Perversely ashen former United States Vice President Mike Pence just paid $1.93 million for a big dumb house in Carmel, In., a goofy-garish palace whose 10,349 square feet house seven bedrooms and seven-and-a-half bathrooms. Houses do not need to be this big, especially houses that will be occupied by two adult people. From what I gathered by looking at the Realtor.com photos of the new Chateau Pence, though, all that extra space has been filled out by the previous homeowners and their maniacal interior designers in some fittingly perverse and uncanny ways. Consider the following:
What we have here is a basketball court of sorts, a "1/3 inside basketball court" that has not one, not two, but three hoops inside of it. The two you can see here appear to be at slightly different heights, which only seems strange until you consider that perhaps the previous owner really liked dunking but could only do it on a 9-foot-6 hoop. The Bud Light and Texas flags raise some questions, as does that spookily adrift free throw line, which is so shallow in its clearance that Nick Van Exel wouldn't be able to shoot from it.
It is worth wondering why would anyone even bother putting court lines on the linoleum (?) surface if they only accentuate the smallness of a space, but the more you learn about this part of the home the more it becomes clear that these questions cannot and will not be answered. Here, for instance, is a reverse angle that shows the third hoop:
The previous owner certainly seemed to be a fan of Indiana's state hobby (basketball), as they also had a signed Pacers basketball in the house's designated mancave and a pool basketball hoop in the pool. The decision to hang a basketball hoop 1) right above a damn squat rack and 2) mere feet from another, slightly lower hoop, suggests that they were into a very peculiar, non-Euclidean version of the sport.
Other weird details include a horrid metal butterfly and a lamp with the old Pittsburgh Penguins logo on it. I am not an interior designer, but I would guess that this bizarre diploma wall is not anyone's idea of "good."
Whoever put that masterpiece together also ably rose to the challenge that faces so many homeowners of means. "Where am I gonna put all five of my TVs?" these homeowners ask. The previous owner dared to answer with a defiant, "I guess as close as possible to each other so I can quintuple wield, yeah, that's perfect."
"There’s no place like home and Indiana is home," Karen Pence said in a statement to USA TODAY. Agree, ma'am! There is no other place like this!
