Category Archives: McMansions

Once residents become more “architecturally aware,” they won’t choose McMansions

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An Australian architect says more residents in Perth would avoid McMansions once they become “architecturally aware”:

Designer homes are popping up across Perth as the city becomes more ‘architecturally’ conscious.

Aspects such as strong horizontal lines, cut outs and bold rectangular features are increasingly popular in new residential homes.

As Perth’s architectural style grows up, McMansions will be out and clean, simple modernist designs will be in, according to David Karotkin, the WA President of the Australian Institute of Architects…

“In more recent years there has been an increased awareness of architecture in Perth,” Mr Karotkin said…

“There’s awareness about the importance of the designs and the buildings we live in, work in and play in – it’s all architecture.”

There are several ways such statements might be interpreted:

1. Perth residents are finally becoming knowledgeable about architecture and are rejecting architecturally-deficient McMansions. There is an element of snobbery here: McMansions are for the less knowledgeable while the more educated pick homes designed by architects.

2. Perth is developing its own architectural style. Building styles might be drawn from other cities or countries but a new Perth School might be emerging. Having common design, particularly if it is recognized by outsiders, can become a mark of pride.

3. Architects are looking to increase the number of homes they design. In the United States, most homes are designed by builders and architects have just a small slice of the market. Educating people about the benefits of designed homes means more money.

I wonder what this architect would think if there are still some people who choose McMansions even with higher levels of education.

Calling local McMansion restrictions a “McMansion diet”

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Plenty of American communities have changed their zoning guidelines to limit the size of new McMansions, particularly teardowns in older neighborhoods. But, I’ve never seen this phrase before:

McMansion Diet? Continuation of Public Hearing to amend local law Chapter 197, Zoning, of the Rye City Code, Section §197-1, “Definitions and Usage”, to amend the definition of “STORY, HALF”, and Section §197-43.2, Subsection B, “Attics” to amend the Calculation of Attics in Gross Floor Area.

At its most basic level, the term implies the slimming down of McMansions. In teardown situations, a new home might not be that big compared to the average new home size in the United States of 2,500 square feet. But, if some of the neighborhood homes are 1,200 square feet and the new home is 2,300 square feet or the older and smaller homes are 1950s ranches and the new home is a Spanish with Tudor elements two story structure, the difference is more striking. The diet, which here looks like it relates to how attics should count toward square footage, will lead to smaller homes.

But, such a term also implies that McMansions need diets, that they are obese, that they may be the result of gluttony. These judgments are more involved with teardowns though the implication for McMansion in new sprawling neighborhoods is that they are unnecessarily large as well. And, some McMansion critics would argue, this diet should really be applied to an entire American consumption mindset that ranges from houses to fast food portions to SUVs.

I’ll be on the lookout for more links between McMansions and food diets and how this connection is presented.

McMansions also feature large kitchens

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McMansions have particular exterior and interior features, including the ability to store all sorts of things in their spacious kitchens:

If you live in a sprawling McMansion, the sky is the limit when it comes to holiday gifts for the cook and the kitchen. But if, like me, you live in a house or apartment with limited storage space, kitchen gadgets, tools, appliances and even cookbooks must be carefully considered. There just isn’t room in my kitchen and pantry for anything that isn’t vital or that doesn’t get used regularly.

So, for this 2013 edition of the Gift Guide, I offer up some items that any cook would be happy to find under the tree on Christmas. They are all items that I own—and, most importantly, use.

McMansions may often be criticized for having too much space (and perhaps this space is apportioned poorly), but how many owners of new homes want small kitchens? If anything, the trend in recent decades has been toward bigger kitchens that offer plenty of storage, prep space, room for large appliances, space for people to gather, and space to see into or connect with other rooms. An interesting experiment would be to offer much smaller homes – since the average new home is around 2,500 square feet, maybe we’ll say 1,500 or smaller – but keep the kitchen large and shrink the other rooms. Just how much would people trade for a bigger kitchen?

A related question: does the average McMansion kitchen provide better quality food because of its space?

The features Americans want in their homes for 2014

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Businessweek takes a look at what Americans want in their homes in the new year. Here are a few of the trends:

-Builders says closet sizes have more than doubled in some high-end models from a decade ago. And Pulte Homes notes that walk-in closets are becoming de rigueur for even guest bedrooms.

-Three-bedroom homes accounted for 46 percent of new builds in 2012, down from 53 percent in 2009. Four-bedroom houses have grabbed 41 percent of the newly constructed home market – providing more room for aging relatives or kids who move back.

-The size of U.S. homes is growing again after declining during the recession. The latest government data show the average, newly built U.S. single-family dwelling is 2,505 square feet. That’s within a hair of the 2,521-sq.ft. peak in 2007 at the height of the housing boom.

