Tag Archives: McMansions

Successful people want to own tiny cabins

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The oversized house may be less appealing to the wealthy compared to owning a small cabin:

McMansions used to be one supersize symbol of the American dream, but these days many of our country’s most celebrated businesspeople see success more diminutively: in the form of a cabin. Preferably one on the smaller side, made of recycled wood, as technology-free as possible. Ironically, many of the cabin’s great champions are tech giants.

One such champion is Zach Klein, co-founder of Vimeo, whose Cabin Porn Tumblr blog garnered enough followers to warrant a book of the same name, one The New York Times has been musing over.

“The cabin and the shack are ideal launchpads for remarkable lives but lately they’ve become homes to aspire to—particularly for overburdened types whose acquisitive binging has made them want to purge,” the Times noted.

Think of these simple spaces as an architectural panacea. “Driven mad by status anxiety? Addled by technology? Bankrupted by consumerism? Then shrink your footprint. Go minimalist. Get free,” the Times said.

Sounds like trading one status symbol for another: moving from the image of wealth and grandiosity with the large McMansion to an interest in getting away from it all. Of course, the small cabin is simply another luxury for the wealthy who can escape to it when they please and then return to their other expensive housing. Instead of spending money to show that one can afford the wasteful use (conspicuous consumption), now it is more desirable to forgo the luxuries of a house for a short time to show that one can. And we could ask: what kind of world do we live in where people have to regularly spend large amounts of money to escape from their everyday lives?

Another downside: McMansions threaten trees

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McMansion critics may have another argument at their disposal: constructing McMansions may often require removing trees.

About 2,000 street trees, or trees near Los Angeles roadways, are removed annually, according to Los Angeles City Hall leaders.

The trees are removed in some cases because of disease or death, but in other instances, they’re taken down because of the construction of so-called McMansions.

Concerned about the loss of trees at the hands of developers, a City Council committee called for a report back on new policies for the removal of street trees…

With some tear-downs, a “double driveway is needed where one used to be sufficient,” she said, resulting in the loss of a tree.

This doesn’t seem like that many trees, particularly since there could be multiple reasons behind the removal of street trees. Yet, losing trees could be another blow dealt by teardown McMansions to neighbors: not only will the new home fill up the lot and look out of place with nearby homes, it will require losing some of the greenery that residents tend to like. This is probably less about nature and more about appearances and quality of life where mature trees on residential properties lend gravitas and pleasant barriers between the street and sidewalks, lawns, and homes.

If the problem is the larger driveways for the new large homes, it would be interesting to see how Los Angeles regulates their width. Is there a ratio or size that could be invoked to fit all kinds of situations?

How about this crazy idea: builders of McMansions, teardowns or otherwise, should spend a little bit more money and cover their properties with decent-sized trees. Neighbors and others may still not like the house but who can argue with a number of new trees?

The “Reincarnated McMansion Project” taking on big issues

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The Reincarnated McMansion Project of an Australian artist keeps developing:

His plan is simple enough: buy one giant, carbon-hungry McMansion on more than 800 square metres of land and carefully demolish the brick veneer home to rebuild four sustainable, affordable and architecturally designed townhouses for $450,000 each – less than half Sydney’s $1 million median house price…

Gallois’ dream is to create a company or strata-titled commune where like-minded “model citizens” embrace sustainable living rather than climbing the profit-centric property ladder…

The community-funded project has attracted sponsors and some of Australia’s best environmental architects – including Tone Wheeler, who designed the eco house on reality TV show Big Brother – which is why the price tag is so reasonable.

“We have raised half the money and we want one or two more families with like-minded values to register their interest,” Gallois said.

The price tag could be even cheaper if there was a family currently living in a McMansion who wanted to join the project and downsize into one of the eco-townhouses, which feature greywater treatment, a shared laundry and “features that save space and are good for the environment”.

Gallois is taking aim at several issues at once: the growing size of Australian homes, limiting the carbon footprint and energy use for single-family units, avoiding the “profit-centric property ladder,” and finding alternative funding to make this possible. It will likely take some time to do all of this; the third and fourth ones seem more difficult to me while the first two are already prompting a number of people in the United States and Australia to consider other options. The market for smaller homes may be growing as people consume differently and both retiring residents and younger people want some smaller options. Being more energy-efficient is more attractive with rising energy bills and it isn’t too hard to do some simple things in newer homes that could have positive long-term consequences. But, how do you get buyers to see their homes differently such as moving away from “the most bang for your buck” and having lots of extra space for things that owners might need? Or to find large enough funding sources to do this on a bigger scale when it may be more profitable to develop, build, and sell McMansions?

