Category Archives: McMansions

Can a home be unassuming on the outside but a McMansion on the inside?

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One Detroit house for sale looks unassuming on the outside but has a remodeled interior that Curbed claims is a “McMansion on the inside”:

House hunting in Indian Village is usually an adventure. Covering a wide range of architectural styles, every house in the neighborhood has its own personality. Plus, it’s Detroit, so there’s always the chance of finding a hot mess of a mansion.

Perhaps that’s why 2741 Seminole is kind of a bummer. The four-bedroom house dates back to 1915, but a recent remod swiped its personality for that of the local Marriott. Beige tile, beige backsplash, beige granite, and beige carpeting a sad interior do make. There is hope in the living room, where you’ll find original wood floors and what looks like an old bar. Ask: $264K.

After looking at the pictures, it seems that McMansion is used here as shorthand for bland. As noted, the colors are not that exciting though it looks like much of the trim is still dark wood and at least one stained-glass window and built-in drawers feature was saved. The bland charge hints at a kind of mass production that one wouldn’t expect looking at the exterior of the home or the year it was built. If a buyer was looking for character in this interior, it has been glazed over with neutral colors and updated features. Perhaps there is a market for this kind of house: people who want the exterior to exude true gravitas (as opposed to the garishness of newer McMansions) but want the updated and neutral interior.

Another connotation of McMansion is of poor design or quality; it is hard to know from these pictures whether that is the case with the interior changes.

But, would critics of McMansions really be willing to brand this home a McMansion? Many such determinations are based on the exterior and the image the owner projects to the neighborhood. But, if the owner doesn’t offend the sensibilities of those who see it, is it really that bad?

Forbes offers 6 investing tips for buying suburban McMansions

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A contributor to Forbes offers “6 Investing Tips For Buying That McMansion In The Suburbs Now.”

Buy like a landlord.

Check your price-rent ratio.

Look at inventory.

Consider an ARM.

Know when to buy new.

Consider realty stocks instead.

Renting McMansions has been suggested as a possible opportunity but I don’t know of anyone doing this on a large scale. The real estate dip in recent years boosted demand for rental units yet the construction of larger homes has been one of the healthier parts of the housing market.

If critics are right, how much demand would there be to rent McMansions in sprawling neighborhoods? Even this investor notes:

Both renters and buyers will pay a premium for close-in or “new urbanist” suburbs with short commutes to offices, high walkability and nearby stores and restaurants.

This doesn’t describe the typical McMansion. The price point for purchasing a McMansion to make a decent rental income must be pretty low.

What are the “dead giveaways” in landscaping outside a McMansion?

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One forum generates ideas about what kind of landscaping clearly marks a McMansion:

Most mcmansions in this area (mind you that’s only upper-middle class, not very upper class) have one tortured looking weeping nootka falsecypress, one fat albert spruce, a weeping mulberry and/or a callery pear…

MULCH. Large expanses of mulch dotted with discrete plants. Screams modern, if not commercial…

I think black mulch is the 2014 version of red mulch. Any dyed mulch screems Mc mansion to me. Undyed mulch used for function is ok but any munch used as decoration looks unnaturally trendy to me…

Faux “outcroppings” of rock are another big millennial landscaping conceit to avoid. I am not aware of many spontaneous outcroppings of rocks and plants with a waterfall springing out of it in the middle of Indiana. The ones that are there are probably planted. Just say “no”…

Too many hydrangeas. But ultimately, I think the “McMansion” look is one that is too manicured, too perfect and planned out…

Basically, 98% of American McMansions (or even what pass for mansions these days) are ridiculously over landscaped, at least compared to the European manors and stately homes they are claiming as inspiration. Just as the building architecture itself is often a bad, ham-fisted copy, the “design on the land” descends into contrivance and excess. I’ve heard of more than one case now of a 10-20 year old planting of “foundation shrubs” being ripped out because it had become unmaintainable and was overpowering the facade of the house. I suspect we are at a tipping point where there is soon going to be an article about it and partial backlash.

 

Some interesting ideas throughout this long thread. McMansions tend to try to impress observers with their features – whether that includes turrets, big entrances and foyers, multi-gabled roofs, stonework (or fake stones), numerous windows, mish-mash of weighty older styles – but the landscaping may not get as much attention. One factor common across these comments is that McMansion landscaping doesn’t account much for long-term appearance and care of plants. In other words, the landscaping is also meant to impress or get the job done but may not serve the home and the owners well 10-20 years down the road. If this is true, then the McMansions are what critics suggest: homes with limited staying power once you get past the facade (or landscaping).

