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The coolest building in every US state, from historic estates to futuristic designs

Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida
The Salvador Dalí Art Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, is one of America's coolest buildings.

Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

  • The US has diverse architecture and building designs across the 50 states.
  • History, art, and local aesthetics are all reflected in some of America's most unique buildings.
  • From prehistoric dwellings to kitschy designs, these buildings make for unique tourist attractions.

Throughout its 250-year history, the US has produced some striking and unique architecture that you can't find anywhere else — and lots of it can look wildly different across state lines.

Defining what we consider "coolest" is hard. We evaluated every state on its own terms and found that the architecture across all 50 states and Washington, DC, can be as diverse as the country's population.

In states like California and Massachusetts, picking the most striking building meant finding ones that look futuristic and elegant, like something out of a science-fiction movie. In other states, like Maine and the Carolinas, we found that the coolest buildings are distinctive because of their place in history or their states' cultures.

Whether you're looking for a piece of history or a glimpse into the future, these buildings can show you what different worlds look like.

James Grebey and Jacob Shamsian contributed to an earlier version of this story.

ALABAMA: Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio Passenger Terminal
The Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio Passenger Terminal in Mobile was built in 1907.

George Dodd/Getty Images

The Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio Passenger Terminal in Mobile, Alabama, which has Spanish influences with its cream walls and red clay tiles, was designed by P. Thornton Marye. It was completed in 1907 and has undergone restoration since passenger train service ceased in the 1950s.

ALASKA: The University of Alaska's Museum of the North
University of Alaska Museum of the North

pabradyphoto/Getty Images

The University of Alaska Museum of the North is home to numerous exhibits showcasing the native cultures, natural wonders, and wildlife of our nation's largest state. It's also a stylish refuge from the cold.

ARIZONA: Chapel of the Holy Cross
The Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona
The Chapel of the Holy Cross sits on a hillside.

ANNA WILCZYNSKA/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona was completed in 1956, and it juts majestically from a red stone butte, some 200 feet above the ground.

ARKANSAS: Thorncrown Chapel
Eureka Springs, Arkansas woodland sanctuary that rises forty-eight feet as it reaches for the Ozark skies; consists of 425 windows, over 6,000 SF of glass

BanyanRanchStudios/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The beautiful Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs looks like an open-air structure, but it's actually a serene, glass-enclosed architectural marvel.

CALIFORNIA: The Chemosphere
Chemosphere House designed by Taylor Lautner in 1960 on April 03, 2017

FG/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

It was designed in 1960, but the Chemosphere still looks futuristic. It's a house with 2,200 square feet of space, perched atop a 30-foot concrete pole. And it's survived every major Californian earthquake in the San Fernando Valley since it was built.

COLORADO: Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park
Mesa Verde, New Mexico USA stock photo

Gert Hilbink/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Mesa Verde National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, features some of the best-preserved prehistoric landscapes of the Ancestral Puebloan people. These ancient dwellings, where the Ancestral Puebloans once lived, were constructed on the sides of natural cliffs.

While most dwellings had only one to five rooms, the Cliff Palace, the largest known cliff dwelling in North America, had 150 rooms, 23 sacred meeting spaces, and housed about 100 people, according to the National Park Service.

CONNECTICUT: Grace Farms
Single roof River building of glass, concrete, steel, and wood of Grace Farms center of culture stock photo

SBWorldphotography/Getty Images

The main feature of Grace Farms in New Canaan is a serpentine wooden pavilion that links glass-walled rooms, including a library, stage, tea room, and a gym with a full basketball court. Completed in 2015, it's open to the public for free.

DELAWARE: Wilmington's Grand Opera House
Wilmington, Delaware, USA - November 5, 2023: The Grand Opera House on King St in Wilmington, Delaware, USA. The Grand Opera House is a theater for the performing arts in Wilmington.

JHVEPhoto/Getty Images

The country's oldest state has some classic buildings that stand the test of time. Wilmington's Grand Opera House, built in 1871, is as classic as it gets.

