In the real-estate ads, they always call a place like this "a handyman's special" or a "Fixer-upper." You don't want to be standing there if a stiff breeze comes along.
The message gets through, after a second.
We've all heard about "the hot seat." Finally, we see what it looks like.
Here's an odd building, one that was meant to look like this: It's one of the buildings at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, in Las Vegas.
Homeowners's tip: don't paint or put siding on the outside of the manse...let nature cover it in vines! It's free, if you don't mind waiting.
The term Potemkin Village dates back to Russia in 1783, when a man named Potemkin was wooing Catherine the Great, and wished to show her wonderful vistas on her way to visit Crimea. So he had fake house fronts built and directed the local peasants to get all duded up and wave happily at the Tsarina as she sleighed on by. To this day, when people put up false fronts, be they actual like this above in Sweden, or when their egos put up phony constructs meant to make us think they really have it all going on, we call it a Potemkin Village and we view it with great disdain.
They used to build that Best & Co stores like this, with crumbling facades and so on. This is a building in Milan, Italy, with a little bit of whimsy.
Here you go...if you haven't settled on a getup for Halloween this year, there's still time to be Lt. Dan and Forrest! ("I KNOW that, Gump!")
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