Tag Archives: McMansion

What happens if a Catholic archbishop moves to a New Jersey McMansion in retirement?

Posted on by

“A Catholic archibishop moves into a McMansion for his retirement…” might be the start of a joke or it may be this story from New Jersey:

The 4,500-square-foot home sits on 8.2 wooded acres in the hills of Hunterdon County. With five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a three-car garage and a big outdoor pool, it’s valued at nearly $800,000, records show.

But it’s not quite roomy enough for Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.

Myers, who has used the Franklin Township house as a weekend residence since the archdiocese purchased it in 2002, is building a three-story, 3,000-square-foot addition in anticipation of his retirement in two years, The Star-Ledger found. He will then move in full-time, a spokesman for the archbishop said.

The new wing, now just a wood frame, will include an indoor exercise pool, a hot tub, three fireplaces, a library and an elevator, among other amenities, according to blueprints and permits filed with the Franklin Township building department.

There are quite a few details about the house in this story. It sounds like a fairly lavish McMansion but there are plenty of similar homes in New Jersey, a state closely tied to McMansions due to its many suburbanites as well as the famous Soprano McMansion.

However, there is also a lot of questioning of why an archibishop needs such a lavish house. The issue isn’t just that this is a big or poorly-designed house. Rather, this is a moral issue. Shouldn’t priests live simply and serve God rather than live it up in a McMansion paid for by church members? If purchasing a McMansion is excessive spending for an average American and threatens to throw off their retirements, how much more so is it for an archbishop? This could lead to an interesting conversation of just what kind of housing priests should live in to best pursue their vocation and provide the image the church wants to project.

Another contender for “The Anti-McMansion”

Posted on by

Combine a tiny house and minimalist design and the New York Times gives you another contender for an anti-McMansion:

Living in a one-room house with an ultra-minimalist aesthetic and two small children sounds more like the setup for a joke than something any reasonably sane person would attempt.

And yet that’s exactly what Takaaki and Christina Kawabata set out to do when they renovated an old house here. They were convinced that an open space with as few toys and material possessions as possible was a recipe not for disaster, but for domestic calm…

“Most of the people we’ve invited here are shocked by how we live,” Ms. Kawabata, 41, said. “How we can raise kids without toys and clutter and stuff everywhere.”…

Eventually, there will be an addition, a 1,500-square-foot structure that may be connected to the main house with an open walkway. But that’s a few years off. For now, instead of walls, the family makes do with transparent room dividers created out of metal frames wrapped with nylon string.

There are three features that set up this home apart from conceptions of a McMansion:

1. A smaller size. This one-room house has 1,200 square feet. It is interesting to note that the home will eventually include another 1,500 square feet which would then put it above the average for a new American home at 2,500 square feet.

2. A different and better design. Rather than having spaces for everyone to do their own thing, this home is one big open space where the family is always together. Additionally, the minimalist design is presumed to be better aesthetically (and presumably in durability and appeal to others) than the typical McMansion attempt to impress and mash together numerous styles.

3. The commitment to live with less stuff. McMansions might be so large because even as the average American household has decreased in size, the average new home has increased dramatically in order to hold more consumer goods.

At the same time, I would guess most Americans would not accept this particular design as the best anti-McMansion: it is too open (do household members want to be that close?) and minimalist design does not appeal to everybody.

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

Posted on by

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.

Making art out of “McMansion doors”

Posted on by

Making art of McMansions is not that unusual in recent years but specifically focusing on their doors is:

How housing became a commodity — and what ultimately led to the housing crisis in America — is the theme of a new work of art by Koumoundouros. It’s on view at the Hammer Museum, and is called the “Dream Home Resource Center.”

But it might not be what you typically think of as art.

