Most car enthusiasts love their vehicles from an aesthetic standpoint, putting in huge effort to keep their cars clean and shiny and well presented. Sometimes it’s a shame that we don’t get to admire our vehicles more often, given that they spend a great deal of time parked up in the garage. But what if you could gaze upon your cars from inside the comfort of your own home? Well, this Iowa house lets you do just that.
The home, identified by Twitter/X account Zillow Gone Wild, is up for sale for $500,000 in Urbandale, Iowa. Constructed in 2020, the modern build has four bedrooms and three bathrooms across two stories, with a healthy 2,123 square feet of living area on a large 9,583-square foot lot. The real party piece, though? It’s the huge windows that serve as the walls of the garage.
Yes, you can sit in a comfortable chair and gaze straight into the two-bay car hold. The garage avoids completely throwing off the interior design of the house by virtue of being painted the same shade of white as the room it faces, though there is some visual clutter due to the door openers hanging from the ceiling. The garage itself has a rather fancy marbled floor, which looks stylish, but we wouldn’t want to drag a jack over it. The space is also styled curiously in the house listing, with a pair of comfortable-looking chairs facing away from the window. Surely, if you’ve gone to such great lengths to open up the visual into the garage, you might actually want to sit facing in that direction.
Regardless, it’s a neat feature, particularly for a house at this price point. At it’s heart, it’s not that crazy a thing to include if you’re building a house from scratch. Instead of an interior wall, you’re just specifying some large internal glass panels instead. It’s clear that the owner prioritized this over some other features, too. The house is well-appointed in that it has a swimming pool out the back and a theatre setup in the finished basement, sure, but the landscaping outside leaves a lot to be desired. It looks like it may have been an afterthought compared to the garage.
Of course, it does bear noting that there are some compromises with this setup. It’s certainly a lot less fun to have your cars on display in the event that they’re filthy, covered in mud, or otherwise not looking their best. The glass panels are probably also a bit of a compromise when it comes to energy efficiency. A proper insulated wall between the home and the garage space would keep heat in better, reducing energy bills. While the house isn’t crazy expensive at half a million dollars, there are hints that the owner might be doing pretty well for themselves—like the Lamborghini and pink Bentley that star in the photos.
There’s ultimately something cool about being able to bring your cars into your home, even if it’s something usually reserved for the ultra-wealthy. If you’ve got cash stacked in the millions, you can pull off impressive feats like craning your McLaren hypercar into your penthouse apartment, or having a car elevator that brings your car right up to your lounge. This build offers a similar vibe in a house that, while not exactly cheap, is well below seven figures. If you’re an Iowa-based car enthusiast that’s looking for a new home for you and your rides, you could likely do worse than this.
Image credits: via Zillow
I have 2 of my cars in my basement which is pretty fun.
Money buys glass, not class.
No view from the bathroom? I’ll pass
I want to know who made that RR Ghost pink.
it’s not
Okay – then who made it light red?
good edit
It’s a shame that in this case, the glass walled garage reveals that the owner has no taste.
In this case, they should put the regular wall back in and stop displaying the owner’s SHAME…
I’m not exactly sure how they can legally sell this house. The International Building Code (IBC for short, which is what every city, county, and state uses for the basis of their building code standards) requires 5/8″ thick drywall on the interior of the garage (also called fire-rock since it provides 15 minutes of fire resistance) and a man door between the garage and house that has auto closing hinges. The man door hinges can be an arguable item depending on the age of the house since most houses pre-1980’s didn’t have them installed. The lack of 5/8″ drywall? Not so much! The glass walls could also be fire rated glass that gives the same protection, but I’d highly doubt the owners of the home paid the $100+ per square foot before installation.
As the old adage states – buyer beware!
I wouldn’t be able to pee in that old oil jug anymore
I live nearby and have seen the cars out and about. Yes, there are two pink cars. One is a Rolls and the other a Bentley, IIRC. The Bentley has so much gaudy crap tacked on that I thought it was a kit car when I first saw it. It took a double take to realize it was real.
While I don’t know the owner personally, I’ve seen her mugshots. She owns a very questionable business connecting people with unlicensed plastic surgeons. I suspect (but do not know) that much of the home decor is intended to be the backdrop for OnlyFans content – including that pool, which is unpermitted and has gotten her in trouble with the city.
I think you might be in the ballpark, as there’s a large “BODY BY DOCTOR” sign themed after plastic surgery that’s shown in one of the rooms.
That comment on the Bentley.So funny
Big nope. Between the energy efficiency and losing the utility of the garage (I’d feel like it has to be 100% presentable all the time) I’d rather not see my car from inside.
Holy cow… half a million bucks for something that looks like a bad amateur Lowe’s house flip gone poorly?
They’re smoking their own product.
How can this fail, let me count the ways:
Iowa is awesome. Land is cheap so you can get a big lot with tons of garage space, and it’s easy to register sketchy home-built cars so you can do whatever you want.
But this property? Yeah, it’s a fail.