FLORIDA: The Salvador Dalí Museum
Salvador Dali Museum in St. Pete, Florida stock photo

Sean Pavone/Getty Images

The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg is a fittingly unique tribute to the beloved master of surrealism. The museum boasts the largest collection of Dalí's work outside Europe.

GEORGIA: The Earth Lodge on Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park
Ocmulgee National Monument

Jeffrey M. Frank/Shutterstock

This might not look much like other buildings in this list, but the Ocmulgee Mounds National Park's Earth Lodge dates back to the year 1015, per the National Park Service.

The lodge is a reconstructed council chamber of the native Mississippian culture. While the walls and ceiling were reconstructed in the late 1930s, the clay floor remains the same as the original, dating back over a thousand years.

HAWAII: ʻIolani Palace
ʻIolani Palace was the residence of the rulers of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi until 1893.

DaSza64/Getty Images/iStockphoto

ʻIolani Palace in Honolulu is the only royal palace on United States soil. David Kalākaua, the last reigning king of Hawaiʻi and the first monarch to travel around the world, was inspired by the European palaces he saw during his 1881 voyage.

IDAHO: The Dog Bark Park Inn
dog bark park inn cottonwood

Martyn Skorkin/Shutterstock

The Dog Bark Park Inn in Cottonwood is a delightful piece of American kitsch. The bed and breakfast is shaped like two charming beagles.

ILLINOIS: Bahá'í House of Worship
Bahá'í House of Worship
Bahá'í House of Worship in Illinois

SpVVK/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Although there are between 5 and 6 million adherents to the Bahá'í Faith, there are only eight continental houses of worship worldwide. The one in Wilmette, Illinois, is the oldest still standing, and the only one in the United States.

INDIANA: West Baden Springs Hotel
West Baden Springs Hotel

IN Dancing Light/Shutterstock

When the West Baden Springs Hotel opened in 1902, it was billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World. While enjoying the view from inside the massive domed atrium — at one point the largest in the world — it's easy to see why.

IOWA: Grotto of the Redemption
Grotto of the Redemption
The Grotto of the Redemption is the size of a football field.

Hotaik Sung/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Father Paul Dobberstein promised to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary as she helped cure his grave case of pneumonia. His resulting Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend is made of rocks, shells, fossils, and gems pressed into concrete. It's the size of a football field.

KANSAS: Big Well in Greensburg
Big Well in Greensburg

Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images

The Big Well in Greensburg is a museum that rests atop its titular main attraction: the largest hand-dug well in the world, spanning 32 feet in diameter and reaching a depth of 109 feet.

KENTUCKY: Churchill Downs
Horizontal photo of the Grand Entrance to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville Kentucky. Shown is a sculpture of the thoroughbred, Barbaro.

CharlesEberson/Getty Images

Churchill Downs, most famously the host of the Kentucky Derby, can hold 120,000 excited, sometimes rowdy, racing fans at max capacity.

LOUISIANA: The Pontalba Buildings
Architecture of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The Pontalba Buildings are emblematic of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

Photo Italia LLC/Getty Images

The Pontalba Buildings, which make up two sides of New Orleans' Jackson Square, are emblematic of the French Quarter. Some of the residences on the upper floors are believed to be the oldest continuously rented apartments in the country.

MAINE: The Portland Head Light
Portland Head light in Maine

SeanPavonePhoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Portland Head Light — one of the state's many lighthouses — has been around since 1791. It was built under the directive of George Washington himself.

MARYLAND: The American Visionary Art Museum
American Visionary Art Museum
American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Amy Sparwasser/Getty Images

The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore showcases outsider art. All the works within its wonky exterior were made by inspired, self-taught creators.

MASSACHUSETTS: Simmons Hall at MIT
Simmons Hall at MIT
Simmons Hall at MIT is one of the coolest-looking dorm buildings in the US.

Enzo Figueres/Getty Images

Simmons Hall at MIT is the coolest dorm building in the US. It looks like a monstrous Tetris piece combined with underground caverns.

