Category Archives: McMansions

Argument: you can’t hide the size of McMansions, regardless of the design

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A local debate over McMansions draws this claim about whether the size of the homes can be overlooked:

However, I do feel that we need to bring the elephant in the room out into the open so everyone can appreciate it properly. If you strip away all of the polite planning jargon about massing, square footage, curb cuts, along with most everything else gets said in those circles, and then boil it all down to its core essence, the view becomes much clearer. What we are talking about here are some very large and quite ostentatiously designed houses.

I call it Adele Chang’s Dilemma. How do you build McMansions that don’t look like McMansions? You can’t. No matter what the design style, or where you place the garage, or how you reconfigure the roof, or bedeck the place with curlicues and cornices, or shuffle the massing, or even bring in a small gaggle of winged gargoyles and lawn gnomes, the result is still going to be one heck of a big barn.

In other words, some will argue that McMansions are just too big, even if are designed well or maybe even fit local architectural traditions. Underneath those design elements will always be too many square feet. And why is this square footage so important?

We are talking about a clash between two differing cultures here. On the one hand you have the traditional version of Sierra Madre. A place where people are comfortable with what they have today and don’t view house size as a measure of their personal or spiritual worth.

The culture Adele Chang and her CETT bosses cater to, on the other hand, is a nouveau riche arriviste’ sort crowd who somehow believe that building a vanity castle on the side of an open hillside will be recognized by all of those living below as a sign of an innate personal superiority. It is a form of unchecked clodhopper consumerism that most people living here today do not respect or care to live beside.

The size matters because it (1) suggests something vain about the owner and (2) is resented by others because it is a blatant status symbol. A big new home in a community that does not want it is tied to an owner who is seen as a jerk.

Preferable to selling to a developer for McMansions: creating a paintball facility

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One Fairfax County, Virginia couple has decided to develop their 200 acres as a paintball facility rather than let it go to developers and McMansions:

Jeff Waters and his wife could have sold her family’s 200-acre property at 6390 Newman Road in Clifton in “two seconds” to a developer to carve into McMansion lots.

Instead, they’re developing it themselves — into Fairfax County’s first paintball field. The special use permit application was submitted in June. The fees assessed: $16,375.

“We wanted to come up with some way for the property to generate enough income to justify keeping it,” Waters said. “The county wants it to stay an open space. Despite the fact that it’s taking forever, I think the county wants this to happen.”…

This will be green paintball. What could have been 40 lots, 40 septic fields and 36 new acres of impervious surface — or “1,000 pigs,” Waters said — will be a wooded game arena with a couple ancillary buildings.

I wonder if the county and/or the Park Authority would make a good offer to purchase the land itself. I would guess nearby residents would prefer paintball to more subdivisions but wouldn’t they prefer protected open space even more? As the article notes, getting the paintball operation up and running isn’t cheap (between $150-200k). And, imagine the kind of people that are attracted to paintball operations…are these the kind of people neighbors want to see? Perhaps the stick in the mud here are the current owners who appear to want to keep the land themselves – and who could always look for better development opportunities down the road.

Increasing home sizes on Chicago’s north shore due to little lower end construction?

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A North Shore real estate agent finds that new homes of 2013 in North Shore suburbs are bigger than the new homes of 2003:

She continued to say that buyers still basically want everything to be large:  the master bedroom, the garage, mud room, laundry, kitchen, and outdoor spaces.  I decided to do a little checking on newly-built homes in Winnetka, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Glencoe, and Northfield.

I compared all new homes built in 2003 versus those built in 2013.  Those built ten years ago averaged 4,753 sq. ft and those built last year averaged 5,784.  That is an 18% increase in overall home size.  McMansions rule.

I went a little further and checked living room sizes.  They seem to be shrinking every time I walk into a new home and surely those numbers would be down.  Nope.  The average living room was 187 sq. ft in 2003 and 236 sq. ft in 2013.  That’s an increase of 21% – so much for the long heralded extinction of  living room space.

As for the overall  square footage of North Shore houses, the 5,784 is just an average.  The largest built home had 11,000 square feet and the smallest was 2,300.  So there is still plenty of variety if you are looking for new construction in Winnetka and other North Shore villages.

