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This New Jersey home looks modest but is deceptively large

If real estate is strong, why do we feel weak?

We all miss the enormous talent of Whitney Houston. Here’s a chance to reconnect with that beautiful soul, via her modest ranch home in Mendham, New Jersey. It carries a listing price of $1.599 million, which is downright affordable for a celebrity home. Even better, the home includes a sound-proof recording studio in case you want to borrow vestiges of musical skill that may have lingered there from the famous singer and actor.

This five-bedroom sits on a flat grassy stretch surrounded by trees. The floor plan is 31,000 square feet, but photos present a common-sense single-story home that just keeps going. The open floor plan shows dove gray interiors and a central gray brick fireplace. The kitchen cupboards are painted an unusual yellow-beige with a path of marble circling around them and the island before the wood floor begins. 

An oversized bedroom closet boasts its own central island and deeply coffered ceiling, and there’s a media room and gym (part of the recording studio wing), but otherwise this house doesn’t seem to shout ‘celebrity home.’

Outside, a triangular deck overlooks the fenced-in tennis court, while another deck incorporates a hot tub. With 5 acres of land, there’s plenty of room to toss a frisbee and play tag. There used to be an indoor pool, but it’s now a three-season great room with a cedar ceiling and sliding doors to the outside.

According to the New York Post, Houston bought the 1973 home in 1993 for $537,000 and used it as a guest house for 17 years, passing it in 2010 to the current sellers for $940,000. Houston died two years later in an accidental death in a Los Angeles hotel, at the tragically young age of 48. Put on the market 20 days ago, the home’s listing doesn’t mention Houston’s association with the house and simply reads, “The former recording studio is currently an incredible media room, gym area, office and kitchenette but could have a multitude of uses as the soundproof glass walls provide unique possibilities.”

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