Jay Leno likes cars. That’s why he owns about 100 of them (plus about 90 motorcycles). To house his huge inventory, the ‘Tonight Show’ host bought two warehouses totaling 17,000 square feet. The Big Dog Garage even has its own website.
Leno is one auto enthusiast who has spared no expense on his sleek collection of four-wheeled and two-wheeled rides and the means to store them. But there are a number of homes currently for sale peddling amazing, outrageous garages as well. We whipped up a selection of some such properties, with the help of the folks at Realtor.com, Sotheby’s International Realty, Coldwell Banker Previews International, Prudential Douglas Elliman and others helped us compile the list. We included homes ranging in price from $625,000 up to $50 million.
Auto enthusiasts have been known to pour anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars into this area of the home. Southern California may be most famous for celebrities but it’s also quite the hot spot for car collectors. Four homes we featured hail from that area, touting “auto galleries” rather than garages. Montecito’s $20 million Glass Pavilion has a glass and walnut wood lined showroom capable of displaying up to 32 cars. To thoroughly protect the car collection in Malibu’s $44.5 million Cliffside Drive estate, a 7,000-square foot auto “museum” was built, equipped with sound absorbent walls, Micron level filtration and de-humidfication, and a thermally sealed envelope.
Gallery: Homes With Amazing And Outrageous Garages
Jeff Sulkin and Leo Damian, the architect and builder duo behind Los Angeles, Calif.-based Calida Design Build, create and remodel homes in southern California and among their clients, top-notch car and motorcycle spaces are commonly sought after. Galleries fitted with climate controlled and/or hermetically sealed technologies are not uncommon features incorporated into these spaces. Given the hilly terrain of areas like the Los Angeles area, neither are vertical and subterranean garages, like the Calabasas home Britney Spears used to rent.
Sulkin and Damian say high-end garage projects can run anywhere from $250,000 to $1.5 million, depending on the owner’s tastes and budget. “I’ve done a garage with a walk down pit under the car with seating, lighting, and a comfortable place to do maintenance,” says Damian. “Sometimes there’s a motorized turn table so you can park the car and rotate it to view it as a piece of art.”
Many garages include hydraulic lifts. These are handy for storage in tight spaces, for maintenance work, and for hefting vehicles from one floor to another. A condo building in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood takes the lift a step further: a car elevator hauls your ride up the side of the building to your floor where a parking space just outside your apartment door awaits. The building’s penthouse palace is currently on the market, asking $16.5 million.
“There is also a type of garage that’s almost a man cave where men can show off their car to other men,” adds Damian. “Man caves” tend to include kitchenettes, bar areas and seating areas, like the $2.1 million Cornelius, NC house whose auto showroom includes a kitchen with bar seating and a lounge area to sit, chat and observe the cars. Overstuffed couches, flat screen TVs, and billiards tables are common furniture choices for these types of spaces.
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Great cars need great homes just like their owners