(MONEY Magazine) – After spending six years and $1.5 million building his 14-room dream house on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Alan Piel, 49, plans to sell it in 1998--for $2.45 million. Piel, co-owner of About Frames, a manufacturing company, intends to split the $950,000 gain with his soon-to-be ex-wife and then buy a smaller house on the U.P. for about $150,000. Under the old law, Piel would have been hit with a $91,000 tax bill. Thanks to the new law, however, he will slice that tab in half, owing just $45,000 in tax: $475,000 (his half of the gain), minus the new $250,000 exclusion for single home sellers, times the new 20% top capital-gains rate. Says Piel: "At least I don't have to deal with a huge tax bill on top of a move and a divorce." --B.G.