Tag Archives: mansion

“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.

Michael Jackson didn’t die in a McMansion; he died in a mansion

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Perhaps this is a very minor point about the life of Michael Jackson but as a researcher of McMansions, I think there are better ways to describe the house in which Michael Jackson died which is now for sale:

“McMansion” doesn’t even begin to describe the grandly ostentatious home, which sits on a massive 17,000-square-foot chateau-style property.

It boasts seven bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, with an elevator to zip you where you want to go.

Oh my, did you happen to get a little lost there? Must be because you took a wrong turn while passing the theater, the spa, the gym and the wine cellar, which has its own tasting room.

Feeling chilly? Pick a fireplace—there are 14 of them.

Feeling hot? Then won’t you take a dip in the pool? You can practice your Olympic laps there.

Oh, we almost forgot: the asking price. The digs will set you back a cool $23.9 million.

As I’ve argued before, this is not a McMansion because of its size. Yes, the home may be ostentatious but this is not your typical large, mass produced suburban home. Rather, this house is 17,000 square feet, far behind the reach of most homebuyers. Perhaps this home is lacking in architectural quality but it is far too big to be a McMansion.

I think this use of the term McMansion is meant to convey the idea of tacky or kitschy. I’m not quite sure how that applies here: isn’t it pretty normal for the uber-wealthy or uber-famous to live in a huge house? Is the idea that Jackson had poor decorating taste? Or is the term applicable because the person who buys this home would be doing a strange thing since Jackson died here?

Gisele Bunchen defends her eco-friendly, 22,000 square foot home

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I’ve wondered this before: can you have a truly large house that is really eco-friendly? Gisele Bundchen tries to make such a case for their new home:

While Giants fans have been rabble-rousing Tom Brady over the upcoming Super Bowl XLVI, environmentalists are giving the Patriots quarterback and his supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen the stink eye for a different reason – their brand new, 22,000 sq. ft. mega mansion in Brentwood, CA. The celebrity couple recently moved into the $20 million home with their young son, and one has to ask why a two and a half person family needs such a ginormous space (if you do the calculations, that’s about 7,333 sq. ft. per person). Bundchen, who is known for her eco-activism, rebutted people who questioned how such a McMansion could be called eco by touting its sustainable features such as solar panels on the roof and rainwater recovery systems, but we wonder if that’s enough to call the ginormous home green.

The eight bedroom mansion has a six-car garage, a lagoon-like swimming pool, a spa, a gym, a nursery, a butler’s room, an elevator and a wine cellar. Apparently, Bundchen and Brady purchased the land in 2008 and had an original plan for the house, but ended up adding to it because they felt it was too small. To give you more of an idea of how sprawling the home is, the two wings are connected by a bridge.

While the vast size of the manse has many environmentalists raising their eyebrows, Bundchen is reported to have explained that the home is actually quite sustainable with solar panels installed on the roof, rainwater recovery systems, waste reduction and recycling programs, energy-efficient lighting and appliances and eco-friendly building materials. She also made the case that while the Brady clan is only three people, with all of their relatives constantly visiting, they need more space.

Perhaps it is more sustainable than the typical 22,000 square foot home (how many of those are there in the United States?) but this probably isn’t the right metric to use. Is it as sustainable as a 10,000 square foot house or even a 5,000 square foot house? Perhaps. What we need to happen is for a big star to have a huge home like this but then have it be LEED certified – would it be green enough?

Beyond the eco question, I think a typical person might ask what one even does with that much space. That must be one big family to host…but this is related to another issue: the size of a home itself and the land it requires could itself be seen as wasteful beyond the actual energy the home requires.

Unusual 60,000 square foot house in northern Ohio

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Big houses tend to draw attention but particularly eccentric big houses. Here are some of the features of an unusual 60,000 square foot home in northern Ohio:

A wealthy inventor conceived of a home with whimsical, underground ‘streets’ built to scale and inspired by those he’d seen in Georgetown, Paris and Savannah. Above ground, it featured a private beach and marina sculpted into the shores of Lake Erie. And a helicopter pad…

“It takes four-and-a-half hours to show this property,” said Scott Street of Sotheby’s, the listing agent for the Waterwood Estate, which is now listed on the Vermilion real estate market for $19.5 million.

The property sits on 160 acres, boasts three-quarter miles of frontage on Lake Erie and contains a series of “pods” connected by glass corridors that were navigated by scooters and golf carts…

Jacobsen used his trademark “pod” style design to give the design more flexibility and allow it to evolve as Brown wanted other things added. The entire home is a series of 20 castle-like concrete buildings connected by glass corridors and each structure is topped with a slate pyramid.

