It sounds like a dream: a Disney castle for virtually anyone who wants one, just as long as you can pony up the cash. The Burj al Babas development in Turkey?s northern Bolu province promised to be a picturesque village of chateau-style villas: each with its very own turret, and all of them offering luxurious digs and community amenities like swimming pools, Turkish baths, shopping centers, and spas.

In the meantime, the stalled project remains an eerie spectacle, particularly with the roads unfinished and many of the houses missing their doors and windows. For all of their elaborate decorative flourishes, the villas lose most of their potential for an interesting final result thanks to the builder?s strange stipulation that they all remain identical ? which means zero modifications are allowed to the exteriors once the owners move in. ?The fees of the parcels paid by those who do not comply with the architectural drawings and specified periods shall be refunded to them and received back by the investor firm,? notes the Burj al Babas website, though buyers putting their own creative spin on the houses seem like the least of the developers? problems right now.

Even if the Burj al Babas development does recover by the end of the year, there’s still the question of just how much luxury can really be enjoyed when you’re right on top of your mirror-image neighbor. Do you want to feel like royalty badly enough to live in this abandoned village of shrunken Disney ca...