Category Archives: McMansions

Calling McMansions “Kleenex box[es]”

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I’ve seen McMansions called many things but haven’t seen the term “Kleenex box” before:

Our young builder, with approval from the City, had to chop down a fifty foot street tree to clear the driveway into the garage.  To me, the tree was as important to the look of our street as the structure of the new house itself.  The house is a modernist design, a McMansion in the style of a Kleenex box with huge areas of glass that many readers of this article have seen popping up all over Los Angeles. 

That is one expensive Kleenex box. I’m not sure exactly how the term relates to McMansions: it is mass produced? It is flimsy? It is a boring box? It is just a container to put stuff in? Regardless, the term is not meant to be positive.

Meme adding more and more gables to your McMansion

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At MemeGenerator, check out the McMansion gables image:

xzibit-yo-dawg - tonight on "pimp my mcmansion" : Yo dawg! We heard you liked gables so we put gables inside your gables alongside your gables!

McMansions are often known for their multiple gables. These add more volume and angles to the roofline. They are typically not necessary so are considered gauche for simply trying to impress.

This is based on the Xzibit Yo Dawg meme which is described thusly:

Yo Dawg, or Sup Dawg, is an image macro series based on portrait shots of American hip hop artist Alvin Nathaniel Joiner, better known by his stage name Xzibit, and humorous captions that are composed around the recursive phrasal template “Yo Dawg, I herd you like (noun X), so I put an (noun X) in your (noun Y) so you can (verb Z) while you (verb Z).” Since rising to popularity in early 2007, the series has been considered one of the most well-known and longest lasting examples of recursive humor on the Internet…

While Xzibit initially began his career in the entertainment industry as a rapper from Los Angeles, his mainstream breakthrough came almost a decade later as the host of the MTV show Pimp My Ride, which ran for six seasons from 2004 to 2007. In the show, Xzibit gained a reputation for adding luxurious amenities and equipments like fish tanks, clothes dryers and fireplaces into the participant’s car, presumably without consent.

So if Xzibit is known for a show featuring consumption, the connection to McMansions makes some sense.

Question: “Are MOST homes built in the 80s or later ‘McMansion’ style?”

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One post at city-data.com asks whether McMansions have dominated housing since the 1980s:

Are MOST homes built in the 80s or later “McMansion” style?

Would you say the majority of homes built in the past 35 years in America have that ugly vinyl siding and are made of cheap materials?
The discussion thread goes in some different directions. Most of the responses have to do with the particular traits of McMansions and whether vinyl siding and cheap materials is enough of a definition. As noted, homes of a variety of sizes could have these features. The stereotypical features of McMansions often include lots of square feet, two story foyers, impressive fronts yet a neglected back and sides, multi-gabled roof, and an imposing garage.
But, the direct answer to the question regarding the number of McMansions is a clear “no.” Even at their peak, McMansions – defined by square feet – were never even a significant percentage of the market. Here is an update on this data from the Washington Post:
In 1973, the median newly-completed single-family house was 1,525 square feet; forty years later, in 2013, it was 2,384 square feet. That is a record high.
That’s just the median, of course. But the share of newly built homes that are at least 4,000 square feet is now at 10 percent, equaling the series’s peak in 2008, after having dipped slightly immediately after the crash. The share of homes that have at least four bedrooms is also at a historical high, at 44 percent. That’s almost twice the share in 1973.
At the same time, McMansions became quite a popular topic, whether viewed as emblematic of poor architectural quality, teardowns, excessive consumption, or suburbia or tied McMansions to the housing bubble of the mid-2000s. From some of the reports, you might think there are a lot of these homes built each year but this is not the case. Just to repeat: most Americans do not live in McMansions, even in the suburbs or more conservative areas.

Wait, they are “practically giving away” “suburban mega-McMansions”?

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Curbed Chicago returns to a listing for a 19,438 square foot suburban home and notes the reduced price:

Demand for suburban McMansions is so low that some owners are practically giving them away. Take for instance this totally redonkulous 19,438 square foot home set on a 10 acre parcel of prime Barrington Hills real estate. It’s gone on and off the market since 2010, when it was originally listed for $10.5 million. Today, it can be had for $4.75 million. Its ask is now less than half of what it was when it first listed four years ago. This McMansion joins many others in the Barrington area to take huge price chops. While the value of most homes in the city have begun to rise again since the 2008 foreclosure crisis, large suburban McMansions continue to feel the hurt. The good news is, if you’ve always wanted to live the 1990s MTV Cribs lifestyle, it can now be had for about half the price.

Large home with lots of features. Yet…

1. The price may have been cut by half but it is still $4.75 million. In fact, this price reduction may not indicate that the owner is ready to give this away but rather that it was overpriced to begin with. I think the piece is trying to imply that the demand for “mega-McMansions” is low so the price was cut but we would need some more evidence before jumping to that conclusion.