See an earlier June 2015 post on the project here.

All whites fleeing minorities bought McMansions?

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In an article about the reconcentration of poverty, the journalist includes this description of how white residents responded to more minorities moving to the suburbs:

As newly middle-class minorities moved to inner suburbs, though, the mostly white residents of those suburbs moved further away, buying up the McMansions that were being built at a rapid pace. This acceleration of white flight was especially problematic in Rust Belt towns that didn’t experience the economic boom of the mid-2000s. They were watching manufacturing and jobs move overseas.

The use of McMansions is interesting here. It could be doing three things:

1. It could simply be referring to larger houses. The size of new American homes has increased in recent decades and McMansions are often held up as the exemplar of this.

2. It could be shorthand for suburban sprawl. McMansions are often viewed as emblematic of big lots and expensive houses in whiter communities. Using the phrase McMansion here could reinforce the idea that all wealthy suburbanites live in McMansions.

3. This could be more negative as substituting “large homes” for “McMansions” doesn’t carry the same kind of negative connotations.

And for the data on the number of Americans living in neighborhoods where more than 40% of residents are under the poverty line:

The number of people living in high-poverty areas—defined as census tracts where 40 percent or more of families have income levels below the federal poverty threshold—nearly doubled between 2000 and 2013, to 13.8 million from 7.2 million, according to a new analysis of census data by Paul Jargowsky, a public-policy professor at Rutgers University-Camden and a fellow at The Century Foundation. That’s the highest number of Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods ever recorded.

Not a good trend.

The odd McMansions of Mill Basin, Brooklyn

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Some recent McMansions in the Mill Basin neighborhood in Brooklyn caught the eye of a photographer:

Photographer Nate Dorr recently shot some of the more interesting edifices in the neighborhood, noting that some of the architecture seems to come from “a sculptural confusion of design elements that suggests the owners just opted to combine all possibilities in one facade rather than make any attempt to decide between them.” And that pretty much sums up the look of the area…

This is indeed a unique collection as well as a apt description. Perhaps the eclectic mishmash of styles actually creates its own unifying aesthetic? Hip neighborhoods can make this work – artists and creative types can’t be confined – but perhaps not wealthy ones.

A 1991 New York Times article suggests the waterfront property attracts the wealthy:

Waterfront houses eclipse these in cost — up to $4 million — and luxury. More than 200 have their own docks and a few have elevators. One, on National Drive, has a six-car garage and on Indiana Place stands a three-story house with an all-glass facade. Such high-profile houses have been built or bought by politicians, restaurateurs, physicians and, reportedly, leaders of organized crime.

An interesting outcome for a neighborhood with history dating back to the 1620s.

NYT crossword: “I merely bought myself a McMansion, and now I’m ___!”

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I don’t know how often McMansions appear in crossword puzzles but here is a recent example from the New York Times:

The crossword clue for today new york times crossword puzzle is I merely bought myself a McMansion, and now I’m ___! , and the right or the best answer for I merely bought myself a McMansion, and now I’m ___! is :

INTHEBIGHOUSE

Could also work with “I just walked into the University of Michigan football stadium, and now I’m ___!”

See the full solved puzzle here. And clue here is playing off the theme of staying in jail:

THEME: hoosegow —  fill in the blank clues that treat literally some figurative terms for being in prison. All clues begin “I merely…” and end “… and now I’m ___!,” the idea being that the speaker is talking as if he’s been put in prison for doing something, when the prison term is actually just a literal description of what the speaker was doing.

If intended this way, this would fit how many McMansion critics might feel about having to live in such a house…

McMansions redeemed by multigenerational households?

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At the end of an article on the rise of McMansion sized new homes, here is a suggestion that who purchases such homes might be changing:

The culture of the McMansion itself could be changing, too. As minorities and multigenerational households drive growth in the cities and suburbs where construction is most abundant, buyers may want larger homes not so much out of a lust for space but to have enough room for their families.

”We’re going to have much more diverse buyers coming into the market,” Hepp says. “Developers are adjusting to [multigenerational housing]. In some cultures it’s quite normal to have different generations living under the same roof.”

