Tag Archives: McMansions

Trading Spaces avoided McMansions

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A Washington Post review of the new Trading Spaces emphasizes the smaller spaces the show worked with:

Though it was technically impossible to indict the cable channels — especially HGTV — for their role in the quick-mortgage fantasia, the connections were plain to see: the schedule was (and still is) littered with shows that spur house envy, encouraging viewers to live in a constant state of renovation, makeover and upgrade. Homeownership became the highest expression of citizenship, while decor became the chief signifier of class. “Trading Spaces,” which premiered in 2000, helped ignite that craze, making it safe to waste entire Saturday afternoons watching home-improvement shows. Yet it hardly deserves all (or any) of the blame.

The show returns Saturday (with a long reunion special preceding it), essentially unchanged and contagiously giddy, full of its usual surprises and reveals. Looking at the first of eight new episodes, one is reminded of “Trading Space’s” conceptual purity: It never goaded anyone into ditching their old house for an open-floor-plan, granite-countertop McMansion beyond their means. Its core principles were to work with what you have, on a restrained budget. It preached a DIY ethic, asking couples to swap houses and redo a room, aided (some would say strong-armed) by a crafty professional designer and carpenter.

A few quick thoughts:

  1. The scale of renovation on Trading Spaces is much more doable for the average American homeowner compared to the whole house makeovers on many other shows. How many people have the budget to do multiple rooms, particularly creating all new kitchens or master bathrooms? Or, who has the time to hand over their house for weeks as opposed to doing renovations over a weekend?
  2. The rooms on Trading Spaces tend to be much more varied than the typical home shows that often emphasize an expansive kitchen and open concept first floor. The HGTV shows encourage a homogenous style, moving from stainless steel appliances and granite countertops to shiplap, white cabinets, and open shelving.  American homes tend to be unique inside, particularly in certain rooms where people to have eclectic styles and uses.
  3. While the review above does not blame Trading Spaces for the larger shows to come, once you on television continue (1) glorifying the single-family home as the expression of individual tastes (a long-standing American tradition) plus (2) suggesting that people should be renovating their homes (part of the shift from living in homes to seeing homes as investments), is it a slippery slope to large-scale renovations in big houses?

On the whole, there is a lot that could be said from the move from Bob Villa to Trading Spaces to House Hunters and Property Brothers alongside shifts in American housing. Of course, it is hard to make causal arguments about how watching these shows directly changes behaviors.

McMansion as a symbol of wealth in America

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A Washington Post review of a new book on social class suggests McMansions help illustrate class differences:

Its influence begins before birth and holds sway beyond the grave. It can determine who goes to prison and who goes to the Ivy League, who drinks bottled prestige water and who swigs from a foul tap, who rents rooms and who rattles around in a McMansion…

Fraser uses iconic events, documents and images from American history as his raw material for six essays on why class matters. The reality of class — not just patterns of consumption and markers of wealth and privilege, but raw power — had largely been expunged from our national vocabulary by political elites pushing the American Dream, he argues. But the dirty secret of class emerged a decade or so ago in the unequal wreckage of the global financial meltdown, he contends.

Throughout the use of the word McMansion from the late 1990s to today, it has often been used in this way: to symbolize the wealthy in America who can purchase and live in large new homes. At the same time, it is a little less clear what strata of Americans can live in McMansions. Is this the top 20%? The 1%? The “Dream Hoarders“? This depends somewhat on the metropolitan region as McMansions can differ significantly in size and price but I would guess McMansions are for those in the top 10-30% of American earners. Those who earn less cannot live in such a home while those above that level would not not want to be associated with McMansions and/or have enough resources to access even better housing.

At a broader level, where one can live is an excellent marker of social class: it hints at the wealth the homeowner has (it takes a certain level of wealth to purchase any home), the neighborhood or community in which the home is in hints at relative status, and the size and features of the housing is often taken to say much about the resident. A McMansion owner has a certain lifestyle and status.