2. What exactly is a “mega-McMansion”? The square footage puts this home way out of reach of the normal suburban McMansion owner as does the price. The home may not be pleasing to everyone – I’m thinking the pool room looks most desirable – but it is a scale above McMansions. Again, tying a home like this to the term McMansion is intended to add another layer of criticism that “mansion” just doesn’t add.

New novel “The Megabuilders of Queenston Park” addresses McMansions

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The problems McMansions can pose are addressed in a new novel where builders spread teardowns in suburban Princeton, New Jersey:

Author, translator, Greek poetry scholar and Princeton University Professor Emeritus Edmund Keeley tackles this issue in his newest novel, “The Megabuilders of Queenston Park,” published by the Lambertville-based independent Wild River Books. Joyce Carol Oates has called it a deftly written “contemporary comedy of manners.”

Set in present-day suburban Princeton, with its architecturally distinct buildings, the book’s “megabuilders” roam neighborhoods in search of modest homes to tear down. When a smooth-talking real estate developer tries to convince Cassie Mandeville to sell her beloved home and property, she and her husband Nick decide to take action. Nearing retirement, Cassie and Nick find themselves thrust into a battle with a father-and-son construction company that plans to erect an overgrown, high-end eyesore next door and convince the Mandevilles to sell their home as a teardown. As the couple tries to save their neighborhood, they run headlong into an insensitive and possibly corrupt local government as they navigate the maze of community zoning.

“The Megabuilders of Queenston Park” brings to life unsettling environmental questions that plague many families and communities, large and small. What is the true value of real estate? How do we measure the stability and familial loyalty our homes nurture and shelter? How do we protect our neighborhoods from large-scale development, construction, pollution and sewage run-off?…

Says the developer to the fictional Mandevilles: “I understand how you and a few others around here feel, but I’m afraid you’re all living in dream land. I promise you, if it isn’t Solar Estates working to revitalize the neighborhood, it will be somebody else moving in for their own kind of upgrading. The lots in your neighborhood are just too valuable and — forgive me — the houses are too old and small. Someday soon they will have to come down, and I’m afraid that includes yours.”

Novels have been a common way to express critiques of the suburbs since the early 1900s. Teardowns are common in numerous older suburbs with a higher quality of life as people want to move into homes with all the amenities but still live in quaint neighborhoods with plenty of character. I wonder just how many novels provide positive perspectives on McMansions and teardowns?

I hope the book isn’t as didactic as this summary makes it sound…

McMansions show disconnect between “worker[s] and automated tool[s]”

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A new book suggests McMansions are the result of automated home design:

The author of the new Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age is well-qualified to criticize. He’s a nationally recognized authority on historic design, and architecturally correct moldings and millwork. From 1991-93, he attended North Bennett Street School in Boston, the nation’s oldest trade school – one that’s evolved into jewelry making, bookbinding and museum-quality historic preservation…

“If you look at the Pyramids, you understand the Egyptians by what they were building,” he says. “McMansions are not really what we want to say about ourselves.”

They are the products of a mechanized disconnect between worker and automated tool, even between architect and computer. “Most architects draw by hand and then enter the drawing into AutoCAD, and there’s a separation between the hand and the head,” he says. “It’s the same thing with craftsmen looking at their computer while a router cuts the wood.”

What’s lost is the classical sense of scale and proportion – and a cultural heritage.

“There’s a separation that’s taking place that’s not good for us – we’re falsely assuming that were improving as we go to AutoCAD,” he says. “The beauty is in the human quality of the hand-cut piece, but a machine puts an impersonal imprint on that.”

It sounds like this is less about McMansions and more of a critique of automation and mass production. McMansions may be the symptom of mass produced homes but they weren’t the first. Similar complaints were leveled against the Levittowns and early mass suburbs which were viewed as too uniform. Those early mass homes were partly the result of changing technology: earlier American homes were built with beams, requiring heavier pieces of wood, and constructed mostly by small-scale builders or the homeowners themselves. The balloon-frame home opened things up to mass production since it relies on uniform pieces of wood.

At the same time, balloon-frame homes don’t necessarily have to be built to look like or to be the size of McMansions…

Renovating a McMansion: “Help! I want Country Understated Natural and it screams Mcmansion”

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One McMansion owner is looking for help in redesigning their home:

I did not build the house and I want it to be lodgy, understated country? It is Tony Soprano in its bones…If I changed the siding to the cedar color– would it be too monotone? I would like to use that grey cedar for the door. What can I do about the square panel details which have the red rosettes? I thought a trellis/lattice design there could work there but…not really. The hardware should be copper for the door handles and the light fixtures-any suggestions for the exact kind/type or go with vintage or gas lantern look-but which one and how large? Any suggestions overall, any advice…APPRECIATED!

The subsequent suggestions range from from changing the exterior color to a different kind of siding and roof to changing windows.

