People Are Revealing The Jaw-Dropping Moments They Visited Someone's Home And Discovered They Were WAAAAAY Richer Than Expected
At some point, you've probably heard the old saying, "Money can't buy happiness." And that may very well be true, but money can buy a WHOLE lot of other things. Despite how tempting it might be for affluent individuals to flaunt their fortunes through material possessions — many choose to hide their financial status from the public eye...
So, when Redditor u/MintTheMartian recently asked, "What did you see in someone’s home that told you 'yep, they’re rich'?" People were happy to reveal the bizarre ways they discovered someone was LOADED. From an automatic Diet Coke button to a safe that even Scrooge McDuck would envy — here are 17 stories that prove wealthy people are living in another world:
1."A girl once invited me over to do homework together. When I arrived, I noticed her family had a huge house with lots of land. Anyway, when we got to her bedroom, she asked me what I wanted to drink, and I answered, 'Diet Coke.'"
"She said, 'Oh, just press the Diet Coke button,' and pointed behind her to the intercom system I had failed to see when I went in. There was a legit Diet Coke button on the intercom in every room.
I pressed it, and her butler came upstairs with a Diet Coke in less than five minutes.
She also had a 'Hot Pocket' button in her room. It was wild."
2."I previously worked for a man who collected enough decorative art to fill a warehouse in the US AND a castle he owned in Italy. He eventually turned them both into museums, but that wasn't all..."
"He also had two train cars he would hook up to Amtrak trains and travel the country. One car was the sleeper car used in the movie Some Like It Hot. The other car was one that US Presidents had used to tour the country. That car had a lounge/sitting room, a dining room, a kitchen, four bedrooms with bathrooms, and crew quarters with their own bathroom."
3."I used the toilet once at my boss's home; there were no flush knobs, switches, or anything on the toilet..."
"I was mumbling to myself, 'How do I flush this thing?' when suddenly a voice asked me, 'Would you like to flush?' I said yes, and the toilet flushed…f*cking weird.
Also, their kitchen island was made out of marble — not just the top — but the entire thing was carved completely out of one piece, compartments and all."
4."Back in the day, I went to a meeting in Los Angeles with a television producer about doing a CD that would be associated with a miniseries he produced."
"His estate spanned several acres and had a gravel driveway leading to a nicely maintained gravel parking lot. The study where we held the meeting was detached from the main house complex — almost all of the rooms were detached and connected by covered paths with tall bamboo trees surrounding the property. The clumps of trees created privacy for the individual rooms.
The walls of the study were made of glass panels that protected Byzantine-era tapestries — the glass was UV resistant, and the void between the panels was filled with argon to protect the thousand-year-old fabric. The office was designed specifically to display these tapestries. I have never seen such a combination of classy but livable architecture. Most of the rich people’s homes I visited before (or since) have had expensive sh*t strewn randomly about."
5."I realized my ex-in-laws were rich when I walked into my father-in-law's library and looked at pictures on the wall of four former US Presidents sitting in said library."
"There were also pictures of my in-laws during an audience with the Pope — as well as with many celebrities and athletes through the years, including John Wayne, Joan Crawford, Frank Sinatra, Lee Travino, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and Arnold Palmer."
6."This one is silly, but one time, my coworkers and I went to my boss's house for a team party, and his private chef catered the whole meal. Afterward, we went downstairs to check out his whiskey collection and opened a Civil War-era bottle that had been unearthed on his property. We each got to try like half a shot, basically a sip."
"Then we went to his 'garage,' which was full of pinball machines and arcade games; I half jokingly asked, 'Where's your Ferrari dude?' With a completely straight face, he said, 'I own a townhouse across the street and park it there because my driveway here is too steep, and it bottoms out.'
All that said, he was a very nice and generous host — just rich AF."
7."I briefly dated a girl whose parents were very wealthy — let's just say her father founded a company you've heard of. Our relationship didn't work out, but I could've been retired by now if it had..."
"What clued me into the fact that they were rich either had to be the jeweled egg or the 13th-century woodcut Bible. Both were in museum-quality glass cases in their library — which was larger than the home I grew up in."
8."The day we graduated high school, my whole class went to our classmate's houses for a party. Our school was in the southwest area of the Sacramento Valley — which is already expensive — but this girl lived in Napa Valley."
"I pull up and immediately notice the property is gated, and there’s a drive. Not a driveway, a drive.
I park my car, get out, and knock on the front door to ask where the party is. Her mom answered the door and said, 'Oh, it’s right around the corner in the garage, sweetie! Have fun!'
The garage was an eight-car detached garage about a quarter mile from the house — it had a loft, a wildly good sound system, and a full working bar."
9."Their toilet paper was embroidered with the name of their house. This belonged to a billionaire family living in central Indiana."
10."I met a man who lived frugally at first glance. There was duct-taped carpet in doorways instead of thresholds, minimal furniture that seemed pieced together from garage sales or curb finds, paneling from the '70s, etc. Everything in the small house was 'old and worn out,' but at least it still worked. Then I started looking more closely..."
