Driveways.... an engineering extravaganza

My word! Who knew planning a driveway would be so complicated?! A driveway people!
We are currently traversing the strange "Driveway Neverland" inhabited by Civil and Geotechnical Engineers. Although slowly learning to speak their language, we are still largely confined to making hand-gestures to make ourselves understood.
What is all boils down to is us having two driveway options... the first is favoured by those from Clan Engineer, while the second is favoured by Viktoria and the Android and Neal-the-Architect.
Following are the untranslated comments regarding the two options from Gandy & Roberts Consulting Engineers (as an aside, it's worth clicking on their name to visit their website if only to read about their forays into experimental siege engine research...)

I have done a quick design for both options. Design constraints included a maximum grade of 25%. Batters slopes have been done at 1:1.5 - this may be steepened depending on the geological situation.

Road 1 - Is the shorter of the two options (therefore less costs) and cuts across the contours better to achieve a better balance between earthworks required  and maximum grades used.

Road 2 - I have used a batter slope of 1:1 for the first 40m (may need stabilised batters), otherwise we would be cutting into the existing road formation. It is much longer with a more complex geometry. The hard part with this road is the turn at around Ch 60. Trying to achieve grades of not more than 25% when cutting perpendicular to the contours presents much larger earthworks.

Road 1 would be the better option (cost and construction wise) but does not enter from the north as the client wanted.

Following are the two design options, as provided by Gandy & Roberts. Bear in mind there is about 50 metres of land (in a straight line) from the left hand side of the picture to where the house outline begins.



Road 1 leading to (outline of) house



Road 2 leading to (outline of) house

So do we go with practical and less costly, or prettier and a small ransom? We are yet to make a decision as we won't get an idea of costs until some more geotech information has been gathered.
Do you prefer one design over the other?
Let us know what you think.