But, this brings up an interesting question: how much can and should homeowners remodel McMansions? Critics would argue that the homes shouldn’t have been built or purchased in the first place but plenty exist. The same critics may go on to note that renovation projects might be difficult and expensive with McMansions because of inferior build quality or a lack of design. However, it is likely that many McMansions would undergo significant changes over the decades. This is what happens to single-family homes – just look at some of the original Levittown homes and how they have been altered. There may be a huge potential market for firms to offer McMansion renovation services, to come in and spruce up the dated portions and/or overhaul the more garish features (two-story entryways, large great rooms, many gabled roof, etc.).

Can a former McMansion be converted into a non-McMansion with a reasonable amount of money and time?

Fight McMansions with Modernist homes

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You don’t need a tiny house to fight McMansions – Modernist homes can also fit the bill.

The reaction is much the same as the humdrum McMansions along Mr. Farrow’s Oakville street tick past the car window in a blur of beige.

Halfway down the long avenue, a first-time visitor to the Farrow Residence gasps at the sight of the sleek, low-slung Modernist abode.

Designed in 1962 and completed in September 1963, the Breuer-esque home hasn’t changed much since Mr. Farrow completed the last addition in 1973, when a summer porch and pool were added to the back. Before that, in 1970, when the couple’s two young boys were closing in on their teen years and needed more space, the original carport morphed into a bedroom wing, and a garage was tacked onto the other side. Not that you can tell: An architect rarely uses a heavy hand when rejigging his own vision and, in this case, it’s the same “old Dutch” bricks, same window configurations, same massing…

Peppered throughout the 3,000-square-foot home are Mr. Farrow’s intricate and amazing carved birds, a hobby that has kept the 1958 University of Toronto graduate “out of trouble” and “away from the television” (and perhaps out of wife Diane’s hair?) – when he wasn’t designing hundreds of hospitals, schools and churches.

There are numerous lines of attacks on McMansions but this one is a good example of solely criticizing the architecture. This Modernist home is not small (3,000 square feet) and not necessarily cheap (though the construction cost or the current value are not noted). Its key advantage over the McMansion is that is was carefully designed by an architect. Because of this, it is not like the “humdrum McMansions” and it has remained stylistically consistent even with additions and modifications over the years. Whether the architecture is enticing to many is not the issue – the article mentions one women who wondered why the home had no windows on the front – but rather than it is architecturally coherent.

That McMansions are dull and repetitive is a continuation of the long-running critique of suburbs that suggested similar houses (see the limited Levittown models) leads to boring people and neighborhoods. I haven’t seen any study that confirms this but rows of similar-looking houses can present quite a contrast to vibrant urban neighborhoods with a mix of buildings. Of course, you can also find repetitive urban neighborhoods like the new rows of apartments going up in Chinese cities or modernist housing projects built in the mid-1900s that didn’t turn out too well…

Drudge Report gets in on the politicization of tiny houses

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The Drudge Report yesterday featured this headline and photo regarding tiny houses:

DrudgeReportTinyHousesAug0514

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the headline links to a fairly bland story about the increased popularity of tiny houses in the Daily Mail, the tagline and the picture is intended to make another point: Americans are choosing tiny houses because the economy has pushed them into it. If the economy was doing better, assumed to be the case if there was a different president, they wouldn’t choose a tiny house. Perhaps this is what a future conservative president should run on: McMansions for all!

This isn’t the first time people have made political points with tiny houses. In the number of articles I’ve seen about such homes (and in the Daily Mail summary article), tiny house residents often make clear statements that they want to avoid consumerism and live greener lives. Generally, they seem to be favored by educated liberals. However, there is little reason that they couldn’t be supported by rural conservatives who want cheap and mobile housing on land or who want to build their own homes.

Given the relatively small number of tiny houses, perhaps the public discussion over tiny houses can’t help but be political as both sides try to use it to their advantage. If such homes were to become numerous and widespread across the population, the opposite might be true: neither party could risk alienating voters over their choice of a home.

The “McMansion Queen Bedroom Set”

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Thought McMansion owners couldn’t afford any furniture for their new large house? If they have the money, they may need this bedroom set from The Great Western Furniture Company:

McMansion Queen Bedroom Set

$795.00

Product Description

A version of our most popular bedroom (the Mansion) with less bulk and all the same beauty! Still solid wood and hand-crafted, this set comes at a great value and features the Queen headboard, footboard, side rails, slats and center support, dresser, mirror, and 1 night stand. The Chest is also available for an additional $265 if you have the room for it!http://www.greatwesternfurniturecompany.com/product/mcmansion-queen-bedroom-set/

Three quick thoughts:

1. This furniture set doesn’t look particularly special. But, attaching the name McMansion gives it certain meanings and many of these meanings are not good.

2. That this is a variant of the Mansion set makes sense but seems funny. Is there a smaller split-level set?

3. Is this the sort of furniture McMansion owners across America want?