Travolta's new Florida digs (with toys).

The development, near Ocala, Florida, is called Jumbolair. It features a 1.4 mile-long runway with blast fences at each end for large jets. Travolta's house, an example of the early VORTAC period, has ramps and parking for his Boeing 707 and Gulfstream jets. Vinnie Barbarino obviously has an obscene statement to make.

you know...him...Tom Cruise.....hmph.

He does love planes so I really don't see the big deal. He has the money. I would spend it that way too.

...conspicuous consumption has never been my thing. But really, if you look at the house itself, it doesn't look all that huge or opulent.

If I had ten million bucks, I would probably drive a brand new Honda Civic and have a 2000 sq ft. house. I am just not into having a bunch of ostentatious crap. I would, however, have a very big, jungle-like yard which I would tend to obsessively. I'm very into gardening.

But I don't envy Barbarino for his digs. Didn't you notice, it's in Florida, AKA the seventh circle of hell? I spent 4 years living in Miami (and Ocala-Orlando is only slightly better than Miami). You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that flat, ugly, culture-dead bug-infested, drained-swamp shithole of a state. :puke:

In truth, if you go to the older parts of the state, there is plenty of culture and beauty... but hurry. The more developers get their hands on things, the less beauty and culture we have...

Oh my God, I lived there four years, which amounts to about 12 summers! Jesus, enough with the hot already!


But yes there were a few pretty places - the beaches were nice, and when I went to Key West, I could kind of imagine how wonderful it must have been 50 years ago, before the T-shirt hawkers and drunken frat boys made it into just another tourist trap.



I guess my hat's off to you if you can endure that hot weather all the time. I got so sick of the twice-daily showers and the headaches from going from 90-degree muggy heat to 70-degree AC all the time.

And that was Miami, where there is a bit of a breeze from the Gulf Stream. The heat in Orlando and Tampa seemed twice as bad.

If that's what things will be like everywhere with global warming, we all better start listening to Al Gore!

I guess my hat's off to you if you can endure that hot weather all the time. I got so sick of the twice-daily showers and the headaches from going from 90-degree muggy heat to 70-degree AC all the time.

We shower at least twice a day here in the winter... In the summer maybe only twice if we don't go swimming. :evilgrin:

But we have really nice young skin (those of us who don't bake ourselves in the pursuit of the almighty tan) because the air is so humid.

So the mosquito is the state bird. Maine has bigger mosquitos that Florida. And we have allergies ALL year round. But there are some prices to pay for living in Paradise. For as long as it lasts. Paradise has just about been paved over for a parking lot.

I wouldn't buy a plane. I hate planes. I hate flying on them. But I would indulge. That's what I meant. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

At 6.7 pounds/gallon, that is over 2200 gallons per hour. The B-707 cannot legally fly in the US without "hush-kits" (expensive noise attenuation systems that only dampen the noise down to the legal maximum). The four engines of the B-707 are extremely inefficient, compared to modern fan-jet engines, and emit high quantities of pollutants. Travolta's Boeing 707 is, perhaps, the ultimate manifestation of vanity run amok.

That's what that is, right?

I hope he informs the FAA before he goes.

...by flying and especially commercial aviation. I think the walk-out gate ramps are a little tacky-- he could have sprung for mobile lounges....

No need for an automatic garage door opener.

nt

:rofl:

:rofl:

Obviously, the Church of Scientology must have a good investment in John Revolta.

Now they have their own Air Force.

According to local gossip, there's a new monster sized home, sans jets and runways, being built in Tarpon Springs, near me, that's Tom Cruise's new digs.

Saturday Night Fever and had deluded myself into thinking I had coined the name and was the only one who called him that.

:rofl:

:hi:

When the new feudal age starts, some of us will be working in Lord Vinnie Barbarino's fiefdom.

Architectural Digest last year, with Travolta & Kelly Preston. Its very retro-modern inside, with retro airplane murals inside...

property rights related to the runway. Apparently somebody else owns a portion of the runway, and that owner was supposed to grant an easement giving pilots the right to takeoff and land on the runway.