Reactions “when your childhood home becomes a ‘teardown’”

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A reporter describes seeing her childhood home make way for a teardown:

I understand why the house is being torn down. The stairs aren’t up to today’s construction codes. The bathrooms and kitchen are small. When someone slams the door in the garage, you can feel the vibrations upstairs in my brother’s old bedroom. The plumbing, windows and electric wiring haven’t been touched in decades. The metallic wallpaper with blue flowers in the bathroom my brother and I once shared says it all: The house is clearly outdated.

Still, I dread its rendezvous with a wrecking ball. When my childhood BFF’s century-old house was bulldozed last spring (goodbye high ceilings and ornate mantelpieces), the teardown trend in our old neighborhood suddenly became personal. Was some nefarious force—McMansion mania? Voldemort?—out to destroy my childhood haunts?

And what might explain such emotions?

Irene Goldenberg, a family psychologist and professor emerita at the University of California, Los Angeles, says teardowns can be more traumatic for former owners, and their children, than sales in which a house survives.

For one thing, she says, it’s hard to escape the finality of a teardown, which makes it all the more obvious “that you can no longer go back to the safety and comfort” of childhood. “It’s in your face,” she says.

There is also an obvious analogy to my aging parents. With new construction springing up all over the neighborhood, the house suddenly looks like a relic of another era. Still, when I came across the property records in my parents’ files last spring, the comparison that immediately sprang to mind was to myself. Although I had always assumed the house was older, it was actually erected just a few years before I was born in 1964.

For many people, childhood homes function like a psychological safety net, says Gerald Davison, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California. “Even if you don’t feel comfortable knocking on the door, it’s nice to know that it’s always possible to do so” and reconnect with childhood, he says.

Neighborhoods do change over time but homes often represent permanence. This hints at the broader ideology of the American Dream as well as childhood. The first refers to the emotional attachment to single-family homes on plots of land, places that people can call their own. The second involves the development of childhood as a sort of “golden age” in the lifecourses filled with good experiences and exploring the world.

It would be interesting to hear more about the expression of and limits to such emotions. Perhaps we can add “McMansion mania” to the list of childhood bogeymen…

Why are The Property Brothers renovating a Las Vegas McMansion?

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The Property Brothers at Home recently started on HGTV and it involves renovating a large home outside Las Vegas. Though they don’t call it this, here is why the home is a McMansion:

1. It is about 5,000 square feet. Plenty of space inside, particularly with the cavernous living room.

2. It is on a quiet residential street about 11 miles outside of Las Vegas. Classic suburban setting.

3. It is a relatively new build. It does beg the question of why a relatively new house needs so many new design ideas.

4. The home has a Mediterranean exterior which is not exactly “native” to Las Vegas (though defining “native” Las Vegas architecture could be interesting).

5. It was purchased as a foreclosure. Las Vegas was one of the foreclosure centers in recent years.

There are a few factors going against the McMansion trend: the home does not necessarily seem poorly built (often a critique of mass-produced homes) and it is on a decent size lot.

Why would the Scott brothers want to be associated with such a home? I understand that they are putting their own personal touch on it but many critics would argue they are starting from a bad place: garish home in a lonely suburban neighborhood in the metropolitan region that exemplifies suburban and consumerist excess.

Gas prices down? Some SUVs still big? Back to connecting McMansions and SUVs

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Here is a review of the 2015 Chevy Suburban that clearly ties the large SUV with McMansions. The headline? “Suburban: McMansion on Wheels.”

2015 Chevrolet Suburban 4WD ½ Ton LTZ: The all-new King of the Road.

Price: $72,835 as tested ($64,700 base).

Marketer’s pitch: “Built for everything and everyone.”

Conventional wisdom: A McMansion on wheels.

Reality: Ginormous on the outside. But the inside? Debatable…

The big fella: This is it, the beast, the mother (or father; the Suburban is all masculinity) of all family vehicles. With seating for up to nine and plenty of room for storage, they don’t offer more space than the Suburban, right?…
In the end: Sorry, Suburban lovers and minivan haters. Unless you’re towing or foraging through the muddy hills of the Dark Forest – or if you want something that lots of people will notice – a Sienna is a more versatile people mover. Still, the caché of the Suburban will keep this monster popular for years to come, I’m certain.

The main emphasis in this review is on the size of the vehicle: quite large. The reviewer compares this vehicle several times to his family’s Sienna which also offers a lot of cargo space but has some other features (even if the minivan is not as cool, it less like a “box truck” and has more flexibility with the middle seats). I have to wonder how much the recent story that SUVs have regained some popularity with decreasing gas prices influenced the connection here to McMansions. SUVs are large, McMansions are large – why not connect these two common items of large size as well as symbols of excessive consumption? The headline illustrates a journalistic shorthand: big consumer items are comparable to super-size houses.

