At least John Allen had no "upper management" to contend with. It's no wonder that few have come close to what he created.
It's nice too that you at least got offered some options: I built my house on the understanding that the entire basement would be for my trains. I lost about a quarter of it to a laundry room before I even had the framework of the house erected, then later lost an even bigger area for a recroom for the kids - and that was after the basic benchwork was in place.
Of course, I also needed a bit of space for a shop area for working on trains, so there wasn't much left for a layout. It is odd, though, that "management" is always careful to not issue an ultimatum of "It's either me or the layout!"
:-D:-D
I've thought about a separate building for the layout, but my current location in the basement requires no cooling and only very rarely, when it's especially cold outside for lengthy periods, heating.
Wayne