Invasion of McMansions in Kirkwood, Missouri

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Teardown McMansions have infiltrated an older neighborhood in a well-off St. Louis suburb:

Residents said not only are smaller historic homes getting wiped out in the process, but the large houses are causing problems for some of their next-door neighbors…

The one next door to her on Cleveland Avenue was erected last year and is nearly twice the size of the original home. It’s a four-bedroom home on the market for more than $800,000.

She said it’s created a real problem for her. The new home’s rain runoff has turned her driveway into a lake…

The city says the builders have followed all the community’s guidelines:

“…The new house on this site sits closer to the neighbor’s driveway, which may explain the confusion. Yes, the new home was built per permit specifications. The City requires the contractor to have the top of the foundation surveyed prior to beginning framing. The floor system is then verified to determine that the finished floor height is as allowed.

A follow-up story from several days later says the new McMansions are affecting more houses:

Since the homes were built around 2015, Reed said her mother’s basement has constantly been flooded and her backyard has turned into a swamp…

The ITeam recently discovered a Kirkwood ordinance that said new developments cannot cause water run-off problems for surrounding properties.

But attorney Paul G. Henry said getting the city to enforce it could be difficult…

We repeatedly asked Kirkwood officials about why they don’t appear to be enforcing their own ordinance but they declined to answer. Instead, they recommended that we file an information request.

Such issues could put a suburb in a sticky situation: should it protect the properties of elderly citizens who have lived in the community for a long time or allow new property owners to construct homes to their liking? Whose property rights prevail? There is probably some middle ground here where the teardowns can be regulated in such a way to provide a little protection to neighbors (whether this involves water issues or residents are concerned about the changing character of their neighborhoods) but these regulations could take some time to discuss and enact.

Tastefully painting the large interior of a McMansion

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Decorating the cavernous interior of a McMansion could require some special advice:

Q: I’d like to do some interior painting and I’m not sure about colors. I live in what would be described as a “McMansion” about 20 years old, and the rooms are all very large with cathedral or high ceilings. All of the rooms, including the kitchen, have some form of white/beige/tan coloring, but I would like to paint the living and dining rooms an actual color. But is this appropriate for a contemporary home? Both rooms sit on either side of a cathedral foyer, which we would like to keep in the beige family. Will this look strange to have color, and should it only be lighter shades? Should the inner archways be beige like the foyer or the color of the room you are entering?

A: Homes like yours offer a lot of challenges but some fun creative opportunities as well. Balancing the flow between rooms is important, along with finding ways to make each space interesting, distinct and comfortable. As you noticed, it can be hard to figure out where to start and stop a color on the walls when all the rooms flow together!

One idea is to keep the foyer, its ceilings and the archways light in color to emphasize the big, airy and dramatic entryway. I like your idea of neutral, consider a warm white or light sand color. Painting the adjacent rooms in slightly darker, warmer versions of the foyer color will help make them feel inviting. Since the basic color is the same, you’ll achieve continuity.

Throughout the foyer and other rooms, accent with more colors at eye level and below. The furniture upholstery can be darker versions of the wall colors or coordinating neutrals. Throw pillows, art and accessories can be bolder, so you can change them out more often. And tie the draperies and window treatments in with the wall color of that room.

It is unusual for a homeowner to publicly admit to owning a McMansion but it does help convey information about this home. It sounds like the common two-story, large foyer. Additionally, the colors sound like they could be straight out of a standard set of builder colors intended to provide a neutral palette to attract potential buyers.

Typically, the critique of garish McMansions emphasizes the outside as this is what is easily viewed by the public. Less attention is devoted to the interior. (This is aside from McMansion Hell which also dissects McMansion interiors.) Can a well-done interior offset bad exterior architecture? Can tasteful paint and furnishings provide a stylish and comfortable interior that is hidden from the outside world? For the typical McMansion owner, they must not see the interior as a waste of resources or unnecessary space but rather something desirable and maybe even exciting. McMansions are certainly big – meaning they can hold lots of things – but they also have to be homes on the interior for people to live there for years.