Perhaps one could argue that any 60,000 square foot home is unusual but this has many intriguing traits.

Why build this property on Lake Erie?

A $32 million home with 27,000 square feet is not a McMansion

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When I started studying the use of the term McMansion years ago, I didn’t expect to run into this problem: how big does a house have to be in order to be called a McMansion? Sometimes the question is on the lower end but lately, I have run into a number of articles suggesting that really large houses are McMansions. Here is another example:

Going, going, gone will be music to Sherwin and Deborah Jarol’s ears when their palatial estate is auctioned off on October 29. The couple have been unable to find a buyer for their lavish Chicago area mcmansion dubbed “Le Grand Reve,” which has been on and off the market with numerous price chops since the summer 2010…

This home isn’t messing around — the crib measures an incredible 27,000 square feet and includes this luxurious entryway and two story rotunda that looks like it belongs in a real palace.

As I’ve argued before about similar homes, this house is far beyond McMansion status. It is simply a mansion. This isn’t about the average suburban nouveau riche looking for a status symbol or a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood or having a garish home (though one wonders if it is possible to live in the style that the interior of the home is decorated in). This is the sort of home only available to the mega-rich.

Here is the real estate listing for the home. Any surprise that it is in Winnetka?

(Perhaps the gallery offers a way out: a picture later in the show says, “The mansion features six bedrooms, all as wonderfully opulent as this one.” Did two people write the captions? Can you have it both ways?)

The large homes of politicians

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While this gallery of photos doesn’t offer “proof” that most or even many politicians have big homes (and it may just be a play to pull in Internet visitors and clicks), it is an interesting subject to think about:

1. What exactly is the causal relationship here? Did they have bigger than normal homes before they were politicians (meaning they were wealthy when running for office) or are the big homes in part because of their political office?

2. Are there large homes any different than other people within their income brackets?

3. How should the public think about this? Should there be outrage that public servants don’t live like public servants? Do we not usually care because it is their private home and many Americans would buy bigger homes if they had the opportunity? Occasionally, this becomes part of a campaign – John Edwards took some grief for this and his haircuts – and others like Al Gore can be mocked.

4. How much time can a politician even spend in these homes with duties and homes elsewhere?

5. Would a politician who lives in a McMansion (and the implications regarding bad taste, etc.) be considered worse off than one who lives in a mansion?

Between the mansion and McMansion: the “maxi-McMansion”

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Despite the widespread use of the term McMansion, it is often unclear how large (or small) a McMansion typically is. The description of a home in Westport, Connecticut illustrates this issue:

I’d like to share with you what, specifically, brought home the extraordinary disparity between rich and poor in America. Last Friday’s Westport News published a headline on top of the Real Estate page that read: “Waterfront colonial offers ocean waves, scenic views.”

The caption under the photo of the Maxi-McMansion added, “The16-room, 9,682-square-foot colonial features 175 feet of shoreline footage and its own private deep-water dock in a protected cove.”

The asking price? A tidy $9.25 million!

I am not picking on this house alone. Million dollar homes in our town are like pebbles on the beach: too numerous to count. Routinely, homes in Westport today — at the bottom of what is reportedly another dip in national prices — sell for for $1,970,000, or $1,805,000, or $1,070,000, just to list just a on that same page Friday under “Property Transfers.”

I would suggest that a home of nearly 10,000 square feet is really a mansion as it is far beyond the average new house size of roughly 2,400 square feet. There are relatively few homes of 10,000 square feet or more built in America each year.

So what might make this home a McMansion? Perhaps it is the architecture: we are simply told this is a colonial. If you look at the actual real estate listing for this house (I’m pretty sure this is it – it matches the price, square footage, and waterfront location), the house does have a punctuated front with a lot of protruding pieces. Perhaps it is the luxury of the home – but that could also make it a mansion. This would make some sense as the larger article is about the gap between the rich and poor in America and this home is an illustration how some are still profiting while many Americans are struggling. Perhaps the home is part of a development of newer, mass-produced mansions – a satellite view on Google Maps does suggest there are similar homes nearby. Does this suggest that these are all teardown homes?

I’m still not sure why this home isn’t simply called a mansion rather than a “maxi-McMansion.” If I had to select one option from the ones I’ve presented, I would guess that the author wants to imply that such homes are examples of the easily-reproduced luxuries that the super-rich can purchase. Calling the home a mansion would imply an older structure and perhaps old money.