My guess is that while there is still some range of housing in these suburbs (though 2,300 square feet is not far below the average new home size of around 2,500 square feet), there was less range in 2003 versus 2013. In other words, the lower ends of the housing market haven’t recovered while large homes are still being built. Does this mean McMansions rule? Maybe – if there are enough of them in a concentrated area to be noticeable. But, McMansions can’t be attained by as many people today and they are less in number overall.

Can a McMansion successfully coexist with nature?

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A description of a large Coral Gables, Florida house suggests McMansions and nature can successfully mix:

Since the major asset of living in coastal Miami is nature, we’ve never understood the draw of a McMansion that fights its setting. Unfortunately, the city’s got street after street of homes incongruously designed, then slapped on lots stripped of fauna.

Not this beauty, though! Set on two lakefront acres in Coral Gables filled with sabal palms, live oaks, palmettos and ferns, the home is built with floor-to-ceiling windows that fill it with light and allow the outside to fill in as the most glorious decor, giving each room a loft-like, secluded feel.

While not everyone can afford — or even wants — a massive 12,231-square foot, $8.9 million home, the principle applies on scale: more nature is better!

There are two perspectives to this mixing and I don’t think they agree:

1. A home can be enhanced by its interaction with nature. This is linked to several factors: the size of the lot (just how much nature is around the home), the landscaping around the house (which is more like sculpted nature), and how the architecture and design of the home allows for more views or spaces for interaction with nature.

2. Critics of McMansions would suggest they are antithetical to nature and conservation. Big homes require lots of resources to construct and maintain. Additionally, they tend to be associated with suburban sprawl and lots of driving. A big home might be nicely married to nature but it is still an excessive use of resources.

This posting does seem to be making the point that many McMansions try to adopt natural elements but fail. Like my first point, a well-done connection to nature might be able to gloss over other problems with McMansions. However, I think there are still some out there who would argue that McMansions can never really promote nature.

People who waste money purchase McMansions

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McMansions aren’t just critiqued on an architectural level. Another argument is that owners of such homes are not frugal with their money:

As a gift to the institution that gave her so much joy, the former school teacher left $2.5 million to the Council Bluffs Public Library…

Cook supported the library financially throughout her life, thanks in part to money inherited from her parents, who also passed on their love of books and learning to their daughter. As an adult, Cook would stop by after school let out. She taught from 1964 to 1997 at Norris and the now-closed Bancroft Junior Highs in the Omaha Public Schools system. After retirement she spent even more time at the library, volunteering with the Friends of the Library organization…

He said Cook maintained the wealth she inherited through an unassuming lifestyle, spending her money wisely while living in a modest home on the west end of the city.

“She lived frugally. She didn’t have a McMansion,” her attorney said. “She took care of her money.”

In other words, people who buy McMansions spend lavishly. Such homes are testaments to their money, perhaps through their size or bad design. In contrast, people who are good with their money (and can donate big sums to the local library) live in unassuming houses. They don’t feel a need to show off their money with a big, flashy home.

Of course, these are broad generalizations. Cases like these reinforce the idea that not spending on a big house helps lead to more long-term wealth. Someone who had $2.5 million to donate to the local library could have easily afforded a decent-sized McMansion near Omaha and still have had $1.5+ million to donate. I think the idea is that buying a McMansion is a sign of broader spending patterns but this is not necessarily the case. This is a good example of citing McMansions as shorthand for other undesirable behaviors.

“They get McMansions, we get McJobs”

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One columnist suggests McMansions are for the few thriving in the current economy while everyone else gets low-paying jobs:

The Great Recession ended in mid-2009, but for middle class Americans the economic “recovery” never began.

Times will get harder in 2014 for thousands of families in Bucks and Montgomery counties. As reported in this newspaper, long-term unemployment benefits ceased on Saturday for 73,000 Pennsylvanians, about 6,000 of them in the two counties. These people and their dependents will have the penultimate hope ’n change experience – no job, few prospects for full-time work and no unemployment benefits.

