Lincoln vs. Omaha: A spending spree
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The assignment: Try to blow $10 million in Lincoln and Omaha — in one day. The money: Entirely hypothetical. The writers: Lavish tastes, limited pay. The outcome: One came close to fleeing Omaha with a $5 million overdraft, the other still had millions spilling out of her $1 million diamond dress at the end of the day.
Lincoln: Furnishings and a party with all the details just right
By PAMELA S. THOMPSON | Lincoln Journal Star
When you first dream of $10 million dollars, you want it to last forever.
In reality, if you’re not careful, the money goes nowhere fast. So I tried not to be greedy and to focus on awesome high-end items.
House: Ellen Walsh High of Home Real Estate helped me decide between a great Capitol Beach home or a fabulous house in Wilderness Ridge with views of the award-winning golf course. When Ellen and I checked in early December, the $1,495,000 Wilderness Ridge property was the most expensive on the market. And I wanted the most expensive. The 3,275-square-foot home, built in 2003, has three bedrooms, 4½ baths and sits on an 18,360-square-foot lot.
Furnishings: Marsha Kennel, a designer at Ethan Allen, found furnishings and draperies for the great room, dining room and master bedroom. On a high-end budget, she said, you easily could pay $35 to $45 per square foot.
Marsha helped me spend about $90,000 on an eight-light iron and crystal chandelier ($3,149), six-piece entertainment center with motorized lift for the plasma TV ($5,500) and, from the Tuscany collection, a bed, armoire, night tables and lamps ($8,000).
For the living room, I added the ultimate in digital/acoustic pianos: the Yamaha Disklavier Mark III Series. Keith Heckman, vice president of Dietze Music House, said the 7-foot ebony grand model — more like a complete entertainment system — includes a library of disks, delivery and tuning, all for $60,995.
Original art: This is where I’d go bananas with real millions.
I start by contacting experts. For this cause, I turned the reins over to Buck Kiechel of Kiechel Fine Art, who chose about $800,000 in art by renowned regional and national artists. Some of my favorites from Buck’s list: for the great room, Keith Jacobshagen’s “Naming the Days” ($80,000), Judith Cherry’s “The Forgery Project” ($7,200) and Jun Kaneko’s “Dango” ($50,000).
For the living room: Hal Holoun’s “One” ($12,500) and “Niobrary Meditation” ($8,400). For the dining room: Neil Christensen’s “Lemon Dreams” ($3,800), “Ceremonial Table” ($4,800) and “Roses” ($4,800), and Steven Roberts’ “Family Portrait” ($45,000).
The bedrooms would be a mixture of Dan Howard and Wendy Bantam’s works, with the bathrooms filled with James Munce and Karen Kunc.
Electronics: For about $32,000, Ron Romero of Schaefer’s TV and Appliance Center estimated he could “Schaeferize” my home with custom whole home audio, integrated computer networking and two plasma and four high-definition TVs.
Home gym: Sean Jensen at Body Basics sold me a top-of-the-line package that includes a Precor treadmill ($3,999) and elliptical machine ($3,699), Sportsart stationary bike ($1,799), Prospot free weights home gym ($3,295) and Peacock tanning booth ($3,295). To relax after a workout, Andy Grayson at Bonsall Pools and Spa sold me on a Hot Spring Grandee hot tub with spa audio and massage system ($13,500); and a Northern Star by Helo sauna ($10,000) and steam bath ($5,000).
And what’s a personal gym without a personal trainer? Gary Bredehoft from Tiger Coaching Personal Training would come to my home to help me work out for an hour, three times a week, for a year — for just $4,200.
Car: After talking with Dave Simmons at Husker Auto, I bought the first car he suggested — the Mercedes SL500, priced at a cool $96,345.
This pewter-colored convertible features a seven-speed automatic transmission, 302 horsepower, navigation system, satellite radio, smart key remote and an eight-speaker surround-sound system. All the bells and whistles for dashing around Lincoln.
Clothing: Diamonds can be more than a girl’s best friend when they’re worn all over the body — not just the ears, neck, wrists, ankles and fingers.
Tom and Mary Wright at Wright’s Jewelers found me the perfect outfit to wear to the party: A one-of-a-kind evening gown with diamonds.
The cost? $1 million.
Designed by Hong Kong designer Bonita Cheung, this stunning design consists of 2,000 ideal cut Lazare diamonds, 300 carats and 2 pounds of platinum.
Guilty pleasure: I love everything about parties. And although I’m better skilled as a guest, I would host an extraordinary party — a certain someone’s 50th birthday party — for 150 of our closest family and friends. The theme would be the clever and crafty 007 — Bond, James Bond.
