Category Archives: McMansions

83 year old Hamptons resident sues for demolition of McMansions in her neighborhood

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The McMansion battles continue, this time in the Hamptons as an 83 year old resident takes on the newer big houses in her neighborhood:

Evelyn Konrad claims in a new federal lawsuit that her high-powered neighbors — many of them finance honchos — have turned her subdivision into an overcrowded “Queens by the sea” because of an improperly adopted zoning code.

The suit doesn’t seek money — it seeks demolition.

Undeterred by her wealthy opponents, the brassy Stanford law graduate once skewered the supersized digs as “multimillion-dollar penis enlargements,” in a letter to a local newspaper…

In addition to Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley, the suit names a host of cash-flush neighbors, including former Merrill Lynch honcho Donald Quintin and Manhattan attorney Denis Guerin.

Not your typical octogenarian, the yoga-practicing, bikini-wearing former NBC business reporter said that her modest, 2,200-square-foot colonial, purchased in 1984, has been slowly encircled by ballooning buildings ever since a new zoning code was adopted in 2005…

Konrad has demanded a jury trial and will argue the case herself, thank you very much.

I wonder what a jury would do…

It sounds like the zoning change from 2005 that is really at issue. I have no idea how often zoning regulations are overturned in court but I suspect they are infrequently challenged and even more rarely overturned.

Innovation: four McMansions built on top of a Chinese mall

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Here is one possible solution to running out of open land: build houses on top of other structures.

The Chinese city of Zhuzhou, the second largest in the province of Hunan, is being pressed under the tremendous pressure of growth. Home to many a manufactory and textile mill, residents are seeking new ways to live close to work while preserving the spaciousness of the countryside. Thus, these wonderful photos of McMansion-style housing atop a five-story shopping center in the central district of Zhuzhou.

The four houses are perched above the city, invisible to street-level action. They do not cast a shadow on the ground, and seem to exist solely in the rarefied world of smoggy skies, with scenic views into the apartments surrounding their airy enclave. Though the landscaping around the houses leaves something to be desired, the overall approach is one we’d like to see replicated on blank and bare urban roofscapes everywhere. Now that’s mixed-use development.

Think of the views!

Too bad we don’t have interviews with those who bought or live in these homes.

I know this looks unappealing and I’m sure there are some structural issues (like how do these homeowners get off the building) but on the other hand, why not? If space is at a premium, this is a solution…perhaps not the best but a solution for those who have to have such a home.

Argument: New England neighborhoods attract movies because they have character and don’t have McMansions

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A columnist in Swampscott, Massachusetts argues New England neighborhoods have a sense of place, don’t have many McMansions, and therefore attract filmmakers:

If you’ve ever traveled outside New England, you begin to notice that most of the rest of the country looks a lot alike. Rapid development on a budget lends itself to a landscape of boxy stores in strip malls and cookie cutter homes. Some of these cookie cutter homes are “McMansions,” and very nice to live in, but even so their exteriors are unmemorable, duplicated a million times over.

New England—Swampscott—looks different.  Neighborhoods have personalities. The roads curve in unpredictable ways.  Houses don’t all look alike. I happen to like the intricate purple paint on a certain home on Paradise Road, but we all have our favorites…

Yet there is true value in this difference.  Part of the reason that Massachusetts has attracted so many movies is because of our location—place matters.  Grown-Ups 2 is here because Swampscott looks like a typical New England town, and New England is a good brand, a marketable brand.

And crucial to the New England brand is a community’s willingness to embrace its historic past, to pay attention to its older buildings, and to, in short, care about the way something looks. A quick drive through the Olmstead District will remind all of us how lucky we are that the Mudges had the foresight to hire someone so talented to lay it out, that the town pays to upkeep the greens, and that the homeowners in the area now take such pride in their property.

New England does indeed have its own style and character though plenty of other places in the United States have historic preservation districts that are intended to save older buildings.

There is an interesting implication here that McMansions developed in places with less character. This would be intriguing to track: did the term first arise in Sunbelt locations or in more historic communities that felt threatened by new, big, mass produced homes?

I also wonder how many movies actually do film in New England compared to other locations. According to the Massachusetts Film Office, five films are in production or have recently finished filming. Like many other places, Massachusetts offers incentives for filmmakers:

Massachusetts provides filmmakers with a highly competitive package of tax incentives: a 25% production credit, a 25% payroll credit, and a sales tax exemption.