-About half the added square footage on homes built by Pulte in the past 10 years has gone to storage space. A sign of the times: what Pulte’s director of architecture, Scott Thomas, calls “the Costco room,” a closet near the entrance from the garage that can hold all those jumbo-size packages bought at warehouse stores.

One commentator says this is the “new normal” McMansion. As household sizes have declined and more Americans are living alone, homes aren’t necessarily shrinking (though this is likely skewed by those who have money to buy new homes while the lower end of the market languishes) and people are looking for plenty of storage for all the stuff they own and are buying. So, even if these McMansions might not be as big as some past McMansions or they might be designed better and grenner, it appears consumption is still the name of the game.

New York Times: “McMansions are making a comeback”

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This is becoming a recurring headline: “McMansions are making a comeback“:

In 2010, homes starting growing again. By last year, the size of the median new single-family home hit a record high of 2,306 square feet, surpassing the peak of 2007. And new homes have been getting more expensive, too. The median price reached $279,300 in April this year, or about 6 percent higher than the pre-recession peak of $262,600, set in March 2007. The numbers are not adjusted for inflation.

Yet the economy remains weak. How can Americans keep buying bigger and more expensive homes? It turns out, of course, that not everyone can.

“It’s all about access to credit,” said Rose Quint, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders. “People who are less affluent and have less robust employment histories have been shut out of the new home market. As a result, the characteristics of new homes are being skewed to people who can obtain credit and put down large down payments, typically wealthier buyers.”

The data and conclusions are nothing new. But, the choice of story and the headline itself are interesting. What should the reader take away from such a narrative? I can’t help but think part of this is motivated by an interest in scaring people: “McMansions are back!” When the comeback stories are typically written, they are not from a positive point of view. Critics would argue McMansions are emblematic of a whole host of American problems from the 1980s through the mid-2000s: too much interest in consumption, too much debt, poorly designed goods that are more about impressing people than anything else, the continued spread of suburban sprawl, and the growing gap between the have and have-nots. There may be truth to all of this but there is a lot of negative baggage suggested by a return of McMansions.

The opposite of a McMansion is a cabin in the woods

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Looking to live in the opposite of a McMansion? That might lead you to a cabin in the woods, according to an architect called a “cabinologist” who defines cabins this way:

It has to be simple. There’s no place in a real cabin for a master suite or a formal entry, a formal dining room, an attached garage. I have changed my mind a bit on size, though.

Originally, I wrote that a cabin ought to have a 1,200-square-foot size limit. I do a fair number of cabins that are two bedrooms, with two baths, and maybe a sleeping loft, with a modest kitchen.

I’ve come around a little bit on size. I think the maximum number might be closer to 1,800 square feet. After that, it becomes a lodge or a lake home. It’s not a cabin anymore.

At that scale, the homes start to get too big, they start to have a different kind of feeling. At 2,000 square feet, there’s more of a houselike feeling. In those houses, you’re less likely to smell the coffee brewing when you wake up.

There appear to be several key features to being the anti-McMansion:

1. While McMansions are seen as ostentatious, cabins should be simple.

2. Cabins should be smaller than McMansions – which probably start somewhere around 2,500 to 3,000 square feet – but the cabinologist cited above thinks cabins don’t have to be small.

3. It is not explicitly discussed in this interview but the cabin should be more immersed in nature. Whereas McMansions are often associated with suburbia and some limited exposure to nature (there may be a lawn but the house may cover much of the lot, the neighborhoods are dependent on cars), cabins are supposed to be in the woods or on a lake or in the mountains.

Even with this argument about what a “true” cabin should be, I suspect there are plenty of getaway homes that approximate McMansions today with lots of space and expensive features.

A plea to “stop demonising McMansions”

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An Australian architecture lecturer argues we should “stop demonising McMansions”:

For quite a few years now, anybody who writes about these oversized single family homes has consistently demonised them as not just individually ugly, ill-designed and unsustainable, but as the building blocks of isolated suburbs devoid of a sense of community…

What all this McMansion bashing has in common is a set of assumptions that are ill-founded.

The first is the convenient lie that McMansions are the opposite of architect-crafted paragons of good design. This is easiest dealt with by visiting somewhere like Homeworld Kellyville, the display village west of Sydney…

The second anomaly is that a surprising proportion of available project home models are of notably good design. They make the most of small sites, with great connections between informal living areas and well sheltered outdoor al fresco rooms…

The third inconvenient truth?…He pointed out in 2006 that, of the major dwelling types, free standing suburban houses are the lowest energy consumers per occupant and appear to consume less water per occupant than contemporary apartments. That is data.