First, I’ll order engraved invitations by Clover Creek from Paper Panache. With manager Nicole Van Hook’s help, I spent $3,599 for invitations, $846 for response cards, $325 for place cards, $698 for menu cards and $450 for a calligrapher. The total? $5,918. Then add another $58.50 for postage.
Having been to the Mayor’s Arts Awards the past few years, I love parties held on the stage of the Lied Center. That would cost about $7,000.
With creative help from Stem Gallery’s Conrad Quijas, we decided the Bond theme would work best in chocolate and bronze. The 15 round tables, with seating for 10 apiece, each would sport a silver ice bucket and magnum of champagne with a band of orchid bottoms encircling the bucket, illuminated by pin lights. The truly dramatic part? Suspended above each table with theatrical wires is an umbrella of white orchid sprays.
Quijas’ estimate? About $1,000 a table, or $15,000 for everything.
Liz Hilsabeck of Table Toppers outfitted the tables with multiple layers of chocolate and bronze linens featuring folded napkins with ribbons, and gold chivari chairs. She put an undercloth of polycotton and a topper of higher-end sheer to keep the price down. (A taffeta or fancier cloth would double the price!) Liz estimated these luscious table details, including delivery and setup, would top out at about $2,410.
For entertainment, I’ll hire the 17-member Nebraska Jazz Orchestra ($3,500) for the evening.
For dinner, before the four-course meal prepared by Kim Morock of Tastefully Yours ($100 a person/$15,000 total), there would be hors d’oeuvres with cocktails, champagne, wine, cordials and all types of other spirits by Chris Piper at Meier’s Cork N Bottle ($5,000 with tip).
Morock’s meal would begin with an appetizer of shrimp, melon, mint and curry dressing, followed by baby spinach leaves with balsamic vinaigrette. The main course would be beef Wellington, Irish mashed potatoes with leeks and cabbage and a gateau of roasted vegetables and dinner rolls. Dessert consists of crème brulee with fresh raspberries and whipped cream.
To get there, I ordered seven 10-passenger Lincoln stretch limos from VIP Limousine — for about $1,872.50.
Adding it up:
According to my calculations, I spent nearly $3.7 million. This leaves me with more than $6 million, which I would divide equally between personal investments and donations to local arts organizations and community charities.
Omaha: Jewels with a matching house, condo
BY DEENA WINTER | Lincoln Journal Star
Let’s say you won the lottery but only have a day to spend your $10 million.
Oh, and there’s one more catch: You have to spend it in Omaha.
What would you do? Of course, you’d give it all to charity. But that’s you. Here’s what I’d do:
Buy a house — $3.5 million
There’s a $3.5 million house on the market on the Shadow Ridge Golf Course in “The Ridges.” The agent says it’s worth every penny, with more than 12,000 square feet, 35 rooms, seven-stall garage, four fireplaces, 20-seat home theater and in-ground pool. (The annual property taxes alone will be about $33,640.)
And throw in a downtown condo — $900,000
You’ve got to love Omaha’s downtown night life, but sometimes I’m a little too tipsy to drive home after a night on the town. The Brandeis Building at 16th and Douglas has “historic urban” condos that start in the mid-100s and climb to more than $900,000.
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder — $6 million
Bob Negus sells airplanes at Elliott Aviation, where he has a new Raytheon Premier 1 on the lot for a cool $6 million.
This baby cruises at 460 knots and can take me and six friends to the coasts, nonstop. It has a bathroom, full bar, microwave and leather seats.
It’ll cost me as much as $100,000 annually to hire a pilot, unless I decide to hire Elliott to manage my airplane. My hangar will cost about $1,000 per month, insurance $35,000 per year, and it’ll cost another $750 per hour for fuel and maintenance, but I won’t count those costs.
If you can’t afford to buy, you could always charter a jet for $2,000 an hour while it’s in the air, and $50 an hour while grounded.
“That’s a great way to spend a little bit of money,” Negus says.
Absolutely. But that’s just a little bit of money, and I need to spend a lot.
Do Nebraskans buy these planes? Yes. About half his sales are to individuals, the other half businesses. He sells about 25 new planes per year in Nebraska and South Dakota.
Have a party, with entertainment — $2 million
Let’s have a party. A really big party. So big we need to rent the Qwest Center. The whole thing. As long as we have the whole place to ourselves, we may as well have a concert.
U2’s guarantee for public concerts is about $1 million, but the band probably would charge about $1.5 million for a private gig.
“They’re just like anyone else: Give ’em enough money, and they’ll do it,” Qwest CEO Roger Dixon said.