MICHIGAN: Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images for Elley Orem

The museum, one of the oldest and largest dedicated to African American history, is a three-story building designed with influences of African and local Detroit architecture. The building features a stunning 55-foot-tall glass dome ceiling.

MINNESOTA: The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory
Saint Paul, Minnesota USA - September 2, 2017: Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. Built in 1915. U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Cynthia Shirk/Getty Images

The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at Saint Paul's Como Park was opened to the public in 1915 and features Japanese, Bonsai, and butterfly gardens, among others.

MISSISSIPPI: Gehry's Pods at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art
Biloxi, Mississippi, USA - May 22, 2021: The Ohr OKeefe Museum of Art is pictured in Biloxi, Mississippi. The museum was established in 1989 and moved to its current location on Highway 90 in 2010. The five-building campus is dedicated to the ceramics of George E. Ohr, also known as the Mad Potter of Biloxi.

Carmen K Sisson/Getty Images

Designed by Frank Gehry — whose striking work also includes the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain — the curved metal pods, which house pottery at Biloxi's Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art, are meant to look as if they were "dancing with the trees," per the museum's website.

MISSOURI: The Community Bookshelf
Community Bookshelf in Kansas City
The Community Bookshelf in Kansas City displays giant book spines.

Matthew Fowler/Getty Images

The parking garage at the Kansas City Library is called the Community Bookshelf. It displays the giant spines of 22 classic books that were suggested by Kansas City readers.

MONTANA: Montana State Capitol building
Montana State Capitol
The Montana State Capitol began construction in 1896.

Ultima_Gaina/Getty Images

Construction started on the Montana State Capitol in 1896. The inside of the rotunda salutes four types of people central to the state's early history: a native American, an explorer, a gold miner, and a cowboy.

NEBRASKA: Nebraska State Capitol Building
Nebraska State Capitol Building

Faina Gurevich/Getty Images

The Nebraska Capitol in Lincoln is one of the greatest state capitol buildings in the US. Built between 1922 and 1932, the building features artworks representing the development of law and the state of Nebraska.

NEVADA: Ward Charcoal Ovens
Ward Charcoal Ovens
The Ward Charcoal Ovens in Ely were built in the 1870s for silver mining.

Scotters/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Ward Charcoal Ovens in Ely were built in the 1870s for silver mining.

The distinctive beehive-shaped Ward Charcoal Ovens in Ely were built for silver mining back in the 1870s, and they still look like nothing else on the landscape.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Mount Washington Hotel
Bretton Woods: famous Mount Washington Hotel in Jefferson in the mount washington area.

travelview/Getty Images

Built in 1902, the Mount Washington Hotel — today operating as the Omni Mount Washington Resort — is one of the last remaining grand hotels in the state, and is rumored to be haunted.

NEW JERSEY: Nassau Hall at Princeton University
Famous Nassau Hall of Princeton university at sunset golden hour. This location (Princeton University Campus) is open to public and does not require any tickets or permissions to shoot.

GummyBone/Getty Images

Nassau Hall is the oldest building at Princeton University, dating back to the 1750s. While it now houses the school's administrative offices, during the Revolutionary War it was occupied by both British and American forces and suffered damage during the battles.

NEW MEXICO: Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo
This October 2012 photo shows adobe dwellings at the Taos Pueblo in Taos, N.M., a UNESCO World Heritage site where the Taos native people have lived for 1,000 years. Tours of the pueblo describe the community’s survival and challenges across the centuries. The picture-perfect dwellings are multi-level, often with ladders to reach upper floors and round ovens outside.

AP Photo/Beth Harpaz

Hundreds of years old, the Taos Pueblo is a multi-story complex built by Native Americans from the region. It looks like one big, molded piece, and it's still used as a residence.

NEW YORK: The Chrysler Building
Aerial view of New York City skyline featuring the Chrysler Building and East River under a clear blue sky.

Wirestock/Getty Images

The Empire State Building gets all the hype, but it's the Chrysler Building that's really the most magnificent skyscraper in New York City. The Art Deco-style building was the tallest in the world when it was built, but it was beaten out by — you guessed it — the Empire State Building just 11 months later.