Back to the SUV and McMansion comparisons

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With a stronger economy, it may be time now again to link McMansions and SUVs. Here is one review of “gargantuan SUVs” or “extra-large luxury SUVs”:

But when you drive one like the new 2018 Lincoln Navigator (starting at $73,250), you start to understand why these whales of the highway are a rare yet growing subgenome of the SUV originally created in the heady days of the late ’90s. (Sales were up 5 percent in 2017.) They have become less McMansion, less family trucksters gussied up in questionable leather and wood veneers, and more bespoke luxury condo—the mobile living room for sophisticates with a growing brood that they always tried to be.

Space is a luxury, sure. But the stretch-your-legs-out room and cushy rear-seat experience that would normally require a first-class Emirates ticket? That’s a rare kind of decadence on the road that the Navigator handles with surprising grace. The interior is a treat for grown-ups (copious soundproofing, massage seats) and their kids (it can take up to ten WiFi connections).

Three quick thoughts:

  1. There is still an emphasis on space in these comparisons. SUVs and McMansions both provide significant amounts of room compared to the typical vehicle or home.
  2. Both are luxury goods that are a step up from the normal experience. Yet, the line that these newer SUVs are less McMansion and more luxury condo suggests their opulence is more acceptable. Indeed, it is okay to spend a lot of money for a flashy urban condo while the suburban McMansion is still looked down upon.
  3. Are we sure that the SUV and McMansion are the mass consumer goods that mark this era (roughly late 1990s to now) of American life? To critics, they represent wasted resources as well as American conspicuous consumption. The cell phone becomes popular over this time period but not until the smartphone of the late 2000s does it reach its peak.

I will keep looking for the comparisons of SUVs and McMansions. At the least, they suggest the economy is back to the point where more Americans are making or considering these purchases.

Patterns across the ten metro areas with the most big homes

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While the article I discussed yesterday did not provide a helpful definition of a McMansion, it did provide five trends regarding which metropolitan areas had the largest homes:

Supersize trend No. 1: Outdoorsy types need plenty of space

Supersize trend No. 2: Seeking space in the suburbs

Supersize trend No. 3: Southern cities are churning out jobs and big homes

Supersize trend No. 4: Big homes are all that’s left in tight Midwestern markets

Supersize trend No. 5: Tech hubs + deep pocked buyers = more McMansions available

And, like the McMansion definition, another important caveat:

And if it wasn’t for the fact that we limited our ranking to one housing market per state, Colorado and Utah would’ve had all five top metros.

And a third caveat: this is based on only homes that are on the market.

Even with these significant limitations, I wonder if an analysis could reveal some underlying patterns behind these noteworthy metropolitan areas:

  1. They have a growing population and thus a growing stock of larger, new homes, particularly in suburbs.
  2. They have relatively low housing prices paired with enough higher income jobs. (Seattle and Portland are the ones that stick out here but perhaps this is relative: those same buyers could find higher prices in the Bay Area, LA, Vancouver, etc.)
  3. These places have looser zoning restrictions on the whole that allows for more and/or quick construction. (I imagine there is some variation in these top 10 places. Portland and Bridgeport, for example, likely have some tight restrictions compared to an Indianopolis or Provo.)

This could be worth pursuing though the data needs to provide a more complete picture of the housing stock.

List of cities with the most McMansions does not actually look at McMansions

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Realtor.com asks an intriguing question involving McMansions – “So which are America’s housing markets with the biggest cribs, and why?” – but then does not follow through because of a limited definition of which homes count as McMansions:

We sifted through realtor.com listings to figure out which of the 150 largest metros had the highest percentage of homes on the market that are 3,000 square feet and above. (The average square footage of a new single family home is 2,627, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.) Sure, this includes some tasteful, large homes and legit mansions. But it was impossible to separate those from the McMansions—it’s rare to see the word “tacky” in a home listing.