"There were baby grand pianos disguised by stacks of magazines, a harpsichord hidden under more stacks. Nearby were some large and small paintings by Mirot and Warhol and an early test painting of Persistence Of Time by Dali.
We began talking about his past...As it turns out, he was a semi-retired laser surgeon and a pioneer of Radial Keratotomy; he traveled the world introducing/teaching the technique to other surgeons. His hobbies were excavating archaeological digs and building model cars. (By this point, he was also a very accomplished jazz musician).
He owned multiple houses in different parts of the US that were close to his interests. Some for skiing (Jackson Hole was one I remember), some close to his dig sites. And this particular house was where he went to be alone to play music, build models, drink gin, and go off-grid."
11."I put two and two together when I was at a friend's house and saw a six-foot tall safe that was the size of a refrigerator with a knob that looked like the steering wheel of a ship."
"The thing was wide open with stacks of cash, jewelry, and gold bullion — worth at least a million dollars by my estimation. I'd come into a common room that I'd passed through many times before, but this time, the safe was open. The older man who owned the home came around the corner with an eerie smile because he knew not only that his stuff was completely safe but also that I'd never dream of trying to steal anything. I think he took pleasure in letting me (and perhaps others before and since me) know what it feels like to be close to that overabundance of wealth.
By this point, I had also seen their gun room — and they were not people I'd ever willingly mess with. I knew these folks were rich, but that was when I could tell we weren't living on the same planet."
12."They had a legitimate elevator in their pantry."
"They were foodies and had a 'chilled section' of the pantry accessible by elevator. It was an incomprehensible level of wealth."
13."When I was 11, I met a kid in school. We clicked pretty much instantly, and within a few weeks, I visited his house for the first time. Nothing flashy. It was a somewhat large villa from the 1800s, but they shared it with two other families — so it's not like they owned the entire house. The only weird thing I noticed from the outside was the multitude of antennas and satellite dishes on the roof."
"I later understood what they were for when his dad showed me the 'center.' Their family company provided cable TV for the area. So, the 'center' was a room with wall-to-wall broadcasting units, cables everywhere, and two big screens in the middle. The air conditioner ran in there year-round. Even at 11, I knew this must've cost a fortune.
The more time I spent with my friend, the more I realized how f*cking loaded his family was. At one point, he sent me a video of his parents arguing — they were literally throwing thousands of dollars at each other. By the end of their argument, the dining table and floor were covered with money; they were walking over the whole shit while getting more and more stacks of cash out of their pockets, bags, and cabinets; they'd had hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around in the house."
14."I did maintenance for a CEO who had a pool UNDER his tennis court."
"The pool was raised using hydraulics; once it was raised, it had a bunch of LED lights and water cannons similar to the ones at the Bellagio.
He would throw parties and have the mini dancing fountains doing a show for guests. I would sit in the equipment room during the whole party in case something malfunctioned, and it was the easiest money I ever made. Some of the wildest shit I ever saw happened during those parties."
15."In the '90s, my mom's boyfriend took us to his mother's home. Massive mansion, huge courtyard, obviously very wealthy..."
"The thing that set it off, though? She purchased and rebuilt several buildings from the Ghost Town at Knott's Berry Farm when they were remodeling that section. She had the saloon, blacksmith, bronze statues, and everything in the corner of the yard you couldn't see from the road.
We only ever went there once before they broke up — it was a total bummer when that happened."
16."I dated a girl in high school whose family owned a few nightclubs in Hamburg, Germany, in a place called 'Reeperbahn,' otherwise known as 'kiez,' — essentially Hamburg’s red light district."
"I did not know this until I got invited over for dinner.
They had their own nightclub in the basement of the house. Not just a small one, either. Multiple bars, multiple dance floors, VIP rooms. They took liquor by delivery and kept their house stocked with everything you would need at a real nightclub. They had six bouncers just for this dinner.
I thought I was coming to just meet her parents for dinner — it was an awesome night for a 14-year-old. I felt like they gave me five-star treatment."
"At one point, we were bowling in their bowling alley, drinking Jägerbombs. The next thing I know, I’m sitting in a 70s-style VIP room, smoking with her dad."
"People always said she was way too rich for my blood...and they were 100 percent correct. Her family had status. Mine had a visa.
Other notable mentions were a 12-foot-plus tall metal gate to enter their 'estate,' dual staircases up to the front door, and his and hers Rolls Royces in the driveway (one was champagne pink, and the other was pearl white).
When she turned 20, her dad bought her a tiger in Vietnam. Don’t know if she still has it, but he hired handlers to stay at their house in Vietnam and tend to it year-round. (This was long after we’d broken up, though)."
17.And finally, "They had a copy of Architectural Digest with their house on the cover."
Which one of these rich person stories shocked you the most? Have you ever had a surprising moment when you realized someone was wealthy? Let us know in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
