Tag Archives: mansions

The newly constructed modern farmhouse is…a scourge? A McMansion? Popular because of a TV show?

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A story about an LA teardown describes the rise of the modern farmhouse:

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Hollywood actor Chris Pratt, best known for his roles in the sitcom Parks and Recreation and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, has spurred the wrath of architecture enthusiasts over his decision to raze a historic 1950s house, designed by Craig Ellwood, to make way for a 15,000-square-foot mansion.

The move to demolish came shortly after Pratt purchased the mid-century home in an off-market sale for $12.5 million in January 2023. The house is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, across the street from Pratt’s mother-in-law, former first lady of California Maria Shriver. The historic house will be replaced by a modern farmhouse designed by architect Ken Ungar, Architectural Digest reported, and is now in the early stages of construction. Until its completion, Pratt is waiting it out with his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, in a $32 million estate in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades neighborhood…

Pratt’s new home is adjacent to Shriver’s two homes, each valued at over over $10 million, carving out a family compound of sorts in the neighborhood. The demolition reflects the rising trend of modern, multimillion-dollar farmhouses cropping up in America’s suburbs that has gone on for decades and was newly revived after TV personality couple Joanna and Chip Gaines launched their debut show Fixer Upper, in which they remodeled old farmhouses, according to a National Association of Realtors report. Ungar has designed several multimillion-dollar mansions, including modern farmhouses, in Los Angeles.

This raises at least a few questions. Here are mine:

  1. Are the typical new farmhouses McMansions? In this particular case above, this is a home much larger than a McMansion. But, many modern farmhouses might fall into McMansion territory if they are a teardown, have some strange architectural features, and/or are part of suburban sprawl.
  2. In this particular case, the modern farmhouse is replacing a unique single-family home. But, one reading of the summary above is that the issue goes beyond this one property. The farmhouse has spread everywhere. Are there too many? Is it just a passing fad? Will a new style – and problem – be in play ten years from now?
  3. Could one TV show have significantly fed this trend? It is easy to point to a popular show – and then brand – as leading the charge. It would be interesting to see some numbers: how many builders and buyers were directly influenced by Chip and Joanna? Were they the only ones pushing modern farmhouses or were there other influencers? In this one case, who was Chris Pratt influenced by?

Seeing a 24/36/56,000 square foot home in DuPage County

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I recently viewed from the road possibly the largest house in DuPage County, Illinois. Depending on which real estate site you look at, it is either 24,500 square feet, 36,000 square feet or 56,000 square feet. It took years to build and was up for auction at one point. Here is a 2007 description of the property in Chicago:

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The biggest of these latter-day Xanadus, a colossal 41,000-square-footer, is about midway through construction in a far less plum location in the southwest suburbs: an out-of-the-way cul-de-sac outside Burr Ridge. Its only neighbor is a modest ranch house; a pizzeria, a gas station, and the entrance ramp to Illinois Highway 83 are just around a bend in the road…

What’s more, that whopper of a house will be home to only three people. Nick Memeti, the 30-year-old owner of Freedom Mortgage Team, is building it for himself and his parents-and the hundreds of guests he plans to have at the frequent parties he expects to throw in the cavernous basement. Down there, he will have an indoor pool (he is also planning an outdoor pool), slot machines, a dance floor, a 30-seat movie theatre, and a full gym. “It’s really built for entertaining,” Memeti says. “I have about 200 employees, and this will be the place for them to come and break bread with the boss and hang out.”

From the outside, this looks like a large home but even with the pictures online, it is hard to imagine that much space in a single home. This is not just a mansion; this is a supermansion that few homes can match. This is not the only large house in Burr Ridge. A 2016 story describes a different 30,000 square foot home. Chicago in 2023 named the suburb as great for “space chasers” seeking bigger homes:

This is another burg that’s not cheap, but you get “a lot more for your money in terms of space inside and out,” notes Jack Brennan of Second City Agents. A six-bed, five-bath home that was listed for $860,000 this spring, for instance, boasts 4,553 square feet, a four-car garage, and a full acre lot. The $189-per-square-foot price is good value compared with the $213 you’d pay for a comparable listing five miles north in Hinsdale. Burr Ridge offers the kind of quiet living you’d expect 19 miles southwest of the Loop. Yet the days when residents had to drive to Hinsdale or La Grange for dinner are gone: The Burr Ridge Village Center, built in 2007, features familiar names from the city, like the restaurant and bar Hampton Social and the breakfast joint Yolk.

