Though it might announce its over-the-top name, "Enigma," on a backlit pediment above four stately columns, substituting the "E" with a greek epsilon and inadvertently screaming "frat row," do not be fooled—the name is just about the least over-the-top feature of this Cape Town, South Africa mansion. In any of Enigma's seven bedrooms, you are never more than an arm's reach away from brocade or gold trim, which is to say that most of its 17,072 square feet is so thoroughly suffused with signifiers of wealth—from the impressive to the outmoded to the chintz-covered—that its wantonly decorated interiors can only be described as ... bold. Funny that a place called Enigma should leave nothing to the imagination, but isn't overstimulation its own mystery? Boasting "the most unique palatial pool in Africa" out back, the place is "price upon request," so anyone less than a self-styled Ozymandias need not apply.
· Enigma Mansion [Sotheby's International]