There are plenty of big homes in the United States – the median square footage of a new home is over 2,400 square feet – but not all big homes are McMansions. The article provides a different definition for McMansions than the one they actually use with the data:

The imposing, ostentatious structures looming over surprisingly wee plots of land. The crazily mismatched architectural styles. The hipped roofs, gabled roofs, and pyramidal roofs—all on the same house! The bank columns. The front yard Romanesque fountains. The puzzling profusion of window sizes and types. The gigantic, two-story front doors.

I can understand how the real estate listings do not easily allow for the easy categorization of homes as McMansions. Few, if any, homeowners and realtors want to advertise their homes using such a pejorative term. Yet, if you are going to use a headline involving McMansions and then talk about the poor architecture of McMansions, then your measure should take these features into account.

How might this be done? A few ideas:

  1. Take random samples within each metropolitan area and look for specific features.
  2. Do a survey of realtors, architects, and others who might be able to identify McMansions to get their sense of how many McMansions are in particular areas.
  3. Train a computer program to scan thousands of images of homes for sale and determine whether the homes are McMansions or not. (The coding scheme would be very similar to the one used in #1.)

These approaches are not necessarily easy but would be essential for actually getting at which AMerican cities have teh most McMansions.

For a more complete definition of a McMansion – including but also beyond their size and architecture, see my summary here.

Locating a supersized home for the young and wealthy

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A recent report from Luxury Portfolio International suggests some young wealthy Americans want giant houses:

About 40% of wealthy younger buyers — those aged 25 to 49 — told real estate broker Luxury Portfolio International they hope to own a house larger than 10,000 square feet, long considered the upper range for McMansions, in a survey published this week. Nearly a quarter — 23% — said they want a home 20,000 square feet or larger.

If you didn’t think people bought houses that big, you’re kind of right. The average U.S. home size was about 2,400 square feet in 2016, according to government data. The survey’s respondents, who were an average of 37 years old with assets of $1 million or more, want a house about eight times that size.

Need help picturing that? Think four times the size of Kendall Jenner’s $8.55 million Los Angeles spread or about the size of Taylor Swift’s Rhode Island estate and DJ Khaled’s Florida mansion — combined.

And the size of their desired home differs quite a bit from what older Americans with wealth want:

ElbowRoomBloombergGraphic

As the first article above notes, these are not just large homes: they are supersized homes. Beyond following some celebrity model or some cultural image of what constitutes a significant home, I wonder if this is also affected by where these different generations want to live. To have such a large home, an owner probably needs a sizable property in a more suburban setting. In contrast, those 50+ and wealthy may prefer smaller places but in urban centers. Those city homes or condos or penthouses may not be much cheaper or any cheaper but they certainly are connected to a different kind of life compared to the suburban estate.

Don’t forget that American residents can collectively help decide what houses mean for Americans

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Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell ends a commentary piece several months ago by arguing Americans need to redefine the meaning of the home:

We need a cultural re-examination of what a home should do for us. Are we building our homes to cater to the communal needs of a family or to accommodate items or signifiers that will impress others? Will a home inspire its inhabitants to spend time with one another or isolate themselves in myriad rooms? Are we building a home to live in, or are we preoccupied with the idea of selling it even before the first brick is laid? Do we want to remodel or redecorate, or do we feel we have to because we’re constantly flooded with content that makes us feel inadequate if we don’t?

It’s time we as space-inhabiters break this unsustainable, unnecessary, and wasteful cultural cycle of consumption and reclaim our homes as our proverbial rocks, the spaces that make us feel safe and content. Who gave industry-funded media like HGTV or Houzz the right to dictate the proper and best ways to inhabit our spaces, to ridicule or diagnose as wrong those of us who lack the desire or the means to constantly consume in precisely way they want us to? A home isn’t an investment vehicle where cash goes in and more cash comes out, or the “After” segment of a television show. A home is, above all, an intimate, personal place; a haven where our intricate lives as human beings unfold. Grey paint be damned.

