Mo’ Money, Mo’ Bathrooms
Nicholas Cage isn’t the only celebrity who’s dropped a lot of money on a few questionable keepsakes. Let’s take a look at a look at which other trendsetters are breaking the bank on their bathrooms.
Kim Kardashian & Kanye West
And their collection of golden thrones
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, this celebrity power couple sure has a taste for ostentatious toilets. After moving into their multi-million dollar LA mansion, this couple shelled out an estimated $767,000 on a total of four gold plated toilets.
Would you let guests anywhere near your gold toilets? Kim Kardashian outfitted the guest lavatory with an as of yet unidentified $100,000 toilet, designed to flush itself, so her guests don’t have to. While we’re not exactly sure why a self flush toilet is worth the price of a Porsche, she does have the money to burn.
When you top these lavish toilets off with a few months supply of Renova luxury toilet paper at $4 per roll, and these love birds should be set for the entire marriage.
Tamara Eccleston
One tub to rule them all
While Some prefer to merely cover their lavishly expensive bathtubs in gemstones, the richer rich prefer theirs to actually be a gemstone. Tamara Eccleston, heir to the fourth largest private fortune in Britain, and daughter to F1 legend Bernie Eccleston, has a bathroom budget on par with the royal family. Unlike the queen however, Eccleston has no public accountability, no obligation to appear noble, and probably looks a whole lot better sitting in that tub.
This tub is an exceedingly rare creation of nature, painstakingly perfected by human hands over thousands of man hours. The words “bath” and “tub” fail to bring justice to the incredibly rare bathroom fixture. This tub was chiseled to perfection from a solid mass of rock crystal straight from the Amazon. No, not Amazon.com. We’re talking about The Amazon.
The price for this bathtub? About $1.5 Million. The price for shipping? We’re not sure, but it probably wasn’t free 2-day.
John Lennon
And a Day in the Life (of his bathroom)
Sometime between 1969 and 1972 while residing in the south of England, John Lennon needed to replace his toilet seat. While most of us tend to throw these away, the worker in charge of replacing this particular seat had other plans. Upon removing the seat, worker John Hancock decided to hold on to it as a souvenir. He then stored it inside his shed where it sat forgotten for nearly four decades.
When this piece went to auction in 2010, the winning bid came from an anonymous overseas buyer at a price of $14,740.
Warning: Not all old celebrity bathroom fixtures fetch such a high price. When Oprah sold off a set of old bathroom items in 2013, the highest bid on any of her items was $500 for her marble bathroom sink, though most of the lot didn’t sell at all. Even her antique clawfoot tub was liquidated well below market price.
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Donald Trump
Plane expensive
Donald Trump recently bought a new private jet second-hand. This was no Craigslist deal though. Upon buying this 757 from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, he wasted no time in giving the new bird a complete custom paintjob and overhauling the interior, including the bathroom.
Trump’s private master bathroom features exotic hardwood, gold plated fixtures for the sink and shower, along with stone countertops.
Not amazing enough for you? Try thinking about gold plated fixtures, a full shower, and a theater system the next time nature calls in economy class.
The International Space Station
In space, no one can hear you poop
What Uncle Sam lacks in salary expenditures, he makes up for in reckless R&D expenses. In an apparent effort to beat the current world record, NASA spent an estimated $19 million on the development of a toilet for the International Space Station. Equipped with state of art technology, this toilet allows the astronauts to handle their business in zero G. Unfortunately for NASA, this toilet is no longer technically earth based, and is disqualified to hold the record.
Nonetheless, this complex piece of machinery is the product of U.S. tax dollars and Russian design. So far, two have been sent to the ISS.
Beware: The manual says that the toilet can convert urine into drinkable water, so far there’s been no word on whether this feature is actually just Russia’s idea of a practical joke. Stay hydrated at your own risk.
Lam Sai-Wing
Why stop at a golden throne?
If Goldfinger robbed Fort Knox and decided to turn it all into a bathroom, it would probably look something like this. Until recently, Hong Kong entrepreneur Lam Sai-Wing owned one of the ritziest bathrooms of all time, including a solid gold bathtub and the most expensive toilet on earth (sorry, space station toilet!) Guinness World Records reports that this is how he spends his Tuesday afternoons when he’s not swimming in his solid gold money vault.
While most of us who don’t have a solid gold bathtub probably think this is a waste of money, it turned out to be a massively successful investment. Lam had all of this gold smelted when worldwide gold prices were much lower, and he sold off most of it when gold peaked, reaping a healthy profit. In the end, he still got to keep both the golden toilet and his world record.
William Taft
More president than the White House could handle
President Taft is famously known as being the record setter as a presidential heavyweight. The U.S. Presidency is not a laid back position, and Taft was apparently quite the stress eater.
Upon ballooning to a high of 334 pounds, (a gargantuan size in his times) he began experiencing numerous health problems while in office, the most embarrassing of which was his famous run in with the existing White House bathtub. History is fuzzy on the details, but we do know that the former president got stuck in the normal sized tub and it took between 4-11 men to pry him out.
To solve this problem, Taft had a custom made tub installed in the White House lavatory. It measured in at 28 square feet, and was able to easily seat four grown men.
The cost of a modern equivalent? About $4,500.
Bill Gates
And his $500,000 toilet that could change the world
When Kim Kardashian sits on one of her four gold plated toilets, she’s probably not thinking about the 2.5 billion people who don’t have access to any toilet.
Fortunately, Bill Gates is a different kind of celebrity. In 2012, Mr. Gates mobilized the Gates Foundation to find a way to bring working toilets to over a third of the world’s population. To accomplish this, he offered a $500,000 cash prize to anyone who could develop an inexpensive and easy way to bring septic sanitation to the developing world.
The winning entry, developed by CalTech, was a cheap and effective solar powered toilet that can safely contain waste and turn it into usable electricity. It might not be gold plated, but we won’t hold that against it.
“El Chapo” Guzman
Putting a new twist on the old revolving bookshelf
Many people like to think of their bathroom as personal escape from the stress of daily life. This Mexican drug lord took the term far too literally. While on the run, the police tracked down a safehouse the fugitive was believed to be hiding out in. Upon their arrival, the police discovered an empty house and a secret network of escape tunnels, all of which led to El Chapo’s bathtub. At the first sign of trouble he just picked up his tub and left.
Blue Ivy
In case a golden toilet was too classy
Blue Ivy, the daughter of Beyonce and Jay-Z has received a disproportionate amount of gifts compared to the average baby. Though this next gift wouldn’t break the bathroom budget of many of these featured bathroom barons, it does break the record for price considering that the recipient in question has not yet been potty trained.
Former TLC bandmate Kelly Rowland bought Blue Ivy a toddler sized, $5,200 Swarovski Crystal studded bathtub for this diva baby. The sink-sized tub is covered with thousands of pink crystals and sports silver fixtures and feet. Hesperiaplumber.net plumber247.net (760)780-9365