NORTH CAROLINA: The Executive Mansion
North Carolina's Executive Mansion in Raleigh
North Carolina's Executive Mansion in Raleigh is the home of the governor.

Dee/Getty Images

North Carolina's Executive Mansion in Raleigh is the home of the governor.

Give it to North Carolina for having its most beautiful building designated as a civil landmark. The state's Executive Mansion in Raleigh is the home of the governor and a high-profile event venue that's open to public tours.

NORTH DAKOTA: The North Dakota Heritage Center
North Dakota Heritage Center

gnagel/Getty Images

At the center of the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck is a great glass cube flanked by two copper-colored wings. It's the home of the state's greatest treasures, including Native American historical artifacts and lots of dinosaur fossils.

OHIO: The Longaberger Company building
Basket Shaped Longaberger Company Home Office stock photo

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The Longaberger Company, which makes baskets, made a building in Newark that perfectly matches its brand. The building was closed in 2016, and it has largely sat idle since.

Plans for the property have included a hotel, a coworking space, and, most recently, a mixed-use development, but it still has an unclear path for the future.

OKLAHOMA: First Americans Museum
First Americans Museum

Kit Leong/Shutterstock

The First Americans Museum's 175,000-square-foot building in Oklahoma pays homage to the state's indigenous populations and their history. The design is inspired by the importance placed on the rising and setting sun by Native populations, with the Remembrance Walls being aligned with the sunrise.

The central half-dome is supported by 10 pillars of various stones, each representing a 10-mile stretch traveled by Native people during forced removal from their original homelands, according to the museum's website.

OREGON: The Portland Building
The Portland Building

EQRoy/Shutterstock

In 2009, Travel + Leisure famously called The Portland Building "one of the most hated buildings in America," and its reputation is split among architecture critics. But its shapes, strange geometric clashes of glass and stone, make it the weird building that Portland most deserves.

PENNSYLVANIA: Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater
Frank Lloyd Wright - Fallingwater, view from the woods and stream from below towards the house with lush foliage and two waterfalls

Gerald Zaffuts/Getty Images

Frank Lloyd Wright's 1935 masterpiece Fallingwater remains Pennsylvania's greatest work of architecture. Water falls from each level of the building into the one below, perfectly integrating with the landscape.

RHODE ISLAND: The Breakers
The Vanderbillt The Breakers mansion ornate facade in Newport, Rhode Island, USA

AlexandreFagundes/Getty Images

Built as a summer residence for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, The Breakers mansion in Newport has 70 rooms across 138,300 square feet, making it one of the largest houses in the US and an icon of Gilded Age architecture.

SOUTH CAROLINA: The International African American Museum
the international african american museum south carolina

Sean Rayford/Getty Images

In South Carolina, the International African American Museum stands on top of 18 13-foot pillars that keep the museum from touching the sacred ground on which it was built.

The museum is situated on the historic site of Gadsden's Wharf in Charleston's Cooper River, which was the last and most significant disembarkation point in North America for enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade, per the US Civil Rights Trail website.

SOUTH DAKOTA: The Corn Palace
Exterior view of the iconic Corn Palace in Mitchell South Dakota decorated with distinctive agricultural murals

GummyBone/Getty Images

The walls of the Corn Palace in Mitchell are adorned with complex murals and art that's all been made out of, you guessed it, corn. The design changes every year.

TENNESSEE: Parthenon in Centennial Park
Nashville, Tennessee USA - May 10, 2023: Popular Centennial Park with the Parthenon replica located in the west end district

RAUL RODRIGUEZ/Getty Images

Built in 1897 for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition — and then reconstructed between 1921 and 1930 — the Parthenon in Centennial Park is a full-sized replica of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Today, it's open to the public as an art museum.

TEXAS: James Turrell's Twilight Epiphany skyspace
James Turrell Skyspace

The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Designed by renowned artist James Turrell, the "Twilight Epiphany" Skyspace in Houston is a performance space that makes you feel as though you've entered another dimension.

UTAH: Natural History Museum of Utah
Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, June 22, 2023.