Now that person is balking at granting the easement, so nobody knows if everybody that lives there is going to lose their right to takeoff and land.

Somebody should have had a better lawyer during their homebuying process.

A few years back, Travolta had a home in a fly-in community near Daytona, but was sued by neighbors who claimed his jet airplanes were too big and noisy for their facility.

and where on earth does he have his helo, or is that from whence the photo came?

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Strange things grow in the swampland of central Florida--including oddball communities. There's Cassadaga, town of psychics; Gibsonton, trailer park of circus freaks; and now Jumbolair, a gated community for owners of honking big jets.

Like geeks and clairvoyants, big-jet owners are a marginalized caste. Witness the persecution of Larry Ellison, who battled San Jose officials in court for a year after they tried to prevent him from landing his Gulfstream V in the middle of the night (Ellison eventually won). Or of John Travolta, chased from a fly-in community near Daytona when neighbors complained that his Gulfstream II was too big and loud.

Jumbolair is a haven from such prejudice. On its 550 acres, 125 families will be able to roar along the 7,550-foot runway unhindered by municipal noise ordinances or the wrath of nearby residents. So far nine lots have been sold (one to a Hamptons socialite who flies down in a leased Learjet) and two are pending (one to a retired German racecar driver who owns a Russian MiG fighter). So far, the only home constructed belongs to Travolta, whose $2.5 million, eight-bedroom house has a cavernous dining room topped with a mock control tower.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/03/17/339226/index.htm

well for film-stars..........Both?

Looks like he couldn't afford his own copter (just the copter pad).......poor guy!

:shrug:

Talk about conspicuous consumption.

And fly to the remote areas where he can be himself.

I'm sure he's thrilled with this place. I could only imagine how cool it must be for him.

Enjoy it John!

That reminds me of another, much nicer celeb who loved to pilot planes.

I sure hope Travolta flies carefully...

I don't think a lot of people really appreciated him until he was gone. People saw him as emblematic of all that was schmaltzy and too-safe about seventies pop culture and music, but looking back, it's hard not to be won over by his sweet, velvet voice and genuine sentiments. Not only that he was a committed progressive.


My brother is big into flying those little Cessna things. I wince when I think of it. I don't like to fly in anything smaller than a 737 piloted by a crew of experts.

I couldn't believe it when I heard the news. He was just such a beautiful person and songwriter, and his voice is one of the most soothing I've ever come across. He was truly one of a kind.

As far as your anxiety over your brother flying Cessna's, I hear ya completely. I wouldn't want any one of my loved ones flying them either. I don't care if the odds are so much greater simply driving a car. There's still somethin bout those tiny light little planes that just will keep me from ever gettin in one.

Most of the airline pilots I know don't especially like having to wear those uniforms, especially the hats. Is Travolta an airline pilot wannabe? If only he knew how *not* fun it is to fly five legs a day... And if he's so into it, and so rich, why doesn't he buy himself a new, fuel-efficient airplane like an Airbus or an Embraer 190 instead of sucking down all that Jet-A in his antiquated B-707? And does he have his own ILS on his private runway (I noted that his house looks kind of like a VOR)?

Airbuses and Embraers are just a tad more expensive.

DemoTex might know: Can you have old planes like B-707s re-engined with more efficient engines? Or is it just cheaper to buy a whole new airplane?

Maybe he is going to fly that plane up to meet the space aliens who are going to come to take them to paradise.

allowed to wear a captain's uniform because he has the rating for it? or is it vanity.

edit for spelling.

but i find it interesting that the 'front' of the house faces all his essential toys and the success they represent; daddy coming & going, husband in his flight uniform waving in to his little cookie cutter at what may well be italian marble counters of a spacious kitchen, marble from the same ancient quarries of michelangelo and such; i'm sure that guests are treated to a likewise, panoramic display of focused opulence from the inside looking out