Just make your garage slightly larger, put some comfy sofa there and a table and you’re set. Also, BENTLEY???? That’s clearly a rolls, or maybe I’m blind idk, anyway, what a way to make your car look cheaper than it is while also making yourself look like a toddler that’s suscribed to mr beast. Idk, I like the idea of a pink car but not like that
Obviously a Chrysler 300
I thought so too. But I couldn’t look that long.
Just remember: People who work in glass garages shouldn’t throw tools.
Yup. I’d have a jack handle fall and break that in a month.
True. One loss of temper and you’re up for tens of thousands of dollars with the glazier.
My beef is with the lounge being inset into the garage, thus using valuable square footage. It SHOULD be 3 bays going by the doors, but it clearly only fits 2 cars. Taking up car space for something that is not a car is a faux pas for a car enthusiast, imo.
Also, that pool is an embarassment.
The photos from the outside with the usual iphone oversaturation make it look like a toy set or something, it looks just so fake
I’ll say as much as so long as they used multi-paned glass, that’s probably not much different from a condo with floor to ceiling windows (offsetting any solar loading gains in the cold with an extra layer of insulation from the garage walls).
Although, I’m trying to figure what the most likely cars that would’ve actually filled that space, because a pair of cars worth more than the house likely aren’t it. I’m assuming something to the effect of 1970 Chevelle (bought pre-2000), and a generic domestic 3-row crossover (the fullsized pickup is parked out front because it won’t fit in the garage that barely contains that Rolls Royce).
Car Hole
😀
I just put a sofa in my garage so I can stare at my bikes.
Am I doing it wrong?
That’s the cost-effective way to do it. Most people just throw a fridge and a comfy seat in the garage.
Makes notes: must buy beer fridge.
I’m a Realtor in that particular market area; that part of the Des Moines ‘burbs is painfully average most days of the week. Cars, the glass and that “pool” aren’t adding value to the house, and the house itself is fairly typical for that neighborhood. If you’re house shopping out here, I’d be happy to set up a showing (seriously). There’s a surprising number of cool rides out there in that slice of suburbia, for what it’s worth.
It was also cheap to do and would be cheap to un-do. (They didn’t do any of the fancy stuff that a “high end” implementation of this idea would have. Like eliminating the garage door tracks and replacing the doors with upscale models, or adding nice lighting fixtures.)
If it made them happy while they lived there, then the little bit of free advertising they got on their listing later is a nice bonus!
(Would not be shocked to see this house sell with a “put a normal wall there first” contingency or something similar though!)
“I’ll take ‘Updgrades that make my home unsellable’ for $500, Trebek”
I miss Trebek.
People who live in glass houses should not drive pink cars. I’m looking at you, Barbie.
Are there two separate pink Rolls Royces in those pictures? One looks to be “Barbie” pink while the car in another picture looks more “Mary Kay”.
Probably how they paid for the house.
I was looking at the same – I decided it was the difference of an owners photo and one taken and edited by a photographer hired to showcase the house.
I beg to disagree. I do wish i had a garage, though, for storing my bicycles.
Neat concept but I would never give up garage space for an inset cove housing some hideous furniture.
Also, upgrading the garage tracks to high lift with jackshaft openers would really clean up the look a lot.
A for effort, F for execution.
Agreed, I’d like to see a floor plan of how this is set up, the left side of the glass ‘room’ seems to jut into the garage, taking up precious space for things like tools and winter tires and what not, but from the outside it looks like there’s not enough room on that side, and that’s where the front door to the house is.
I came here to say this, but changed my tune after reading the comments and thinking about it from a “house on the market” perspective.
This was clearly done on the cheap. It’s unlikely to appeal to a typical buyer beyond giving the interior space an illusion of additional square footage. If they had done the high lift and openers, and maybe some designer doors they could easily have multiplied the total cost by a factor of several.
Instead they got to enjoy what they wanted while they lived there, and they’re only out the cost of some glass at most now that they’re going to sell.
Glass wall: neat!
Literally everything else: my eyes, the goggles do nothing!!
Pros:
Cons:
I’ll pass, thanks.
The thought of something Italian catching fire in a garage with a glass wall like that is concerning, too.
I thought there was a fire barrier requirement for a wall that’s shared between a garage and a living space. Maybe that’s just around here? Maybe I’m deeply mistaken?
Cons: look at these cars
I could easily see moving:
over to the “pro” side depending on the person and the car.
Stuff like this is how I know journalists all spiritually live in NYC, even if they aren’t physically there.
This is less than 1/4 acre, which is already on the small end of a typical suburban lot.
Meanwhile, in the UK, in the tiny village I live in, I can only just fit three cars on my drive, and that drive is the exact same size as the back garden.
I picked this plot specifically because it’s the largest one on the development. My neighbours can only park two cars.
That’s a reasonably large lot in lots and lots of suburbs. Not just NYC.
I live in Idaho and see a fair number of ~5000 sq ft lots. It may not be a massive lot, but there are a lot of smaller lots out there, and not just in the city.
The cars displayed in that garage are a good argument for non-transparent walls.
Seller is apparently willing to have a proper wall put back in its place.
Ngl, I would ask the seller to put the wall back in specifically to give back the 3rd parking spot. I would point out I need the garage space for all my cars just to flex on him
Perfect!
arguably yes