JHVEPhoto/Getty Images

The Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City looks like it could have been carved out of the landscape. It was designed by Todd Schliemann of Ennead Architects.

VERMONT: The Old Round Church
An aerial view of the old round church in Richmond, Vermont, surrounded by a breathtaking view of a green forest at sunset

Wirestock/Getty Images

The Old Round Church in Richmond is technically a 16-sided polygon, but it's still enough of a circle to lend credence to a rumor that it was built in that shape so that the Devil had no corners to hide in.

VIRGINIA: Dulles International Airport
Main Terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport at dusk in Virginia, USA.

joeravi/Getty Images

If they're done wrong, airports can be the most insufferable place to spend a few hours. But we have to admire Virginia's Dulles International Airport, which almost looks like a futuristic aircraft itself.

WASHINGTON: Seattle Central Library
Seattle Central Library
SEATTLE - MAY 19: An exterior view of Seattle's new Central LIbrary on May 19, 2004 in Seattle, Washington. The glass and steel structure was designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture of the Netherlands and Seattle-based LMN Architects and cost $165.5 million to build. It is set to open to the public May 23.

Photo by Ron Wurzer/Getty Images

Forget the idea of a dusty old home for books nobody reads. The Seattle Central Library is a miracle of modern architecture.

WASHINGTON, DC: The United States Capitol
United States Capitol Building in Washington DC public building

eric1513/Getty Images

The United States Capitol is such a mainstay of nightly news and political pop culture that it's easy to take for granted. It's nice to step back once in a while and take in the grandeur and historical significance of this government building that reflects on America's complicated past.

Construction on the Capitol began in September 1793, and much of the structure was built by enslaved workers working alongside free Black and white laborers, per the White House Historical Association. In 2012, a marker was added to the Capitol Visitor Center commemorating the unpaid labor of enslaved people who built the nation's Capitol.

WEST VIRGINIA: The Palace of Gold
NEW VRINDABAN COMMUNITY, WVA - OCTOBER 10: Tourists visiting from India pose for photographs in front of the Palace of Gold on Oct. 10.

Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Palace of Gold is a majestic memorial shrine located in the Hare Krishna community of New Vrindaban.

WISCONSIN: The Burke Brise Soleil
A family outside the Milwaukee Art Museum.

: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The most striking feature of the Milwaukee Art Museum is the Burke Brise Soleil, a towering sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan. It folds and unfolds twice a day.

WYOMING: Smith Mansion
smith mansion wyoming

Grossinger/Shutterstock

This wacky-looking building is in the middle of the remote Wapiti Valley. In 1971, architect Francis Lee Smith started building the structure by hand as his and his family's home. After completing the first floor in 1973, he could not stop building. He died after falling from one of the balconies in 1992.

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At first, moving to the UK felt like a dream come true. Five years in, I realized it wasn't for me.

The writer posing on a street in the UK with a small dog.
In some ways, the reality of living in the UK was different from what I imagined.

Maria Polansky

  • As a Canadian, I dreamed of living in Europe — and then, I finally got the chance to move there.
  • There were parts of my new life I loved, but I missed Canada more than I expected.
  • After five years, I moved back to Canada with a new appreciation for my home.

I first fell in love with the idea of Europe when I was 14.

My mom and I went on a trip to Russia to visit relatives, and Moscow won me over with its grand boulevards and trendy cafés. We also stopped in London, where we explored the city's central neighborhoods and shopped in stores I'd only read about in fashion magazines back home.

I was amazed by everything. I was convinced Europe was better — more aesthetically pleasing, more interesting — than my hometown of Vancouver, and vowed to go back as often as I could.

By my early 20s, I was traveling to Europe almost every summer. My sister had moved to France, so I had a great excuse to visit: I'd stay with her in Paris and later Toulouse, and I'd also check out other destinations like Spain and Italy when I could.

I became more enamored with the continent with each trip. Like so many North Americans, I considered it somewhat of a utopia where the overall lifestyle is healthier, the food is more delicious, and everything is more beautiful.

