Well, folks, you know it’s bad in America when rich-as-Croesus attorneys like Keith Barton, who owned this sprawling estate in Alpine, Utah, lose their homes to foreclosure, too. The house is on 9 acres with an incredible mountain view. Barton, a personal injury attorney who is famous for his “One Call–That’s All!” TV commercials, tried desperately to sell it and avoid losing it. It was on the market for $14.9 million last year, but no takers. The bank just sold it for the rock-bottom bargain price of $7 million.
I think this is another case of “Oversized House Syndrome.” I’d feel like I was living in a hotel. But that’s just me. Take a look at this place and decide for yourself. Even if you’ll never have to decide whether to spend your vast amounts of wealth on a ridiculously big house or not, they’re still fun to look at!
The grand foyer:
The dining room:
A close-up of the ceiling and chandelier in the dining room:
I thought this might be some sort of Ballroom, but no. It’s just the “Great Room:”
Here’s the view from the other end of the Great Room, which has a sort of “Sound of Music” vibe to it, like you can imagine those Von Trapp kids marching into line:
Even though that seems plenty big enough to host a dance of some sort, they weren’t taking any chances when they built this house. Here’s the official Ballroom:
The music room:
The kitchen:
No, this isn’t part of the kitchen–it’s a separate pantry:
The cozy family room:
The library (which is suspiciously lacking in actual books):
Upstairs hallway:
Upstairs there are 7 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms. The master bedroom, shown below, is so big that the dresser looks like doll furniture. Look at all the gold leaf they used in this place! It’s sort of ridiculous, don’t you think? (Or maybe it’s just not my style, so I don’t get it.) It’s trying to be grand, but this room just looks sad to me, like nobody’s home:
There are two master closets, which I could totally get into. Here’s his:
And hers:
The master bath (you just know it echoes!):
Another bathroom (or maybe this is an extension of the master–not sure):
Forget about Great Clips–there’s an in-house salon:
After you get your hair done, you can head straight to your own bar, where I can just about guarantee “everybody knows your name:”
A room called “the lounge:”
It also comes with its own ice-cream parlor so you don’t have to schlepp to town when you want some Baskin-Robbins:
I don’t think this will surprise you–they have their own in-home theater, too:
This is supposedly the laundry room, but I see no sign of a washer or dryer, do you? They must be cleverly hidden behind all that cabinetry. Or maybe it’s way down there at the other end, too far away for us to see them.
I love this but have a tiny quibble with it–it’s too narrow. Just imagine trying to fit the piles of clothes and all of your laundry baskets in that space. Then again, if you lived here, you would have someone else doing your laundry for you, so maybe you wouldn’t care!
Here’s the (drained) pool and amazing view from the back of the house:
Big thanks goes to Hooked on Houses reader Aubrey, who forwarded me these photos. Read a news story about this home’s foreclosure, and see aerial views of it here.
If You’re Hooked on Tours of Unusual Houses:
- Toronto’s Littlest House
- Tumbleweed Tiny Houses: Living Small
- The Spite House in Alexandria, Virginia





















































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i love this house. i know its incredibly selfish but i wuold love to live there!
only thing i would say is did anyone else notice the hone box in the lounge? im all for the sort of doctor who theme if thats what you like.. but i wouldnt go that far. it makes the house look like its open for the public to look around.. if i moved in i think that would be first to go. and i thinki would have to furnish it more.. it looks as if the house is deserted, especially the master bedroom! i thinkpersonally if i had the money i would trebel the size of the bed
(that also sounds really selfish but whatever)
i think as well as that i would have foreign students or lodgers come to stay in the spare rooms of the house while they learn english or something.. so that the house isnt so empty and lonely and so that i dont feel quite as horrible… not that i’d ever be able to afford a house as massive and beautiful as this one!
I heard the new owner is single, if any of you ladies are interested. The new owner basis his life on goals. His family has helped several people and even has put a few homes in third-world countries. This type of dream keeps me working every day. Maybe my house won’t be quite like this, but how many of you were inspired.