Two giant doors enclose the exhibit. They once belonged to a McMansion in nearby Orange County, but have since been repainted in rainbow colors by Koumoundouros. Inside the clear glass walls, it’s actually a pretty white spare room — with a few striking differences. To the left, a giant whiteboard is updated weekly with statistics on the economy — from the most recent homeless population numbers to news about the Detroit bankruptcy filing. Wrapping around the rest of the room: a rainbow timeline following different threads, all piecing together what housing looks like in America today.

The most unusual aspect of the exhibit sits dead center in the room: An informational booth. Here, the artist curated a number of guests — from real estate brokers to homeless rights activists.

There may be other features of the typical McMansion that receive more attention: the undulating roof lines, the foyers, the stucco or fake stone or fake brick finishes. But, the humble door doesn’t get as much attention. An interior door might be a six-panel dark wood door or perhaps a french door, such as between a den and a great room. The exterior door is likely to be a large one, double-wide, ornate or with plenty of glass, and proportionately fitting the outsized foyer which may include two stories, pillars, and surrounding windows.

All that said, I’m not sure there is a single image of a “McMansion door.” The Soprano McMansion had a double set of double doors – a vestibule sat in between – with frosted glass. Cynics might note that the garage doors on McMansions might actually be more important.

McMansion owning Vermont governor criticized for real estate dealing with neighbor

Posted on by

The governor of Vermont has run into some real estate trouble after buying the property of a neighbor:

Soon after the successful real estate investor built his McMansion on a rural dirt road here outside Vermont’s capital, he began throwing his wealth around, striking a deal to bail out his neighbor from a looming tax sale by buying the man’s property for a quarter of its appraised value.

Such a sale is not uncommon and likely would have gone unnoticed. Except the buyer was the governor of Vermont, Peter Shumlin. And the seller, Jerry Dodge, was a hard-luck ne’er-do-well with a criminal record and what his friends and family describe as limited intellect and diminishing prospects.

Since word of the deal surfaced last week, Shumlin has been under intense scrutiny in the state. Real estate lawyers generally conclude that he did nothing illegal, but that the governor might still have held himself to a higher standard of conduct, raising the question of when a savvy business deal becomes bad for his politics…

Some of Dodge’s dissatisfaction appears to have been fueled by family and friends telling him he took too little for his property. He recalled reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as a child, before he left school in the ninth grade. It’s not justice for all, he said. It’s “justice for the rich.”

Sounds like a sticky situation for a politician who doesn’t want to be seen taking advantage of another resident. At the same time, the use of the term McMansion is intriguing. See a picture of Shumlin’s house here and a wider overhead view here. From these far-off pictures, it doesn’t look too much like a McMansion. The house might have a large square footage but the exterior appears understated and the house does not dominate the large lot. In using the term McMansion, the AP might be referring more to the home’s recent construction by a wealthy resident rather than the architecture and design of a home within a suburban subdivision. The rest of the story does seem to play up the angle that Shulmin’s house is a wealthy and luxurious one, particularly compared with the more run-down property of his neighbor.

“Exporting the McMansion” to China

Posted on by

A principal in an American architecture firm discusses the McMansions his company has designed in China:

Market researchers in China say that these buyers prefer styles (derived from) the old houses in France and England. The people feel that the styles of the English and French are more “wealthy looking” than Spanish or Mediterranean styles. Think of “Downton Abbey” or Fontainebleau. Those are perceived as the homes of royalty. Homes in Spain or Italy, they perceive those homes as more casual…

The villa houses we’re building are generally 3,500 square feet to 7,000 square feet, and that excludes the basement, which isn’t usually included in the salable square footage…Some of these homes are being purchased by investors and some of them will be second homes. Lagoon Manor, for example, is a 600-unit development we’re doing that’s in the northeast part of Beijing, though from the heart of the city it’s about an hour-and-a-half drive because of the traffic…

The homes are of concrete construction. Even the roof pitches are concrete panels — there’s almost no wood in the construction.

The interiors are built to a European construction model. You buy the shell and finish the interior yourself. The outsides of the homes are completely finished, but you open the front door and it’s a light bulb.