But we can’t just sit around and enjoy Bono’s ballads. Dixon says it would cost another $175,000 for the beer, food and wine needed to please 15,000 friends. Staffing would cost about $100,000. We don’t want people to have to pay to park, so that’s another $100,000. And an after-show party would be another $100,000. We’ll leave a nice tip and round it off to $2 million.
Would the Qwest allow that? Absolutely, Dixon says.
“As long as we get the money up front.”
Buy a Porsche — $750,000
I could use a new set of wheels. Woodhouse’s Porsche of Omaha has a Porsche on display that’s actually the owner’s, but Mitch the salesman tells me he’d probably sell it for the right price.
“I’ll bet he would take a million for it,” Mitch says.
I’ll offer $750,000.
This isn’t just any Porsche. It’s a Carrera GT, and there are only 1,249 others in the world. It has a carbon fiber body and 612 horsepower.
“It’s super, super fast,” Mitch says. “The car has been tested at over 200 mph on a closed racetrack.”
But as you know, color is the most important detail, and this Porsche is the only one painted a special “sand white.” The color alone costs an extra $15,000.
Buy some art — $80,000
I want to buy some art from world-renowned sculptor Jun Kaneko, who’s known for his large, rounded ceramic pieces called dangos.
While his Omaha studio, Kaneko Studios, doesn’t sell the pieces directly, Jeremy Stern, assistant director at the Bemis Center, says he has contacts with galleries and programs worldwide and can get me anything from a Picasso to the $30,000 Terry Rosenberg painting in the gallery now.
Time for lunch — $100
Suddenly a $100 meal seems cheap. But we’re hungry. So let’s drop $100 on a meal at Café de Paris, 1228 S. 6th St., where the entrees cost $30 to $40.
Wrap yourself in fur — $170,000
At Omaha’s upscale Regency Mall, the most expensive fur coat in the store is upstairs at Christian Nobel Furs.
Owner Heather Ray orders about five $115,000 Russian sable coats per year and usually sells at least four. The full-length version costs $125,000, but I’m also tempted by an elegant black mink with a chinchilla tuxedo front and cuffs for $45,000.
Do locals buy these? Yes, Ray says. Not everyone buys the $125,000 coat, but they may get five coats that add up to about that much. And then there’s the occasional celebrity strolling through. You’d be surprised who stops in here, she says. But she won’t name names.
Clothing — $25,260
There’s more fur a few doors down at Topps, an upscale clothing store. They have a $12,950 ribbed mink Escada coat, which goes nicely with the camel-colored $680 pants and $1,900 sweater set by Oscar de la Renta.
To complete my new wardrobe, I’ll also buy a pair of $150 jeans, $1,000 sweater, $2,000 suit, $500 shoes, $200 sportswear jacket, $125 jogging pants and $450 purse. Throw in an $865 dress at another store in the mall, Tilly, and a $1,545 Armani suit.
And to keep the husband happy, we’ll buy a $1,500 suit and $1,395 topcoat around the corner at Parsow’s.
And a little pampering — $835
If you’re going to spend $10 million, you need to look like you have it. So let’s drop by Garbo’s Salons, where a cut and style by a master stylist will cost about $50, with all-over color for $175. Let’s add a $200 spiral perm.
We may as well get a waxing; how about a $50 Brazilian? Our lashes and brows could use some tinting for about $40, and our ears need the wax removed (via candle) for $35.
This is exhausting. Time for a massage. But which one? They have a fusion stone massage, pregnancy massage, neuromuscular massage and Caribbean therapy massage. I need the $250 full spa treatment, with a facial, pedicure, manicure and cosmetics.
And let’s make it look like we’ve been to the Caribbean with a $35 spray tan.
I feel like a million bucks. And it only cost me $835.
Diamonds are forever — $2.4 million
Hey, if Borsheim’s is good enough for Hillary Clinton, it’s good enough for me. Marketing specialist Teresa Sloboth happily takes me to the really pricey stuff. After showing me a $150,000 ring, $500,000 bracelet and $350,000 necklace, we move around the counter to the Big Boys.
If you want to spend serious money, check out the $1.3 million pink diamond ring designed by New York designer Diva. Total carats: 15. This ring would not be complete without the matching earrings, necklace and a Borsheim’s bracelet.
Grand total for the set: $2.4 million.
We know Borsheim’s sells to people all over the world, but do Nebraskans buy these? Yes. As we’ve been told by clerks all day today, “You’d be surprised …”
Let’s balance the checkbook. I’ve spent nearly $16 million.
If I return the jet, that’ll get me just under $10 million. Which leaves a couple hundred grand.
But wait. I forgot to give some of this windfall to charity. And what better Omaha charity than Girls and Boys Town?
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