to me as "the informal maple room." I paid for a weekend there to see whether a house can be too large to enjoy.

The answer is yes.

I also paid too much to learn that answer.

The house is impressive in every obvious way. The entry is huge. The ceilings are high. The kitchen is spotless. The showers are excellent. Nothing looked cheap, rushed, or badly maintained.

The problem is that the size makes normal life harder. I put my phone down in the kitchen and spent ten minutes finding it. I opened five drawers before I found a spoon. I walked through two rooms to throw away a napkin. Every simple task became a short errand inside the house.

The kitchen was the clearest example. The marble island is enormous. It looks great in a listing photo, but when you are alone with a cereal bowl it just feels like too much counter. The refrigerator wall has hidden panels, which are nice until you are standing there trying to remember where milk is allowed to be.

Then there is the breakfast wing. I thought that meant a breakfast nook. It does not. It is a separate area with a coffee station, juice refrigerator, warming drawer, terrace door, and built-in bench. I ate toast there by myself and felt like I had opened the wrong part of the house.

I tried to use the place normally. I sat in a den, then found out there was another den. I watched TV in one room while several better rooms went unused. By Saturday night I had walked more inside the house than outside it.

That is the real issue. A house this large does not feel relaxing unless you have enough people to fill it or enough staff to run it. Otherwise you spend the weekend managing lights, doors, rooms, and your own location.

Would I recommend it? For a large family with guests, a staff, and the money to forget what the weekend cost, yes. For one person trying to make coffee and read a book, no. It is a beautiful house, but it is not built for an ordinary weekend.

I left Sunday morning from the wrong door and decided that was close enough.