Love gave me the opportunity to live in Europe

The writer sitting on a mountain overlooking homes in Canada, with a body of water in the background.
After falling in love with a Brit, I was excited to leave Canada for the UK.

Maria Polansky

In 2018, at age 26, I met and fell in love with a Brit who was living in Vancouver. When his Canadian working-holiday visa expired, we started a long-distance relationship — and I applied for a British visa so we could be together.

After years of romanticizing the continent on vacations, my dream was finally coming true. I moved to Birmingham and got a UK-based job.

My first year there was great. I loved being surrounded by historic architecture, feeling comfortable dressing up in fancier clothes, and knowing that countries like Spain, Italy, and Greece were just a quick flight away.

But eventually, the novelty started wearing off. Things I initially found so charming became mundane after a few years. The old buildings blurred into the background of my daily commute, and I never quite adjusted to certain cultural differences, like the Brits' less direct communication style.

I also started to miss the things I took for granted back home, like easy access to the ocean and mountains. Back in Vancouver, I used to spend weekends at the beach or hiking, and though these activities were possible in the UK, they were more difficult from my inland location.

Plus, although some things were more affordable — like groceries — others, like transportation fees, weren't. I was also getting paid a lower salary for the same job I was doing back home.

Even the travel benefits weren't as cut-and-dried as I'd expected. Yes, I was close to the rest of Europe, but farther from plenty of other destinations. In Vancouver, I could easily hop on a flight to Mexico to escape the winter blues.

My husband and I traveled to the Canary Islands a few times from the UK, and they were stunning — but in my opinion, they just couldn't compare to the soft white sand and warm azure waters of the Riviera Maya.

I realized I missed my life in Canada

In 2021, I visited Canada for the first time since moving, and started to see everything from a different perspective. I had a newfound appreciation for the rugged natural beauty around me and the laidback coastal lifestyle.

Once I got back to the UK, I started to realize just how much my Pacific Northwest upbringing had influenced my lifestyle preferences. I realized I'd rather be surrounded by the ocean, mountains, and forests than historic buildings.

As someone with a multicultural background, I also felt homesick for my Canadian hometown's diversity. I really felt like my community back home was shaped by immigrants, and cultural traditions there felt less uniform.

After our second trip back to Canada in 2022, my husband started to sense just how homesick I was. We agreed to move back the following year — though we chose to go to nearby Victoria instead of Vancouver, as we preferred the more relaxed vibe of a smaller city.

I'm glad we left, but I have no regrets

The writer, wearing red sunglasses, stands at a scenic overlook in Canada, with a body of water in the background.
Living in the UK taught me to appreciate my home in Canada.

Maria Polansky

We've now been back in Canada for just over three years, and it feels like the perfect place for us right now.

Despite everything, I don't regret my move to the UK. I fulfilled my adolescent dream, and I know that if I hadn't taken the opportunity, I'd have always wondered what my life could have been like there.

Those five years also gave me a better appreciation for where I am now. Sure, there are things I miss about living in the UK, like the multitude of dog-friendly pubs and British chocolate. But as someone who prefers a more nature-oriented life, I know Southwest British Columbia is the right home for me.

Still, I'll never say no to another trip back across the pond.

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I work in luxury real estate. These are the 5 red flags I tell buyers they should never ignore.

Modern two-story house with landscaped front yard, garages, and exterior lights under a pink sunset sky.
There are a few things people should look out for before buying a luxury home.

Wirestock/iStock

  • As a luxury real-estate agent, I tell buyers that a high price tag doesn't mean a sound investment.
  • A beautiful renovation with signs of low-quality workmanship is an immediate red flag for me.
  • I also pay close attention to a home's location and how long it's been on the market.

As a real-estate agent who works with buyers looking for luxury homes, I know how easy it is to get swept up in a beautiful property.

But after nearly three years in the industry, I like to remind my clients that a higher price tag doesn't automatically make a house a better investment — or mean there aren't problems hiding beneath the surface.

Some of the biggest concerns I notice aren't necessarily the things that stand out during a first showing. They're often in the details — like the quality behind the renovation, the home's location, and its history on the market.