This discussion suggests there are some similarities between American and Chinese McMansions. They are purchased by people who want to show wealth and the architecture is intended to connect the style of the new home to established “high-class” styles. The homes are quite large and expensive. However, they are constructed differently: it is more of a concrete shell that the buyer can then customize in pieces (IKEA is mentioned). While the discussion doesn’t mention this, I assume these homes are less common in China than the United States and so are still more unusual.

Indeed, it would be interesting to see what remains the same and what changes and why when the American McMansion becomes another global export.

Interior designer chooses 1963 modernist home over (all?) McMansions

Posted on by

I’ve written about this theme recently but here is another version: an interior designer in Houston chooses to buy and redecorate a 1963 modernist home.

Architect Preston Bolton designed this stunning Tanglewood residence in 1963, a look that appears fresh and modern today. In the spring of this year, Kristen and Lee Nix moved in, but not before she transformed the sleek abode into a comfortable home for the couple and their 2-year-old son.

“I knew right when I walked in what I wanted to do,” Kristen said. “Grass rugs, grass cloth on the walls, not a lot of color but lots of texture.”…

“I felt like the house had such good bones in it . . .  it was different with its high ceilings and clean lines.”

The mid-century modern structure provided an ideal palette for Kristen’s interior design skills, honed at the knee of her mother, designer Sheridan Williams, and via a degree in interior design from Houston Community College.

1. The dichotomy presented in the headline is strange as it sounds like this interior designer and others only really have two choices: either a McMansion or a modernist home. Both of these types of homes are a small subset of all homes constructed. I think this is probably an example of McMansion being used as shorthand for all sorts of suburban homes and a modernist home clearly stands out from this crowd.

2. I’ve argued before I don’t think most Americans would choose a modernist home over a McMansion. Does this article prove my point by suggesting it takes an interior designer, someone trained in decor, style, and design, to choose the modernist home over the average and/or bland McMansions?

3. Why no exterior shot of the entire home??

A Prius can only power a McMansion for a few hours but a Japanese home for four days

Posted on by

A future study will look at how a Toyota Prius can power a home:

Pull electricity from a Toyota Prius Plug-in to a McMansion, and the lights may go out within a matter of a couple of hours. For a typical Japanese house, though, you’d be taken care of for the better part of a week.

Toyota said it will start testing a vehicle-to-home (V2H) system with the Prius Plug-in in Japan by the end of the year. The trial will involve a two-way power-supply system in which the car could supply the home with power in the event of a black-out. About 10 Toyota City homes will be involved in the testing.

The Japanese automaker says a fully-charged, filled-up Prius Plug-In can supply a typical Japanese house with 10 kilowatts, or enough for about four days. In addition to supplying power to blacked-out homes, the car will eventually be able to power up emergency shelters and other buildings.

Last August, Nissan started testing a similar system with its battery-electric Leaf, which the automaker said could provide about two days electricity for an average Japanese home when the car is fully charged. Nissan said it intended to commercialize the system, but didn’t provide further details.

So, if you are really worried about your power supply, one option is to buy a Toyota Prius and purchase a Japanese-sized home. Figures from 2003 suggest the average Japanese home has about 1,021 square feet. Or, you could go further: pair a Prius with a Japanese or American “tiny house” and have power for even longer!

In the long run, is having the Prius help power your home (or other objects) a greener outcome?

The real first time the New York Times used the term “McMansion”

Posted on by

I recently ran across an article that made this claim about when the term McMansion was first used in the New York Times:

Primarily due to plunging home values, the net worth of the median family in America from 2007 to 2009 fell to the level it was at in the early ’90s –- a time when Mark Zuckerberg was being driven to play dates and several years before the word “McMansions” appeared in the New York Times for the first time in a piece Benjamin Cheever wrote about “almost” buying one a few miles away from Zuckerberg’s Westchester County hometown.

