An article about a notable 18th century property in Boston suggests the main house was a McMansion of its time:

The Royall House takes its name from the ostentatiously wealthy Isaac Royall Sr., who grew up in Dorchester then went to Antigua where he established a sugar cane plantation and traded in sugar, rum, and slaves.

He came back to New England in 1737 with more than two dozen slaves, and trumpeted his nouveau riche status by purchasing a 500-acre estate in Medford with impressive lineage: The property had once been owned by Governor John Winthrop. Here, on the banks of the Mystic River, he built the Colonial version of a McMansion.

It’s an immense three-story Georgian residence with two completely different facades. One, mimicking English architecture, was meant to be appreciated by visitors approaching by river; the other was apparently designed to impress those entering the estate by carriage. (It had a more modern look, fabricated of wood that was carved and rusticated to look like stone.)

The lavish interior of the house was adorned with intricate wood carving; the so-called “Marble Chamber” has wooden pilasters “pretending to be something else, in this case marble,” said Gracelaw Simmons, a board member and tour guide.

The description hits some of the main features of McMansions today: its owner wanted to show off his money; it is a big house; it presented multiple architectural looks intended to impress visitors; the inside had nice features. The article also takes the common tack today of suggesting McMansion owners are bad people; the nice house is contrasted with the nearby slave quarters.

But, I wonder at the usefulness of retroactively applying this term. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this and it strikes me as odd every time. One of the key features of McMansions today is missing in older homes: until the early 20th century, homes were not mass produced. Additionally, McMansions today are often assumed to be in the suburbs and suffer from the suburban problem of not having authentic community life.

All together, life was quite different centuries ago and claiming an older home was a McMansion is anachronistic. While it might help current readers and people understand what the author is trying to say, it ends up distorting the social conditions at the time the older house was built and also ignoring the particular social conditions in which the term McMansion emerged in the late 1990s.