Here is a description of the community on the Burr Ridge website:

Nestled 19 miles west of the Chicago loop, Burr Ridge is home to distinguished houses on large lots in quiet neighborhoods, fine dining, upscale shopping, quality hotels, excellent recreational opportunities, highly rated schools, open land for new business and a progressive business environment. The thriving business community ensures that Burr Ridge, year after year, maintains one of the lowest tax rates in DuPage County.

Worth magazine named the community one of the top 250 wealthiest communities in the country. In 2011, The Business Journals exclusive ‘On Numbers’ report ranked the quality of life in Burr Ridge second out of 955 Midwestern communities.

Straddling the border of DuPage and Cook Counties, Burr Ridge is conveniently located at the intersection of I-294 and I-55, just minutes from I-355 and 290. These expressways provide direct access to O’Hare and Midway airports. Three train stations in neighboring communities, hotel shuttles, and a Pace Bus facility in downtown Burr Ridge provide easy access to regional transportation and downtown Chicago without all the congestion.

Home to over 500 large and small local and national businesses, occupying more than 6 million square feet of floor area and employing over 10,000 people, Burr Ridge has a carefully planned mix of office and industrial parks and two well-designed retail areas in a natural setting. The two retail centers, County Line Square and Burr Ridge Village Center, are conveniently located at the southeast corner of County Line Road and host exciting community events each year. From an annual 5k race and Car Show to a weekly outdoor summer concert series, thousands of residents and visitors come from the region to enjoy the amenities in Burr Ridge.

The biggest houses tend to be located in certain communities with resources (Burr Ridge has a median household income over $174,000), desirable locations, and zoning that allows large homes.

Consequences of the mansion tax in Los Angeles

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Los Angeles has a new mansion tax since April 1 and here are some of the consequences:

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Measure ULA adds a transfer tax of 4 percent for sales above $5 million and 5.5 percent for deals above $10 million; real estate transactions in the city below those levels pay the already-established transfer tax rate of .56 percent.

“The flurry of activity that happened up until April 1 was pretty phenomenal,” says real estate attorney Loretta Thompson, a partner at Withers Worldwide. “And then, of course, after that, people started pulling their listings. There’s been a quantifiable pause in anything that’s over $5 million. It chilled the market immediately, which was what everyone expected it would do.”…

There are some winners. Independent Los Angeles County cities like Beverly Hills and Malibu have become more desirable since the measure does not apply to them. It is also shifting the balance of power in luxury real estate, long a seller’s market. “Buyers are being picky right now,” says Nourmand, adding that some people are willing to wait in hopes that sellers bring down prices on mansions: “They feel they have the upper hand in the high-end market. They don’t feel like they have to rush — they think time is on their side.” James Corden, for instance, listed a Brentwood house in January for $22 million, then dropped it to $18 million before selling it in July for $17.1 million. According to Dirt.com, Corden’s sale is subject to nearly $1 million in taxes under the ULA Measure.

However, many hope the tax will be revamped or rescinded. With two lawsuits already challenging the measure, the City of Los Angeles finance director has been instructed to hold any monies received, rather than use them as planned to create affordable housing options in the city.

Will any of these consequences affect legal rulings? Whether this is allowable is a different kind of question compared to how it is working out in practice.

Will the new revenue effectively address affordable housing? At the moment, the revenue is tied up. But, put together taxes from several of these sales and some new housing units could emerge.

It will be interesting to see where the turning point in the market is. Wealthier homeowners will still want to buy and sell property. There will likely still be demand from those outside the region who want to move into these homes.

The McMansion riches of ’80s TV versus the massive dwellings of today’s Succession

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TV depictions of what constitutes a house for the wealthy can change over time:

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And if the “Succession” audience is smaller, the money is, pointedly, bigger. Rewatched in 2023, the idea of luxury in “Dallas” looks quaint, almost dowdy. The aesthetic is Texan country club; the Ewing homestead, the size of a decent suburban McMansion, is a toolshed next to the Manhattan aeries, Hamptons manors and Italian villas that the Roys flitter among.

Some of this is a matter of modern premium-cable budgets vs. the grind of old-school network-TV production, of course. But it also reflects the changed, distorting nature of modern riches. In 1980, American wealth inequality was still near its postwar lows. Since then, the wealth of the top .01 percent has grown at a rate roughly five times as much as that of the population overall. Today, the very rich are very, very, very richer.