Any project that spends more than $50,000 in Massachusetts qualifies for the payroll credit and sales tax exemption. Spending more than 50% of total budget or filming at least 50% of the principal photography days in Massachusetts makes the project eligible for the production credit.

Hyperbole: we are a country of McMansions and sprawl everywhere

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In a real estate blog at Boston.com, I ran into a reader’s comment who made some common claims about how much space we have used in the United States:

America is a country of excess. We have such suburban and exurban sprawl that we’ve covered almost every square inch of land with some ugly McMansion. Part of the “American Dream” was born out of the pioneer, self-sufficiency school of thought – so that everyone’s goal is to have at least, a 2,500 sq foot house on 2 acres with no neighbors close by. It’s wasteful. It’s also why we have bears and moose in the suburbs – the animals have no place left to live! How much to we pay to keep all of that up? How much do we spend on gas (and time!) driving the huge distance between work and the exurb where we can afford that big beast? How much water do we waste on watering those massive lawns? We’ve become so isolated and insular in this country.

I think Europeans have it right. Density and living in smaller spaces is more conducive to a higher quality of life. To watch a footy game, most Europeans go to the neighborhood pub, where everybody knows your name and neighbors actually speak to and know one another. Here, we barricade ourselves in our McMansions and watch the game in our great room and miss out on the social interaction.

I’ve always been a champion of living below my means. I seem to be the exception, not the rule.

In Europe, when the toaster breaks, they get it fixed. Here, we throw it out and buy a new one. Over here, I doubt you could find anyone who still fixes toasters.

Opponents of sprawl could make their case more effectively without resorting to unnecessary hyperbole. “Almost every square inch of land” has been used? Only about 3% of land in the United States is in urban areas. And then all of that land is covered with McMansions? The average new house has been around 2,500 square feet in recent years and this is probably not big enough to qualify as a McMansion. Homes larger than 3,000 square feet are a small percentage of new and existing homes. Everyone wants 2 acres of land? Most suburban plots are much smaller than this, often less than .25 acres. One growing housing segment in recent decades, townhouses and condos, take up much less land. The desires and actually buying patterns of Americans are not exactly the same thing, owning 2+ acres in many communities would be prohibitively expensive, and some communities wouldn’t even allow this zoning.

The comparison to densities in Europe is more effective. Americans do promote sprawl, driving, and private property more than some other countries. This has been tied to some declines in civic life such as outlined in Bowling Alone or Suburban Nation. Excessive consumption is an issue larger than houses and sprawl though they could be indicative of American habits of spending larger amounts of discretionary income.

My takeaway: limit the hyperbole and stick to more defensible comparisons to other ways of living.

What I suspected: new homes might be slightly smaller but buyers want more amenities

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Here is a little evidence from the Hartford Courant of something I suspected might happen: people might buy smaller homes but this doesn’t necessarily mean they will be cheaper or have fewer amenities.

While “downsizing” may be the housing buzzword of recent years, not everybody’s doing it. And even those who are buying smaller homes are spending big on upgrades like granite countertops and hardwood floors, area builders say…

The houses may be slightly smaller than the 6,000-square-foot-plus “McMansions” of the past, but “people still want size,” according to Greg Kamedulski, president of the New England division of national builder Toll Brothers, which is building Weatherstone…

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be huge, the house,” said George Santos, sales and marketing director at Plainville-based By Carrier Inc. “A lot of people want new construction because they want to be able to customize the home the way they want it to be.”

“There has definitely been a shift in … the popularity of those very large houses in exchange for those relatively smaller homes but with the same amenities,” said Bill Ferrigno, president of Sunlight Construction, which recently completed Knoll Lane in Avon. Houses on Knoll Lane range from 2,700 to 3,700 square feet…

“People are very concerned with interior appointments — trims, a more sophisticated decorating package, numerous wall colors,” he said. “All these things cost more money, of course.”

So people know that having a home of a certain size is either unnecessary or is frowned upon (it may even be morally wrong) but having the nice interior features is still desirable. Perhaps this is because these interior appointments are not immediately apparent from the outside? Perhaps people now value their own experience of their home and what they want versus what they think people want to see on the outside?

How do McMansions affect kids?