This names several actors who are defining what Americans want in homes. This includes:

-Media like HGTV.

-The housing industry.

Both certainly have power and influence. The housing industry through the National Association of Home Builders has a powerful lobbying presence. Just see their actions in the latest debates over the mortgage interest deduction. For decades, various media outlets have pushed the image of single-family homes filled with consumer goods; they needs advertisers after all. HGTV has a limited audience but their viewers may be the same upper-middle class Americans that feel like they are not doing well and are very vocal about this.

But these are not the only actors influencing what Americans think of homes. This list should also include:

-The government.

-American residents.

Histories of how the American suburbs developed in addition to overviews of federal housing policy (see this recent example) suggest that federal government in the last century or so is set up to help people obtain homes in the suburbs.

Often missing in these analyses is the role of American residents themselves. What kinds of homes do they truly want? More Marxist analyses suggest Americans have been duped or led into wanting large homes in a capitalist system. Thus, we should help Americans find homes that truly fit their needs rather than mindlessly giving in to what the housing industry and government want them to have. (Wagner’s paragraphs above sound very similar to Sarah Susanka arguments in The Not-So-Big House.) “Re-claim our homes” could involve fighting back against the capitalist system that insists our homes are true markers of who we are (and distracts us from the real issues at hand). In contrast, historian Jon Teaford suggests these sorts of homes are what Americans do truly want because they highly value freedom and individualism. Others like Joel Kotkin have made similar arguments: Americans keep moving to the suburbs because they like them, not because they are forced into them or are not smart enough to fight the system.

Regardless of where these ideas about homes came from (and it includes a mix of institutions as well as ideologies), American residents still have the ability to reject the typical narratives about single-family homes. They do often have options available to them. What kind of home they chose is a very consequential decision. And, perhaps even better, this does not have to be an individual effort or solely about personal empowerment: Americans could collectively vote for candidates and parties that would have a different image of housing. But, oddly enough, housing rarely comes up in national politics and local politics seems full of zoning and housing disputes but few large-scale efforts to provide alternatives. If Americans want housing options to change, they do not have to just turn off HGTV; at both the federal and local level, they should vote accordingly and/or insist that political candidates talk about these issues.

Ideologies and behaviors regarding housing do not just happen: they develop over time and involve a multitude of actors. To have a new vision of housing in America will likely take decades of sustained effort within multiple structures and institutions. These are not new issues; those opposed to McMansions today are related to those opposed to the mass suburbs of the 1950s and to the social reformers of the early decades of the 1900s who promoted public housing. The efforts can be top-down – changes need to be made at the highest levels – but could be more effective if they start at the bottom – with average voters – who demand change of businesses and governments.

Is the $11k playhouse for children a mansion or a McMansion?

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The title of this expensive children’s playhouse – $11,160 on Amazon – is the “Grand Mansion Portico Playhouse.” Although it is sized for children, is it more of a mansion or McMansion?

On the mansion side:

-Lots of space compared to the typical playhouse.

-Expensive. How many people can afford such a playhouse for their kids?

-The architectural features are symmetrical and not excessively garish.

On the McMansion side:

-The architectural features are only on the front and are likely meant to impress those looking only at the front of the house. (There is nothing on the sides and an adult-sized French door in the back.)

-Two story foyer in the front. (It appears the interior is open two stories throughout the house.)

-An unfinished interior. Not even drywall. This echoes the stories of homeowners putting all the money into a big home and not being able to furnish it.

Summary:

In the end, I would vote this playhouse a mansion because of its price and size. If there was a $500-$1,000 playhouse on the market, that might count as the McMansion of the children’s playhouse world.

Side note: it would be interesting to see the reaction of children if they were presented with this fully constructed abode on Christmas morning.

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