The economic news for the majority of Americans has not been good in recent years. However, I’m intrigued by the argument about who McMansions are for. The suggestion here is that McMansions are only for the wealthy, those who have still done well in the economic crisis. Yet, the typical usage of the word McMansion implies that they are big houses for the masses, not just the wealthy. At the economic peak in the early 2000s, the idea of a McMansion meant that a middle-class American could purchase a large and ostentatious home.

At play here is the relative status of McMansion owners. Are they the nouveau riche who are trying to conspicuously present their wealth? Are they the top 10% of the population? The truly wealthy don’t need McMansions – they have mansions – but in times of more scarcity, McMansions might not be for the masses. Also, the article seems to present its criticism of McMansions from those of lower economic and social standing whereas some of the critique of McMansions in recent decades has come from the top in suggesting the owners aren’t really wealthy or don’t have much architectural taste.

Who wants to be in the “McMansion and minivans” category?

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Big data makes it possible to slice up Americans into all sorts of consumer categories like “McMansions and minivans.” However, how many would want to be in that category?

Acxiom provides “premium proprietary behavioral insights” that “number in the thousands and cover consumer interests ranging from brand and channel affinities to product usage and purchase timing.” In other words, Acxiom creates profiles, or digital dossiers, about millions of people, based on the 1,500 points of data about them it claims to have. These data might include your education level; how many children you have; the type of car you drive; your stock portfolio; your recent purchases; and your race, age, and education level. These data are combined across sources—for instance, magazine subscriber lists and public records of home ownership—to determine whether you fit into a number of predefined categories such as “McMansions and Minivans” or “adult with wealthy parent.” Acxiom is then able to sell these consumer profiles to its customers, who include twelve of the top fifteen credit card issuers, seven of the top ten retail banks, eight of the top ten telecom/media companies, and nine of the top ten property and casualty insurers.

Acxiom may be one of the largest data brokers, but it represents a dramatic shift in the way that personal information is handled online. The movement toward “Big Data,” which uses computational techniques to find social insights in very large groupings of data, is rapidly transforming industries from health care to electoral politics. Big Data has many well-known social uses, for example by the police and by managers aiming to increase productivity. But it also poses new challenges to privacy on an unprecedented level and scale. Big Data is made up of “little data,” and these little data may be deeply personal.

This is not new though the amount of data advertisers and others have – which is often given voluntarily on the Internet – may have increased in recent years. What might be more interesting, given that this is happening, is then to present Americans with the categories they are in and see how they react. Neither McManions or minivans have very good reputations. McMansions are seen as ugly houses owned by people who just want to make a splash, not own a quality house or participate in a close-knit community. Minivans signify suburban parent schlepping kids from place to place. Think the Toyota commercials from a few years back that tried to make owning a minivan cool. Put together these two functional objects that also serve as status markers and I suspect many people would not want to identify themselves as being in such an uncool group. Yet, there are plenty of people in such a group. Drive through any well-to-do suburb and both the homes and the parking lots (lots of Toyota and Honda minivans as well as a range of upscale SUVs – does this category include “McMansions and SUVs”?) reveal a certain lifestyle built around home, kids, school, and safety. It may be derided by outsiders and the people on the inside might not self-identify as such (and they might object to being lumped in a group – we Americans are individuals after all), but these are fairly popular choices to which marketers and businesses can then cater.

It may be a really ugly house but is there such a thing as a 1956 McMansion?

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I’ve seen pictures of this large Indianapolis house before but here the suggestion is that it may be the ugliest house in America. It is quite unconventional, but I’m more interested in another suggestion: that this is a 1956 McMansion.

Designers with delicate sensibilities, look away. This may be the most hideous McMansion in America. Built in 1956, this is “almost-famous pimp-turned-construction mini-magnate” Jerry A. Hostetler’s Indianapolis Hearst Castle. Minus the architectural prowess. Plus more balconies.