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I recently ran into an article about kids helping to clean a 16-acre preserve in New Canaan, Connecticut that one local leader described as a much better alternative to having multiple McMansions erected. This got me thinking: how exactly do McMansions influence children? I suspect there are multiple factors at play: the neighborhood(s) in which the child grows up; the socioeconomic status of the family; the comments about McMansions made by family, friends, and others; how they see McMansions portrayed in the media.

Some questions that could be pursued. Are children who grow up in McMansion neighborhoods more alienated or isolated from society? Critics of McMansions argue they are frequently located in auto-dependent, wealth neighborhoods. Are children who grow up in McMansions more prone to excessive consumption? Critics argue McMansions are symbols of overspending and an American tendency to buy large. Are children familiar with McMansions more or less likely to appreciate high culture? Critics argue McMansions are typically lacking in design and quality.

If I had to guess, I would suggest McMansions have little or no effect on outcomes independent of factors like social class and educational attainment. But that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be fun to pursue some of these questions…

McMansions come to Levittown

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Levittowns are well known for its mass-produced homes but plenty of change has come to these homes and communities in recent decades. There are now even McMansions:

Take a ride down any Levittown street, and you will see the changes. I suppose, after 60 years, some change is to be expected. Apparently, even a complete tear down and re-build. That’s what happened over in Levittown’s Kenwood section.

This super-sized,’McMansion’, juxtaposed next to an asbestos-sided Jubilee, is the talk of Kentucky Lane. To my knowledge, there was no camera crew or shouts of ‘move that bus!” for this renovation. This prominent 3-story home is a sore thumb on a quiet street of  neatly lined Levitt built 2-story specials. It’s a monster of a house, complete with 5- bedrooms and 4-bathrooms. And? It is for sale. The asking price? Over 600-grand.

In.

Levittown.

Who will buy this house?

I posed this question to local realtor, Jen Mandell-Sommerer, of RE/MAX Advantage. She shared, “It’s not going to help the sales in Kenwood, nor do I think it is going to really hurt the sales in Levittown. The home just does not fit the area. I feel if a buyer has $650,000 they are not going to look in the Levittown area, especially in Bristol Township for that price range. Our houses are selling just in the $200,000 range.”

The listing for the house, which is down to $495,000, is here. Looks like a possibility for a McMansion: 3265 square feet, some odd architecture in the front, and a teardown that dwarfs original (yet altered) Levittown homes. The red sports car in the front driveway (both uncovered and covered) is an interesting touch, there is an interesting walk-through shower, and an extra-wide (leather?) chair next to a jacuzzi tub.

The world of McDonalds, McQuarks, and McMansions

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Wired has a few recent pieces that are related to McMansions. First, an “Alt Text” piece parodies other “theoretical particles” that might follow the recent Higgs-Boson news:

McQuark

This subatomic particle is found in all McDonald’s food, and is the reason that all the menu offerings — including the burgers, shakes and dipping sauces — taste “McDonaldy,” as if they were all just carved out of a big lump of McSubstance. Currently, the McQuark is the universe’s only trademarked subatomic particle, although Motorola, maker of the Photon smartphone, is attempting to gain traction against Apple’s battery of lawsuits by patenting actual photons.

Wired‘s Matt Simon follows up and defines McMansions:

The most widely used of these pejoratives is McMansions. These are the quickly produced cookie-cutter homes that some say lack taste.

It would be interesting to hear more from McDonald’s about how they feel about the expanding usage of such terms, particularly McMansion. According to Wikipedia, McDonalds was not too happy about the term “McJobs”:

The term “McJob” was added to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in 2003, over the objections of McDonald’s. In an open letter to Merriam-Webster, Cantalupo denounced the definition as a “slap in the face” to all restaurant employees, and stated that “a more appropriate definition of a ‘McJob’ might be ‘teaches responsibility.'” Merriam-Webster responded that “[they stood] by the accuracy and appropriateness of [their] definition.”

