The most popular post on Legally Sociable in 2025 involved a particular kind of house that arrived on the scene in twenty-first century. Posted on March 7, the quoted Slate article used these terms to describe “giant white houses:“

-jet-black accents

-giant

-swollen

-unnaturally tall

-mishmash of architectural features

I realized I had seen at least a few of these homes when I analyzed 349 teardowns constructed in Naperville, Illinois between 2008 and 2017.

In addition to seeing the particular local embodiment of these broader patterns, I wonder if these “giant white houses” also speak to the evolution of the McMansion. As McMansions emerged in the late 1990s, they were something new. They represented a change from existing housing styles. At the same time, I argued they were difficult to define because they could cover so much architectural and design ground. For those critiquing the McMansions, were they referring to the absolute size, the relative size, the design choices, or sprawl and luxury housing?

“Giant white houses” can now be a separate housing style. It has its own distinct set of characteristics as listed above. Some of these traits may be shared with some other McMansions but it also is its own category. Is someone concerned with “giant white houses” also concerned about other McMansions? Or might they like modernist McMansions or Victorian McMansions but not these “giant white houses”?

This is a common issue encountered in sociology and related disciplines: at what point is a larger category like McMansions better split into multiple categories? When do these emerging concepts become worth their own definitions and analysis?

I do not have all these answers but I imagine we will see more work in the coming years on substantial McMansion variants.