In the end, King argues that not all McMansions are bad. Yet, it is common practice to paint all McMansions with a broad brush. At the least, the term McMansion is effectively used to bludgeon certain kinds of homes, particularly big showy homes associated with suburban sprawl.

When Mediterranean McMansions threaten the local architecture

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An article about local Tampa architecture notes McMansions might define the city’s structures:

When one thinks of Florida architecture, if one thinks of Florida architecture, Disney World might come to mind. Or the ubiquitous Mediterranean McMansion in a gated golf-course community. Or the art deco hotels of Miami Beach.

Tampa architecture? Not so much. But there is more to the Cigar City than the iconic University of Tampa, the Museum of Science and Industry and some glass bank towers.

Tampa architecture, says John Howey, FAIA, himself one of the city’s architectural grand guard, is like Cuban bread, the kind served at the city’s landmark Columbia restaurant…

To summarize his city’s architecture, Howey returned to the Spanish/Cuban food analogy.

“It is so like paella,” said Howey. “When you put it all together, it is very tasty. Taken separately, you would think they would clash.”

My take on reading this article is that Tampa doesn’t have much of a unifying architecture style outside of some modernist structures. Perhaps this is because it is a relatively recent big city; it’s biggest growth period was from 1950 to 1960 when the population increased from 124,861 to 274,970.

Two thoughts:

1. What would it take to give a city like Tampa its own style? Could it be done through constructing key buildings, like civic institutions, in a particular style? Would it require a number of architects banding together? Styles don’t just come out of nowhere.

2. New Urbanists often argue that their developments should be based on local styles. Would they adopt a more generic Southern style in Tampa or perhaps a beach house type of design?

Countering the suburban McMansion with the city “colossal condo”

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Suburban McMansions are known for their size but there is also a recent uptick in the size of condos in New York City:

At the peak of the Manhattan real-estate boom in 2007, the average new condo—from studios to penthouses—was 1,265 square feet. Now, new condos average 1,564 square feet, a 24% increase, said Kelly Kennedy Mack, president of Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group.

The big condos, increasingly expensive and brimming with high-end details and amenities, are being built in converted garages and walk-ups, as well as part of new, ground-up construction across much of Manhattan…

“In New York, space is the ultimate status symbol,” she said.

Developers say that they are responding to the market—strong demand by the buyers in the upper end of the 1%. The new buyers, say brokers, include international clients looking for investment-grades properties, and local families, who after years of falling crime improving quality of life, want to stay in New York to raise families, or return there when their children head off to college.

Sounds like there is plenty of real estate money in New York City, whether it is for the latest offerings from Toll Brothers, big single-family homes, or large condos. Does this mean there is a bubble coming? Or, as the article goes on to note, what about housing options for the majority of New York residents?

It would be interesting to see how critics of McMansions would respond to these larger condos. Urban dwellings are often assumed to be greener and the average size of the new condo is still a couple of thousand square feet smaller than McMansions. Yet, they are quite expensive, aren’t exactly resource-free to construct, and tend to be within the reach of only a small segment of the population. In the end, are large urban condos and penthouses preferable to suburban McMansions?

To the Miami Herald: a 23,576 square foot home is not a McMansion

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The Miami Herald features a 23,576 square foot home for auction. However, they err by calling it a McMansion:

If you need a house that stretches across east and west wings, a massive McMansion — said to be the largest home for sale in Broward — will be auctioned off on Dec. 8.

The 23,576-square-foot, custom-built home on 10 acres features seven bedrooms, eight full baths and two half baths. It boasts inlaid Italian marble and cathedral-style ceilings, and comes with a guest house, four-car garage, and statues and objects of art from all over the world.

“The finish work on the inside is the most amazing, with 30-foot high ceilings, chandeliers. It’s just magnificent,” said Jim Gall, president of Auction Company of America, hired to auction off the home, which was listed a year ago for $10 million…

Gall said he plans to start the bidding on the house at $5 million.

Homeowner Ray Moses said he and his wife, Pam, spent five years building the mansion after buying the property, which was formerly used as a horse boarding facility. Broward County property records show they paid $2,225,000 for the acreage in 2003.

Here are four reasons it is not a McMansion (with the most important reason at the top):

1. This home is far beyond the size of a McMansion. This kind of square footage is way beyond a McMansion.

2. Because of its size, luxury, and land, it is also out of the price range of a typical, particularly in Florida. The price might make sense if it was a big house in New York City.

3. This is not a big house on a postage-stamp lot; there are ten acres of land.

4. The home is custom-built, not part of a suburban neighborhood where the houses all look at the same.

By size alone, this home is not a McMansion but the other factors matter as well.

Interestingly, the report on the auction starts with the term McMansion and later uses mansion. Does this suggest the terms are interchangeable? Again, I would argue they are distinct categories.