On 20 March 2007, the BBC reported that the UK arm of McDonald’s planned a public petition to have the OED’s definition of “McJob” changed. Lorraine Homer from McDonald’s stated that the company feels the definition is “out of date and inaccurate”. McDonald’s UK CEO, Peter Beresford, described the term as “demeaning to the hard work and dedication displayed by the 67,000 McDonald’s employees throughout the UK”. The company would prefer the definition to be rewritten to “reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding … and offers skills that last a lifetime.”…

According to Jim Cantalupo, former CEO of McDonald’s, the perception of fast-food work being boring and mindless is inaccurate, and over 1,000 of the men and women who now own McDonald’s franchises began behind the counter.Because McDonald’s has over 400,000 employees and high turnover, Cantalupo’s contention has been criticized as being invalid, working to highlight the exception rather than the rule.

In 2006, McDonald’s undertook an advertising campaign in the United Kingdom to challenge the perceptions of the McJob. The campaign, developed by Barkers Advertising and supported by research conducted by Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College London, highlighted the benefits of working for the organization, stating that they were “Not bad for a McJob”. So confident were McDonald’s of their claims that they ran the campaign on the giant screens of London’s Piccadilly Circus.

Instead of trying to change or block the definition, why doesn’t McDonald’s try to introduce its version of a “Mc-” term that it can then work to define? Of course, such things can be quickly turned around on the Internet but McDonald’s has plenty of resources and reach. I’m sure they could develop a positive version and there are still plenty of people going to their restaurants…

“The Queen of Versailles” is not about a McMansion

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More reviews are coming out of the new documentary The Queen of Versailles (and critics are liking it according to RottenTomatoes.com) but I would still argue with some of the depictions of the 90,000 square foot house at the center of the film. Here is an example: the Jewish Daily Forward has a headline titled “The Biggest McMansion of Them All.” I’ve argued this before: a 90,000 square foot home is far, far beyond McMansion territory. This is the land of the ultra-rich. Take this information from the same Jewish Daily Forward story:

David Siegel, 76, is the billionaire founder of Westgate Resorts, which he claims is “the largest privately owned time-share company in the world.” Jackie, 31 years his junior, is David’s surgically enhanced wife, and mother to seven of his 13 children. They live in a 26,000-square-foot home in Orlando, Fla., with a household staff of 19. They believe the house is too small…

All went well until the credit crunch of 2008. The Siegels’ problems weren’t caused by the house — though it did become a burden. Rather, David’s company ran into trouble as lending dried up. Typically, Westgate customers borrowed money from the company to pay for their vacation time-shares. The company, in turn, borrowed from the banks at lower interest rates. When the banks stopped lending, the bottom fell out.

Added to that difficulty was the burden of the PH Towers Westgate, a new 52-story high-rise luxury resort in Las Vegas, which drained Siegel’s corporate resources as well as $400 million of his own money. Finally, in November of 2011, Siegel was forced to sell…

Originally, the project was going to be a look at how the wealthy live and, of course, at the Siegel’s house-in-progress. It was very much in line with Greenfield’s previous work as a documentarian and photographer.

I’m looking forward to seeing this film at some point but it is difficult to draw conclusions about McMansions and American excess from one ultra-wealthy couple. Thus far, it sounds like reviewers and others see this film as a metaphor for the American economic crisis of the last five years or so and I’m not sure you can stretch it that far. As a view into the life of the elite, it may be fascinating but it would be difficult to describe this as a “typical” experience that explains the logic behind all McMansions and excessive consumption.

Some McMansions are already multi-generational homes

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While some have suggested McMansions can be renovated for multi-family housing, one Australian observer suggests this has already happened to some degree:

“We’re seeing a new efficiency or a new austerity where people are thinking a lot more about costs such as rising energy bills,” he says.

“And it’s the return to the multi-generational household where you’ve got the parents, their adult children living at home, sometimes with their own little ones.”

McCrindle says as a result there is a question mark hanging over already established large properties.

“What’s going to happen to the McMansion? Are they going to be in demand, or are they going to drop in value?” he says.

“I think that problem is already being sorted out because those McMansions are becoming multi-generational. Some downstairs rooms are being turned into granny flats, kitchenettes are being added and whole bedrooms are being turned into study rooms or home offices. For the future, it will be about building housing stock that is flexible and will adapt to our needs.”

Perhaps the children of the “accordion family” can use this as a rallying cry: “Our living at home helps mitigate the aesthetic, environmental, and financial disasters are parents made by purchasing a McMansion.”

It would be interesting to talk to McMansion owners and see if one of the reasons they purchased the home was for the possibility that adult family members might be able to live there. If so, perhaps the McMansion purchase isn’t completely misguided as critics would suggest?