The holdings of Waystar Royco — Hollywood studios, cruise lines, newspapers, amusement parks, a king-making right-wing news channel — make Ewing Oil look like a franchise gas station. We know only vaguely how Logan Roy built his empire, but it was enabled partly by the media-consolidation and antitrust deregulation, beginning in the “Dallas”/Reagan era, that allowed his real-life analogues like Rupert Murdoch to make their own piles.

American homes do broadcast messages about a resident’s status and wealth. McMansions are supposed to signal that the owner can afford a big home in a particular style (even if the imitation of traditional styles are odd).

On the other hand, mansions are even bigger, more extravagant, and can be of better build quality. Having multiple such dwellings extends far beyond the McMansion owner in the suburbs.

Another question: do the super wealthy make use of all that square footage and the features or are these part of a real estate investment? The McMansion owner is also hoping to get a return on their investment but the amount of money involved with extra-large properties is at another level.

Courtesy of Architectural Digest, see more about some of Succession’s dwellings here.

Asking again: did Kevin McCallister live in a McMansion!?

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An overview of movies where Santa is the bad guy included this aside about Home Alone:

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The 1989 film (which is about a boy setting booby traps in his mansion on Christmas Eve to stop a killer Santa) earned a small measure of fame when its creators sued the makers of Home Alone (which is about a boy setting booby traps in his McMansion on Christmas Eve to stop some robbers) for the similarities between the two.

Is the Winnetka, Illinois home a McMansion or a mansion? Several pieces of evidence for the latter:

–Atlas Obscura calls it a mansion and says, “Built in the 1920s, the building is comprised of red brick and was built in the colonial Georgian style.” It is hard to call a home as old as this as a McMansion. Additionally, it is built in a classic style, not imitating a classic style.

–According to Zillow, the home has 5,398 square feet, 6 bedrooms, and 6 bathrooms. It is worth over $2 million. While the home size is in McMansion territory, that price is not.

-Did director John Hughes have a thing for suburban McMansions? This discussion in reddit.com/r/McMansionHell suggests no.

For more discuss, see my 2019 post.

Bonus information: according to Tripadvisor, seeing this home is the #1 thing to do in Winnetka.

Do not dream of McMansions; picture really large houses and properties

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Architectural Digest features images of 12 “extra-large properties.” Here is the introduction:

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There are few fantasies more persuasive or alluring than that of the expansive estate. When you think of big houses, your mind may immediately jump to the McMansions of yore, those garish homes you’d expect to see on an episode of MTV Cribs. The ones we can’t stop daydreaming about more closely resemble graceful, though still boldly luxurious, homes like the central property of Downton Abbey or the setting of Bodies, Bodies, Bodies before the horror film took a dark turn. Below we highlight 12 properties featured in AD that contain enviable amenities, from indoor tennis courts and home spas to guest houses and verdant gardens. 

Three features of this that struck me:

  1. Dreaming of McMansions exhibits poor taste. Dream bigger, more refined. Do not settle for the garish cookie-cutter version of a big house.
  2. The scale of these homes goes beyond the McMansion in numerous key ways. They are often far beyond the 3,000-5,000 square feet of a suburban McMansion. Some have much more square footage, others have numerous buildings. The properties are often much larger than the typical city or suburban lot. And the amenities are more plentiful and higher-end. Think special pools, gardens, and gathering spaces.
  3. The McMansion is much more attainable for people than the extra-large property. Does the McMansion offer enough of a taste of the high-end property?

When a McMansion feels more like an estate

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Defining a McMansion is doable. But, at what point does a McMansion become an estate?

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He liked how certain details — the neighborhood of manses behind gates and shrouded with trees; the house’s circular drive and imposing view — gave the ordinary McMansion an estate feel. He eventually dotted the lawn with gargoyles and Renaissance-style statues.

In this example, a McMansion feels more like an estate when it has added levels of privacy (gates, lots of trees blocking views of houses), a particular kind of driveway, and a particular view. Presumably, normal McMansions do not have these features or have imitations of these features. The suburban subdivision of McMansions offers limited privacy. The straight driveway leads to a big garage. The view is not imposing.

Is there a market for upselling McMansions? Take your typical newer McMansion, whether in a new development or in a teardown setting. What small features would differentiate it from similar homes and translate to a higher value? At the same time, adding special touches to McMansions goes against the mass-produced image of such homes.

Are the boundaries between McMansion and estate different than those between McMansions and mansions? In this second comparison, the size of the home itself seems to matter. The McMansion is roughly 3,000 to 10,000 square feet while the McMansion is larger.