These are the five red flags I always recommend my clients watch for before making an offer.

A pretty renovation doesn't mean it's a quality renovation.
Bright open-plan kitchen with white cabinetry, island appliances, pendant lights, tall windows, and herringbone wood flooring.

ProCreators/iStock

A home may look spectacular online, but sometimes, once you walk through the door and look under the hood, it isn't what it appeared to be in the listing photos. I jokingly call it "lipstick on a pig."

Before making an offer, buyers should understand what they're actually getting, beyond gorgeous photos and expensive-looking finishes.

I like to look more closely at things like the cabinetry and hardware, flooring, countertops, stonework, fixtures, and overall quality of workmanship.

One of the easiest places to spot a lower-quality renovation is the cabinetry — specifically, whether the joints are properly fitted, the drawers glide smoothly, and the cabinet doors align. I also look out for things like uneven tilework, inconsistent grout lines, poorly installed flooring, and gaps around the cabinets or trim.

To me, the biggest concern is whether the renovation will hold up over time. If the materials and workmanship aren't up to par, buyers could end up repairing or replacing finishes far sooner than expected.

When you're paying for a luxury home, you want to know you're investing in quality that will last, not just an aesthetic that looks good in listing photos.

Regardless of how beautiful the home is, location is crucial.
Blurred traffic passes in front of a beige wood-sided house with stone pillars on a sunny street.

Ricardo DeAratanha/Getty Images

Everyone has heard the term "location, location, location," and there's a reason for that. Almost anything about a home can be renovated or changed — its location can't.

I always tell buyers not to overlook things like road noise, backing to a busy street, an undesirable lot position, or other location factors simply because they love the house.

Those things may not bother you personally, but they could narrow your buyer pool significantly when it comes time to sell.

It's concerning when a house has been on the market for many days.
A red "for sale" sign hangs in front of a blurred white house with a porch and steps.

Feverpitched/Getty Images

Seeing a high days-on-market number — the amount of time the property has been actively listed — isn't inherently detrimental, but it's important to understand why a house hasn't been able to sell.

A question I often get from clients is, "How many days on market is considered too many?" The reality is that there isn't a single magic number, as it depends on the area, the specific neighborhood, and the price point.

Just because a home has been on the market for an extended period doesn't necessarily mean there is something wrong with the property. It could be road noise, a less desirable location, or simply a matter of pricing. However, I've seen instances where issues were uncovered during inspections, causing buyers to walk away.

Regardless of the reason, I always look at the listing history, previous price reductions, and comparable sales in the area to get a better picture of what's going on.

I'm also not afraid to ask the seller's agent point-blank what the issue has been. All of that information helps me decide how my clients and I should approach and structure an offer.

A luxury price tag doesn't mean a home is problem-free.
Outdoor HVAC condenser unit sits beside a light brick house wall with utility boxes, window, lawn, and fence.

TrongNguyen/Getty Images

Even a picture-perfect home listed for millions of dollars can have an aging HVAC system, roof issues, water damage, plumbing concerns, or other costly problems that aren't obvious during a showing.

That's why inspections are so important. If an inspection reveals that an HVAC system needs to be replaced, that's a significant expense the buyer may not have anticipated when making their original offer.

I always remind my clients that the inspection period is still very much a negotiation period. The key is knowing which issues are worth negotiating, and being strategic about what you ask for.

What a seller spent isn't necessarily what an improvement is worth.
Open-concept living room with sofas, coffee table, vaulted ceiling beams, kitchen, and dining area in bright neutral decor.

sheilasay/Getty Images

If a listing agent tells me their seller put $300,000 into a home's renovation, that doesn't automatically mean it's worth $300,000 more.

A seller may have spent a significant amount on finishes or design choices they personally loved, but that doesn't necessarily mean the next buyer will place the same value on them.

I think it's important for buyers to separate what someone spent on a home from what the market supports.

High-quality improvements absolutely matter, but ultimately, I don't think a buyer should pay a premium simply because a seller spent a lot of money.

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