Interestingly, yearly sales of the Suburban fluctuated quite a bit in the last 15 years. Sales peaked just over 150,000 in 2001-2002 but then bottomed out at 41,055 in 2009 before rising slightly to 51,260 in 2013.

“An urban slum in the countryside” marked by a lack of McMansions

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McMansions may be everywhere (including Iraq) but one writer notes their conspicuous absence in the suburbs of Cardiff, Wales:

“Out on what were the squelchy red muds, bluebell woods, beech-clad hillocks and bosky blackberry hedgerows of the ancient parish of Llanederyn, prices have collapsed and nothing sells. Few want to live in a no man’s land 40 minutes by bus from the city centre, an unloved, invisible of executive Mcmansions, roundabouts and superstores, sagging lintels and dripping gutters.”

We also learn that Trowbridge is “shabby and lacklustre” and that Llanederyn’s Maelfa indoor precinct is “a post-apolcalyptic boarded-up no-go zone, spurned by market forces uninterested in poor people.

“Thus was created an urban slum in the countryside.”

Some vivid descriptions that evoke a bleak image. It is interesting to compare this description of bleakness with how such things are discussed in regard to American McMansions. Outside of depictions of “zombie subdivisions” due to unfinished developments or suburban neighborhoods ravaged by foreclosures, American critics of McMansions tend to emphasize their emotional bleakness. Having McMansions implies having plenty of money or resources (or at least the means of acquiring debt). Yet, critics suggest neighborhoods with McMansions lack community, are lonely, project images of power but are empty inside. In the future, all those McMansions may suffer the fate of many homes: people who have moved on to newer and better things, the need for many home repairs, and a lack of exterior sheen due to age. The bleakness is not class-based or like urban blight with empty and boarded-up buildings but rather is based on a lack of soul.

The first McMansion nursery rhyme?

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I see a lot of material about McMansions but have never read a nursery rhyme about such homes. Here is the first I’ve seen:

As I was trading up on spouses, I became a man with SEVEN houses
Each house has seven acres,
Each acre has seven servants,
Each servant makes $7,
Acres, servants, dollars and spouses,
Why are the underclass such grouses?

There is not a whole lot here regarding the specifics of McMansions outside of vague ideas about wealth and seeing such homes as deserved. These are ideas often tied to McMansions but could apply to a broad range of big houses (such as mansions rather than McMansions) or even big-ticket consumption items.

I’m not the one to write such things but I imagine someone could come up with a better nursery rhyme involving McMansions…

“A giant boxy McMansion is something you know when you see it”

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A Los Angeles councilman who has taken the lead on regulating teardown McMansions describes such homes:

Los Angeles does not do what other cities like West Hollywood do, which is an extensive design review by any means, but a giant boxy McMansion is something you know when you see it, and when they are next to smaller, historic homes they have a negative impact.

I’m sure there is more to his opinion as to how McMansions should be defined. Indeed, earlier he says to those who want to sell their property and make money or who do want bigger homes that “I think [new regulations] will be a reasonable compromise.” Yet, this is an oddly flippant or shorthand way to describe a class of homes that can often look quite different. Part of the reason such regulations take time to work out is that there are a multitude of ways of restrict large houses including working with the home’s footprint on the property, setbacks from the street and property lines, height restrictions, and/or particular architectural features.

An interesting side note: this councilman gained some popular support a few years ago for banning puppy mills. His take on it:

It’s one of those issues that seem to be very positive. It’s very cool. The last time that happened to me was when I [created] regulations that said you couldn’t operate a puppy mill or purchase a puppy mill animal in the city of Los Angeles. Wherever I was in the city, people said good things about it, and this ordinance seems to be getting that same kind of response.

So—traditional housing and puppies are your things.
It’s an interesting agenda. Cats and dogs and home seem to go together.

A populist man of the people.

Curbed readers push change to “mansion” from “McMansion”

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Curbed Chicago reports that Frank Thomas’ former home is for sale and two readers in the comments section successfully for labeling the home a “mansion” and not a “McMansion”:

CurbedChicagoComments

I agree! The home has the size and features of a real mansion (and was owned by a legitimate celebrity athlete):

Thomas built the 25,000 square foot home in the mid-’90s at a cost of around $8 million. It first hit the market in 2000 for $11 million and Thomas ended up selling it in 2003 to a real estate developer for $7.95 million. However, in 2012, Bank of America filed a foreclosure suit on the developer and took possession of the home earlier this year. In its excessive nature, the home features a basketball court, home gym, beauty salon, bar area, and a home theater with a marquee that reads “Hurtland Theaters”.

I wonder if a dedicated team of commenters could push for such changes across the Internet. Yet, it is difficult for news sites to resist the lure of invoking the connotations of McMansions in a clickbait headline.