I like this blog The Setup, even though it is obviously trying to sell me stuff. This particular post caught my eye because I have fantasies very similar to this, and I thought I was the only one:

I have a dream home all built in my mind. I want to buy a big square warehouse with 4 floors, each wide open from wall to wall. If it was a city block that would be fine. I would open the first floor to the public and have a bar/lounge/music venue. It would be a labyrinthine layout and the decor would be all hacked and repurposed, upcycled and somewhat robotic – a mad scientist bar! This would help to fund the second floor, which would be a wood/metal shop and a stop motion studio. We would have plenty of room to develop inventions and churn out animation as well as concoct fun and entertaining technological novelties for the bar downstairs.

The third floor would be a sweet pad for artists in residency. I would pick and choose different people from all walks of life to come and offer their creativity to the entire process. If I want to make some crazy scifi dream come to life, I could invite several experts from a variety of fields and have them all working together on that idea. That would be absolutely incredible – better than a superpower! I think the third floor would also probably have airhockey and skiiball as well.

The fourth floor would be my sort of living quarters. I would have a big kitchen and movie theater and dining room and all that stuff. It would be totally sweet and only a select few would get to come up there.

The roof, though, is the really special part. The roof would be my bedroom. I would have a man-made hill, with soft grass, under a geodesic dome like the biodome. I would have fruit trees and a vegetable garden. My bed would be dug right into the side of the hill so I could sleep under the stars. But also at the top of the hill, I would have a platform on a pneumatic lift that would raise my super high-tech telescope up into the bombardier’s bubble at the top of the dome. It would be so cool! I could sit down at the desk and hit a button and ascend to the highest point in the building to stargaze.

Sounds pretty good. My fantasy actually involves a chocolate factory. Seriously, there is an actual abandoned chocolate factory a few blocks from my house in Philadelphia that has been sitting vacant for decades, and is now up for auction.

Now, people are saying it’s going to go for about $10 million, so I need to raise that. There might be some asbestos in there that will need to come out. Then the renovations can begin. On the first floor, I’m going to recreate Philadelphia neighborhood bars and diners that have gone defunct over the years, using actual materials from them if they exist, otherwise just recreated from photos. So you can wander through the different rooms and each one will be a different recreated diner or bar. At least one will be a coffee shop open during the day. Then on the second floor will be offices of my foundation, the mission of which has not been established yet, but of course will have something to do with sustainability and doing something good for the world. Dogs will be allowed. The third floor will be apartments for visiting scholars and other interesting people. But as I will be fabulously wealthy, I will also just buy a bunch of nearby houses that interesting people can hang out in, including one for myself of course. Hey, it’s my fantasy.