Is it about the home or the location of the home?

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I recently saw this:

I think this is promoting living in the country as the person making the statement would be okay with a cabin rather than a mansion. The cabin looks like it is in decent shape, but it is no mansion.

However, this gets at a question I wonder about a lot: what exactly is it that motivates many people to select where they live? Here are several of the major factors:

-How many resources they have? What can they afford?

-What kind of neighborhood or community do they want to live in?

-Proximity to work.

-Quality of schools.

-Proximity to family.

-Preferences for kind and style of residence.

If you choose to live in a cabin in the country, you are elevating some of these factors as more important than others. But, is the choice primarily about the country and nature, the relative lack of people, the different kind of house, or something else? Reducing it to a binary choice of cabin/country versus city/mansion is simple but the decision might be much more complicated.

Kanye West does not like McMansions

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I missed this information from two years ago; here is what Kanye West thinks about McMansions.

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The “YZY SHLRS” are not West’s first try at real estate development. Together with his wife Kim Kardashian West, the rapper transformed a McMansion in suburban Los Angeles into a cavernous, eclectic abode that has since unfolded on the covers of several esteemed magazines.

Earlier this year, Architectural Digest described the Wests’ residence as “one of the most fascinating, otherworldly, and, yes, strange pieces of domestic architecture on the planet.”

Characterized by clear, geometrical lines and white open spaces, filled with equally futuristic furniture, the home resembles a modern-day spin on a Belgian monastery, as West told AD.

The standout nature of the home, a reflection of West’s highly individualistic style, is not a surprise given the rapper’s annoyance with luxury properties that, despite their own embellishments, more often than not come off as the products of the same mold.

“The relationships that I have with architects, my understanding of sacred proportions, this new vibe, this new energy,” is what is driving West, the real estate developer. “I am tired of McMansions,” he told Charlamagne tha God. “That is wack. Everybody’s house is wack.”

His critique of McMansions and large homes is a common one: they are produced with similar features and styles. West hints that this is even the case at the level of home above McMansions where more resources does not necessarily translate into unique or quality homes. You can purchase a very expensive property and it may not be interesting or suit the particular needs of the residents.

At the same time, with his wealth and connections, West operates at a level beyond the typical McMansion owner. He has the resources to transform a large home based on a new vision. Mansion as monastery, as it were. He can pursue a particular plan and mold the home in ways that many McMansion owners cannot.

Now, if someone with fame and resources could help find a way to transform McMansions or relatively large houses (think 3,000-6,000 square feet) in the ways that West wants, this could help change the image of such homes. I imagine many McMansions owners would be interested in the idea of “sacred proportions” in their homes or differentiating their residences in significant ways from neighbors.

The growing $100+ million in debt for the most expensive home in Los Angeles

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Subprime lending helped bring about the housing crisis of the late 2000s but it is also utilized by very wealthy actors, such as in the case of a home valued in the hundreds of millions:

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The first loan, which a source close to the project said also refinanced existing bank debt, was $82.5 million with a minimum interest rate of 11%. It included an agreement that should the house sell for more than $200 million, Hankey would get $3.5 million of the sale.

Niami came back a little over a year later and borrowed an additional $8.5 million at the same rate, paying a loan fee of $82,500. He also agreed to more onerous terms: giving Hankey a percentage of the profits if the house sold for $100 million to $200 million.

Two months before the loans were due, Niami came back for a third helping, and got an additional $15 million at the same interest rate. There were no changes to the profit-sharing arrangement, but this time the developer had to cough up a $1-million application fee.

The total: a whopping $106 million that Crestlloyd defaulted on when it all came due on Oct. 31, 2020 — and it’s growing with interest and penalties. But Hankey is not the only lender owed by Crestlloyd, according to a title report provided by the receiver.

There is a lot of money wrapped up in this house and it is unclear whether those involved will get what they hoped for. Almost regardless of what happens in the short-term, this house will live on in future memories because of its price-tag and location. Will it end up being a cautionary tale/disaster or an eventual success in a land of mega-mansions and wealthy residents?

Because this is one of the most expensive properties around, would the fallout from the subprime lending receive more attention or less attention compared to the consequences of subprime loans in the late 2000s? How long would it take to sort out debt and payments in court? While there are wealthy actors involved, a lot of money could be lost and even the wealthiest would feel a loss of $50-100 million on a single house.