If this comes to pass, would it change the negative reputation McMansions have? Is it more acceptable to have large households in such homes compared to having “a lust for space”? The houses would still be the same: large, architecturally odd, part of suburban sprawl, perhaps much larger than other nearby properties. Yet, having more residents would cut down on their inefficiency and they might be more cost efficient.

Another complication is the mixing of race, ethnicity, and class in this possible trend. Would neighbors have more to object to if they dislike the McMansion as well as the new groups of people moving into the community?

My quick prediction: this trend wouldn’t redeem the McMansion for many of its critics but they do provide an interesting option for larger households.

“The Architecture of American Houses” in one poster

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A new poster covers over 400 years of residential architecture in the United States:

https://i0.wp.com/mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/p-americanhouses_fpo1.png

In all, the new poster features 121 hand-drawn American homes divided up into seven primary categories—Colonial, Folk/Vernacular, Romantic, Victorian, Eclectic, Modern, Neo-Eclectic—and 40 subdivisions, such as Italian Renaissance Revival, Ranch, and the dreaded McMansion.

Just mail me a copy and I will put it on the wall in my office. Three quick thoughts on the styles depicted:

1. I don’t see the split-level. Of course, it could be built in a variety of these styles but it is a unique arrangement that is common in many suburban areas.

2. The McMansion is at the bottom left as a separate category and it looks appropriately large, out of proportion, and multi-gabled. Yet, how different is it from the other “new traditional designs” on the rest of the bottom row? The “new traditionals” depicted here are more architecturally pure but they are similarly large. How much architectural mismash qualifies a house to be a McMansion? And can’t a architecturally accurate yet overly large, particularly if a teardown, still be considered a McMansion?

3. The subdivision grouping idea is an interesting one as it implies certain kinds of homes are found together. This probably is often the case as subdivisions typically have a limited number of designs and are built within a several year stretch. Yet, some places may not match this due to longer development spans (imagine a place with larger lots initially that are later broken up and built on) or denser urban areas where there is more construction and housing turnover.

Australian architects to demolish McMansions, reuse materials for multiple homes

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Three Australian architects have plans to create multiple, more sustainable homes out of McMansions:

The project aims to demolish existing McMansions which have seen better days and reuse as much of the materials as possible – up to 80 per cent – to build between two and four new homes on the site using minimal new materials and sustainable practices.

Mr Gallois said the project aimed to show how housing could be more affordable and could also deliver zero emissions green homes…

“In the face of Sydney’s housing affordability crisis, the Reincarnated McMansion Project provides a real solution to the financial challenges of owning a home in Sydney in 2015,’’ he said…

Australia has some of the biggest homes in the world and the largest CO2 footprint per capita in the world so the aim was to work on both of these issues.

While many don’t like McMansions, few have developed plans of what to do with the many that have already exist. This sounds interesting: find ways to reuse the materials (cuts down on a lot of waste) and split the property into multiple single-family homes (denser housing but still lets people own single-family homes). I’m not sure there are many redevelopment projects that use a lot of the demolished materials – perhaps it requires detailed planning or builders and architects want to start with a blank slate rather than be constrained by older materials.

I wonder how neighbors would view these projects. In a neighborhood full of McMansions, would a group of smaller homes be met with approval? Teardown McMansions in particular prompt criticism because they interrupt the existing aesthetic of a neighborhood. Plus, homeowners want houses nearby to match their housing value, not units that provide less space and drive down prices. Would would the prices be for these new homes and what kind of architecture would they feature?

McMansion as a term went from “funny criticism” to “spiteful slur”

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A Denver resident suggests the term McMansion has become too broad to be useful:

Regarding McMansions, this term originally meant very large tract houses that pretend to be grander than their vapid finishes should allow. They are mass-produced like hamburgers with no understanding of taste or style. Now McMansion has morphed into any big house no matter its utility or architectural worth. A funny criticism has turned into a spiteful slur.

An interesting observation. The term arose in the 1990s and its “Mc” prefix suggested a mass produced item. This was not necessarily a new critique of housing; the postwar housing boom also gave birth to large developers – like Levitt and Sons – and tract homes became a major part of suburban critiques (see the song “Little Boxes“). And the McDonaldization of the world was in full swing across a range of industries.

Yet, today calling a home a McMansion is definitely not positive and tends to lead to animosity among neighbors (a recent example here). Big houses invite though own criticisms – waste of resources, unnecessary space, larger than nearby homes – though what exactly qualifies is unclear. You can’t find too many defenders of McMansions.

Does this suggest the term has outlived its usefulness?