I wish Keith the best, but I just don’t see how he can make it with the IRS, RJ Funding, the Waterford Lending Group and Nimbus (just to name a few) breathing down his back. Financially, the hole that he has dug for himself is so deep that there is no chance of getting out. He literally owes over 100 million dollars.
I wish Keith would have been content with buying a modest 7000 square foot home with cash and using the rest of his money to help out others in need. Oh well, there is always the next life.
7 million dollars to buy…and the cost of utilities alone could feed a small country in Africa. The new owner is recently single due to a divorce. I do not know the details, but from the rumors, I would not go looking for this guy as your next soulmate. Aaron said “Inspired”? No…more disgusted. Forget the dream, Aaron, and do something good with your life instead. You will not reach this kind of opulence without stepping on the backs of others and taking their hard earned money as your own. MLM’s make money by taking advantage of those at the bottom. It does not matter how much good the man has done with his money if all that money has come from doing harm.
I worked on this house ( Keith Barton Mansion), Yes it is Gaughty! And there are only two adults and two Children, that i saw running around. Your missing out on the Full 1900 +/- sqft Apartment for the help, nanny or maid(s). The only way I could justify the madness, was knowing that it employed many families. Also it was fun.
I’ve been in this house. It really is as amazing as it looks. There is a reason for all the *unique* things in this house. His girls were deep into ballroom dancing. They flew in world class professionals to train them (the reason for the huge ballroom) and for competitions they had to get “done up” which explains the tanning bed, or was it a spray tan room? anyway, and the salon. The BYU ballroom team was invited to his house for a movie night… yeah I know. Keith had security guys placed strategicallly along the route from the front door to the theatre, in case any of us got the idea to wander…. interesting to say the least.
Great house. Too bad that Keith’s firm is teetering on financial ruin. No advertising budget, lay-offs, low office morale, missed payroll, robbing Peter to pay Paul and numerous creditors riding his back and threatening him constantly. All of this stress has certainly taken its toll on Keith’s emotional and physical state. I bet he wishes he could hop in a time machine and go back to more pleasant times.
The real tragedy in all of this is that Keith has burned so many bridges in his personal life and in the legal community that nobody will help him anymore. I don’t think Keith has one true friend in the whole world. It was a great house though.
I would love to know where you aquired the photos of that house.We did all the fancy moundings on the walls and the door reproduction and alot of the ceiling patterns. But we were unable to get him to let us photograph it ,probably because he was in the process of losing it. Love the web page lots of cool thing here. I would really like to know where you got the photo’s thanks
Rick–
A reader who lives in the area e-mailed them to me. I assumed they were from a real estate listing. She said they had been from a mass e-mail sent around and did not know the original source. -Julia
This house is much too grand and opulent for my taste. I don’t understand why people choose to live in houses this size. Don’t get me wrong, I love beautiful houses, but unless you have 15 children, what’s the point?
The dining room is just plain ugly.
This house has an official ballroom – does it have another unofficial ballroom?
I do very much love the library. And I suspect the actual library part is in the upstairs part.
His closet is quite ugly, and for a house of this size, her closet is quite small. (Has anyone seen Mariah Carey’s closet? lol)
Again, he/they/whatever didn’t need a house this size, I don’t feel bad that it was foreclosed upon.
I’m in pure love….! not one thing would I change….!
Wow what a house! And the Sound of Music reference? So funny, cause you can HEAR them singing! Too opulent for my taste and yes everything looks out of proportion. Sometimes more is not always better, sometimes it’s just…MORE!
My wife currently works at Keith Barton’s law firm. She has been looking for another job for about the last 4 months (keep us in your prayers). People are constantly getting layed off or leaving for work elsewhere. Morale in the office is so bad that she comes home in tears often. The general feeling over at Keith’s office is that it is a sinking ship. His creditors will not even give him an advertising budget and his cases are not coming in anymore. Keith does have a lot of defective drug cases, but they are almost all worthless.
My wife did get to go to Keith’s house shorlty before it was repossessed. She said it was beautiful.
That Keith Barton is one classy dude. I’ve seen his commercials and I trust that man. He makes all attorneys look good.
Here’s what you lowly people don’t understand. If you could have mountains of debt, you too would build a house over 35,000 square feet. Remember the Titans? When the Babylonians built a tower to get to heaven, they talked to Keith Barton for design ideas.
To each his own.
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