Although the term McMansion didn’t really emerge until the late 1990s, it is sometimes applied to past eras. I usually think this doesn’t work that well because it involves applying modern standards to past styles. In the 1950s, I think this house would have simply been considered a mansion because of its size. The average new house size in the 1950s was roughly 1,000 feet so a home like this would have been quite large. Additionally, the home was built by a successful businessman, someone who would have the means to construct what he wanted, and was not built for the mass market.

The more unusual homes of the 1950s might have been some of the new modern glass and steel homes that some architects built. The mass produced, large, poor quality McMansions of the late 20th century didn’t really exist yet as mass market housing still tended to be quite small.

The important new styles in American homes in the last few decades: shed, split-level, millennium mansions

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The recently updated A Field Guide to American Houses includes descriptions of three new home styles from recent decades:

Q: Is it harder to put new homes into defined categories? In other words, how do you determine what is a defined style and what isn’t?

A: When I first started the revision, I was almost overwhelmed by what seemed to be the fractured nature of new home design and wondered how I would ever figure out what I believed the defined categories were…

Q: We think of Italianate, Queen Anne or Craftsman, for example, as being classic, etched-in-stone styles. Do you think one day we’ll think in the same way of split-level, shed or millennium mansions, three of your new categories?

A: Yes, I do. Shed was a favorite style of architects in the ’60s and ’70s. It was taught in prominent architecture schools such as MIT and Yale and won a number of architecture awards, … and even appeared in house-pattern books for builders. Millennium mansions, on the other hand, dominated builders’ subdivisions in the 1990s and 2000s much in the way that ranch houses dominated builders’ subdivisions of the 1950s and ’60s.

Split-level was a brand new house shape, rather than style, and was most often used in the ranch, styled ranch or contemporary styles. It can be compared to American four-square, also a house shape, popular from about 1900 to 1920 that could be found in several different styles.

Whether critics like these new home styles or not, there were a lot of each of these three styles built. American homes aren’t quickly demolished so these homes are here to stay. This could lead to a few options:

1. A number of these homes could be significantly altered as homeowners add on, change the exterior and interior, redecorate, change the yards, and live full lives with lots of memories in these homes. I’m reminded of the homes of the Levittowns: while critics said they were “little boxes,” after several decades they had been altered quite a bit and the streetscapes included a variety of homes to look at. See the historical work Expanding the American Dream by Barbara Kelly.

2. Down the road, such styles will be revered and will eventually lead to preservation efforts. “We need to save that gaudy McMansion from the mid-1990s” – someone in 2030 might say.

3. Down the road, critics will still blast McMansions and these other new styles as unimaginative and wasteful. But, there may still be plenty of these homes.

4. Some new design will render these trends irrelevant or passe. McAlester looks forward in this interview to green homes but these homes doesn’t necessarily have to have a similar architectural design.

Review of the updated “A Field Guide to American Houses”

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The 1984 version is a classic and there is now an updated version of A Field Guide to American Houses:

Architecture buffs, decorators, historians and anyone who studies the built environment will have Virginia Savage McAlester’s encyclopedic update of her 1984 book “A Field Guide to American Houses,” (Alfred A Knopf, 2013) on their wish lists.

For example: For those who think “prairie palace” and “McMansion” are merely envious epithets for “house bigger than mine,” the author explores the 1980s birth of the Millenium Mansion style and explores the reasons for the wide criticisms (“These complicated roofs can be thought of as crowns, or, more satirically, as the Future Roofers of America Relief Act.”)

For fans of modern ranches, Savage McAlester breaks them down into submovements with different roots. For lovers of historic homes, this is a rich trove of not just details, but reasons for them.

And for those seeking a homeplace that makes sense, the new chapter on neighborhoods is nothing less than essential.

It is hard to find another source that combines the technical features of different styles of American housing architecture as well as good summaries of each architectural movement.It can be hard to keep track of all the different exterior parts that are associated with different architectural styles – keeping your Italianate from your Georgian to your Colonial straight – and this book has helpful diagrams and descriptions.

I’m looking forward to seeing the section on McMansions. If I remember correctly, the 1984 version had a section on more postmodern or eclectic housing styles and McMansions would have likely fallen into that category. But, a reference book like this has the ability to shape understandings of McMansions for years to come.