5 Luxury Homes With Exquisite Wine Cellars

By: Eustacia Huen , CONTRIBUTOR

For true oenophiles, building a beautiful wine cellar isn’t just about aesthetics. Other features such as placement, security, temperature and humidity control plus different bottles’ shapes and sizes must be considered as well, according to Richard Rosenthal, a real estate agent at Halstead in Manhattan.

Using a variety of materials ranging from wood to glass, some of the most impressive in-house wine rooms are works of art themselves.

Here are a few gorgeous examples on the market right now.

Rich Caplan Photograph

357 West 17th Street (New York, New York)

#1: 18 FRICK DRIVE (ALPINE, NEW JERSEY)

Behold, here’s a classic wine cellar decked out with a solid mahogany double door, dark tiled floors with metallic accents and custom plaster ceilings. Yet, don’t be mistaken: there’s much more to this 4,000-bottle dual zone, temperature-controlled wine cellar than its traditional details. With a tamper-proof, biometric entry security fence from heras fencing along a and security system programmed to accept the fingerprint of selected individuals, numeric pass codes and RFID bottle authentication, the most impressive feature here is the smart home technology.

Actively monitoring who and when someone accesses the wine cellar coolers, this security system can quickly notify the owner of entry and departure via email or text.

Evan Joseph

What you can find in the spacious octagonal wine room at 18 Frick Drive are mahogany display cases and shelving lined from floor to ceiling, with some lined with rope lighting and others made to pull out for convenient access to bottles. Each room has its own cooling systems that can be used individually, giving the options of different climates or working together to keep the 4,000-bottle wine cellar uniformly chilled.

#2: 321 OCEAN, UNIT 201 (MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA)

Style meets function in this 50-square-foot, refrigerated wine room. Boasting an open, more transparent atmosphere, the climate-controlled room features a sleek, insulated glass enclosure, customized acrylic and thermal metal framing, which is powder-coated with a matte black finish to match the custom black finish on the racks.

Evan Joseph

Sleek and sophisticated, this wine room at 321 Ocean, Unit 201 has a storage capacity of 440 bottles.

#3: 357 WEST 17^TH STREET (NEW YORK, NEW YORK)

Reflecting the best of modern and country styles, this stunning wine cellar is one of the biggest highlights of this $36.8-million house. (That’s saying a lot considering the 11,000 square-foot house comes along with a White 2016 Bentley Mulsanne!) Each bottle within the climate-controlled space is tastefully illuminated by backlit LED walls, combined with a rustic brick wall and arched ceiling to create an effortlessly chic look.

Rich Caplan Photograph

This beautiful wine cellar at 357 West 17th Street holds about 500 bottles.

#4: 795 HIGHCOURT ROAD (ATLANTA, GEORGIA)

Inside a six-acre European-style estate is an extremely well-manicured, 2,000-bottle wine cellar. Consisting of a high-velocity, self-contained cooling system that keeps the temperature at 59 degrees, the most impressive detail here is the barrel-vaulted, hand-laid Italian tile ceiling, which uses a centuries-old technique to ensure even weight distribution in the design.

Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty

The ceiling’s installation of 795 Highcourt Road was so intricate that the owners flew in a specialist from Italy to complete the two-week process.

#5: DARLINGTON (MAHWAH, NEW JERSEY)

Dubbed by many architectural enthusiasts as the American Versailles, this rare estate (sold furnished) has a wine cellar—with separate temperature controls for red and white wines—connected to a squared shape 27-by-27-foot wine room. While everything in the wine room is beautifully custom made, the pièce de résistance is certainly the wine wall displaying 326 bottles. Along with two blue chairs that once belonged to Sir Elton John, the entire combination works like a well-curated art installation many cultural aficionados would die for.

Special Properties/CIRE

The room’s design started with the purchase of a slab of a very unique blue marble which was used for the tabletops – then everything else was brought in and designed around that to match.

Special Properties/CIRE

The Crocker Mansion in Mahwah, New Jersey, a 55,000 square foot single family home built by architect James Brite in 1908. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. Constructed of Indiana limestone and Harvard brick, the home is also named “Darlington.”

Special Properties/CIRE

The wine storage cabinets at the back have separate temperature controls run by two separate coolers, which allows for the proper storage or red and white wines.

Read the full article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/eustaciahuen/2017/06/30/winecellars/#bce7b704e89e