My $16 Million Ski Chalet 

$16 million. That's how much my new ski chalet costs. That's $16 with six zeros attached to it. Now before you start getting all jealous of my personal fortune, I will tell you that you're all invited to my new home (I've got space. 18,000 square feet of it). Just as soon as I work out the $1 million down payment, I'll start planning the house warming fete. It shouldn't take me that long since I'm a reporter and we are up there with hedge fund managers and NBA players in terms of our salaries.

My new real estate venture is called Above the Clouds and it's located in Stowe — no surprise there. It was recently named one of the Top 10 Most Spectacular Ski Homes in America by a real estate Web site TopTenRealEstateDealsdotcom. The list also featured homes in Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, but only three were more expensive than mine. I haven't been to a showing yet, but I'm hoping the palazzo is right next door to Paul Bettany ("A Beautiful Mind") and Jennifer Connelly ("A Beautiful Eyebrow") who live in Stowe. I really like them and I think we would be great friends. And by great friends I mean I hope they adopt me.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this place. It has a "spacious bathroom carved from Statuario marble" in the east wing and a black walnut-lined library in the west wing. One of the rooms between the two wings is shaped like a Steinway Grand Piano. There is also a Steinway Grand Piano in the room shaped like a piano. Genius. Liberace, eat your bejeweled heart out.

My opulent new dwelling also has an indoor pool, complete with waterfalls and "spa facilities." I hope those spa facilities include virile, waxed men in square-cuts whose job is to look pretty while slathering me in therapeutic mud. Can you say POOL PARTY!? I'm most excited about the studio-quality theater with seating for 18. That means no more going to the movies for me and slumming with RPs — real people. I'll never have to leave my house! My dreams of being a rich eccentric shut-in living in a wildly over-the-top estate will be achieved.

Oddly, my gigantic villa only has four bedrooms. But it has six bathrooms, so if there aren't enough beds for all of you, somebody can sleep in one of the luxury tubs. I've slept in a tub before and if you can ignore the cold porcelain and the fact that no amount of cushioning will make you comfortable, you'll be all set.

I'm going to call my mortgage lender today and see how my financing looks for this. I think I've got a good shot. And that $8000 new homebuyer credit will sure come in handy when I need to restock the tins of beluga caviar and bottles of Bolli.

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