This claim is based on the Wikipedia entry on McMansions:

The stunt word “McMansion” seems to have been coined sometime in the early 1980s. It appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 1990 and the New York Times in 1998.

Having done some research on this topic, this sounded off so I decided to check it out. According to a Lexis-Nexis search, the first result for McMansion in the New York Times is from February 7, 1993. In an article titled “Builder’s Motto: ‘Move On, Clean House,’” here is how McMansion is used:

Last year the Toulsons won the Regal award from the Home Builders Association of Delaware for the best house with more than 2,500 square feet. But it has been for sale since July and remains unsold, as do dozens of others of extravagant homes, both old and new, that dot what is know locally as “Chateau Country.”

Once almost exclusively the domain of the heirs to the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company chemical fortune, much of the rolling countryside has gone under the bulldozer in recent years. Several large parcels, formerly held by the du Ponts or senior managers of the company, have been sold as subdivisions, albeit with homes priced from $800,000 to more than $1 million.

Developers, some of whose immigrant grandfathers did construction work for du Ponts, moved into the old du Pont mansions with the lovely French names while they put up $850,000 homes often called “McMansions.” Mr. Toulson himself and his father before him worked at “the Company.”

This appears to have some of the basic meanings of how the term McMansion is used today: big and expensive homes built on former undeveloped land in a Chateau style (an interesting fit for the Delaware countryside).

Lesson: the Wikipedia page is not the most accurate source for this particular issue. Interestingly, while the NYT first used the term McMansion in 1993 and not 1998, the term wasn’t used much at all before 2000. According to Lexis-Nexis, the NYT only used the term 23 times before 2000. But, as my research suggested, usage really picked up in the 2000s as the NYT used it over 600 times.

Changing sets in “Clybourne Park” from a nice 1959 house to a home ready to be knocked down for a McMansion

Posted on by

The play Clyboune Park is on Broadway and just won a 2012 Tony Award for Best Play. In going from Act 1 to Act 2, the play shifts from a house in 1959 to the same home 50 years later that is ripe for a McMansion teardown:

That’s because Clybourne Park is a biting, funny riff on Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play A Raisin in the Sun, one that takes place in the house that Hansberry’s African-American characters purchase in an otherwise all-white neighborhood. It’s talked about, but never seen, in her play, but it’s the fulcrum of the conversations in Clybourne Park.

“The first act is in 1959, in sort of an Eisenhower-era middle class/working class household,” Ostling explains. “The people are packing up to move. And in the second act, it’s 2009. The neighborhood sort of went down, the house is trashed, and they’re preparing to raze it and build a McMansion. So it’s really two completely different sets.”

In the first act, the set has a cozy, lived-in feel — from the flowery 1950s wallpaper to the period doorknobs. When the curtain rises for Act 2, most of the details have changed significantly.

“All the woodwork is painted over,” Ostling says. “The front door has been replaced — because we were thinking, you know, they probably wanted more security, so that nice wood-and-glass front door is replaced with a security door that has some serious bolts in it.”

During intermission, the set has to be changed very, very quickly; a crew of five swings walls in a highly coordinated intermission ballet. When they first rehearsed the changeover, it took 30 or 40 minutes. Now, Ostling says, “We’re not waiting for the crew at all. We’re waiting for people to go to the bathroom!”

The home may be the same but much has changed between 1959 and 2009, both in American neighborhoods as in what Americans expect in their interiors. I would be interested to see what the “ready to be razed for a McMansion” interior look is these days – probably not much granite and stainless steel.

I’ve always been intrigued by how homes are portrayed on TV, in movies, and in plays. On one hand, they are typically depicted as “average” places. Of course, this look is very staged and I’m not sure these homes really look like typical homes. Yet, they always feel a little strange already as you know they are often cutaway all along one angle to allow for cameras. You know what this is like if you have seen a play or gone on a TV set where the interior looks a little familiar but is completely open with plenty of room for cameras and lights.