Tag Archives: McMansions

Photographing suburban McMansions around the world

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See pictures of large suburban homes around the world as well as read insights about the developments from the photographer:

After six years of travel to five different continents, Adolfsson has published Suburbia Gone Wild, a new photography book that goes in and around the model homes of wealthy cul-de-sacs in cities like Bangalore, Moscow, and Cairo. His discoveries reveal a world that continues to homogenize around emerging clusters of wealth aspiring to a particularly American brand of suburban life.

It wasn’t always easy for Adolfsson to capture these oddly beautiful shots of perfectly arranged kitchen pantries and opulent living rooms. His method was to photograph the model homes inside these developments, hiring locals to pretend to be a significant other who would then distract sales reps as he snuck off to take pictures around the house…

This copy+paste behavior is a result of America’s cultural dominance over the past five decades, exported through soap operas, movies, and magazines. I also think that the “lifestyle” fills a cultural gap as many of these countries didn’t have an upper middle class until recently and haven’t established a strong identity for this growing class yet…

I came to the realization that many of the residents living in these suburbs share a common identity with residents living in similar communities around the world, whether it’s Bangkok, Cairo, Moscow or São Paulo, than they do with their fellow countrymen living outside the gates of these suburbs. I think this is the beginning of a huge global shift where national identity is becoming less relevant.

Another cultural export of the United States of America.

I like the connection to a global/Americanized/suburbanized mentality. At the same time, this is only available to an upper-income section of global society so this is a limited group. It could get a lot more interesting if these people from around the world started gathering and interacting on a more consistent basis. Perhaps this is already happening in tourist spots, conferences, places of consumption (from retail to media), or corporate offices.

There would be a lot of room for research on how this global/suburban identity then meshes with more local identities. Critics have argued that suburbs within America have their own culture, full of everything from conformity to individualism (depending on which critic you listen to over the last six decades). But, the United States is now a suburban nation so the suburban identity is quite common and is expressed all over the place from movies to TV to books to politics. It would be a lot different in countries without an established suburban ethos.

Shift from buying big homes to upgrading fixtures

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I’ve suspected this for quite a while: here is some evidence Americans have moved past purchasing large homes, McMansions if you will, and are instead paying more for the finer touches in their homes.

Beginning next month, Majestic Building Products, a longtime wholesale supplier to companies such as Pulte Homes and Marriott International, is opening its showroom to the public.

Owner Jeff Jenkins said he is expanding the Leesburg-based company to keep up with growing demand for more-customized fixtures — ranging from bathroom mirrors to closet shelves.

“The whole philosophy has changed,” said Jenkins, who founded the company in 1989. “Ten years ago, everybody was out buying McMansions. People don’t care about having an 8,000-square-foot house anymore. They’re more interested in upgrading the little things.”

Those little things — door hinges, towel holders and shower doors — bring in about $9 million in annual revenue for the company. Jenkins said he expects sales to rise an extra 20 percent in the next year.

This could be viewed as a positive sign by those who decry the purchase of unnecessarily large homes: more Americans are paying attention to the interiors of their homes and making them enjoyable. Instead of focusing on size and its impressiveness and functionality, customizing the fixtures allows owners to focus more on their own personal interests and develop a home that more closely reflects their own tastes. This could be viewed as a shift away from mass-production to owners taking more responsibility and interest in their own settings.

On the other hand, focusing on the fixtures simply transfers the consumption from the larger issue of the home to the innumerable upgrades that could be made within a home. Think granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, hundreds of floor options, faucets, paint colors, and on and on. Plenty of money is still being spent on housing but instead of it going for new homes, it goes into new furnishings. As the article suggests later, the company is opening their showroom in part to help counter the fluctuations of the housing market and ensure a steady revenue stream. Can’t purchase the bigger or newer home you dream about? Instead, put that money into your current setting.

If this is all the case – and there is plenty of evidence that the new housing market is still sluggish – this hints at a possible large shift in American housing. Rather than being driven by housing starts and new development, perhaps the future in a tighter economic market is in premium fixtures and more customization of existing homes to the tastes of their current owners.

McMansions pass away quickly like reality stars, unlike stone buildings

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McMansions are often assumed to a passing phenomenon. See this quote from the TV show House of Cards:

“Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts fallin’ apart after 10 years,” Spacey’s character, Rep. Francis “Frank” Underwood (D-Antebellumville), tells us in an on-again off-again honeysuckle accent. “Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries.”

Or this description of a common path of reality stars: becoming famous and buying a McMansion.

Anyone remember what happened when that other TLC reality show about a big family got really, really popular? Jon and Kate Plus Eight quickly evolved: In later seasons, there was a new McMansion for the family, and a posh new look for Kate. By all accounts, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo could have followed the same trajectory. According to TMZ, the network has raised their salary from $5,000 and $7,000 an episode at the beginning of the series to “somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 an episode.” But the extra cash hasn’t changed the family’s priorities.

For one thing, a bigger house was apparently in the offing, too. “We’re told TLC even offered to help the family find a somewhat larger, more secure home, but June refused,” said TMZ. “She said she wanted to stay in the house because she makes a big deal over Christmas — decorating the house for the community. June is heavily involved in her town.” Thus Season 2 takes place in and around their same little house with the beat-up furniture and the one bathroom.

Both quotes above discuss the notion that McMansions won’t last long. It pits modern spec houses against solid stone buildings. In reality, many homes in the US are not the stone variety. Plus, we don’t quite know how McMansions will stand up in the long run. Barring natural disasters, humans can be pretty resourceful with existing structures if they want to. The link to reality stars is quite clever; the implication is these are stars who will burn brightly, purchase their McMansions, and then burn out, never to be heard from again. McMansions have more staying power than these reality stars, if just by the number of such homes that have been built.

McMansions are new in the sense that the word didn’t really emerge in popular usage until the late 1990s. These houses simply haven’t been around that long so they are newer luxury items. On the other hand, McMansions seem to have become another part of the long-running battle between old and new money. McMansion can then be a derogatory term thrown at the nouveau riche who don’t have the proper social standing to compete with old money.

All together, there is a temporal dimension to the use of the term McMansion. Critics hope they are a passing fad. Others suggest they are making a comeback or larger homes are simply what Americans desire. Perhaps we need a new popular form of housing to replace the McMansion…

A room by room look at the McMansion on The Sopranos

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My study of what the term McMansions means included several newspaper references to the McMansion owned by the Soprano family on the HBO show. The Chicago Tribune story about my study included a large picture of the Sopranos eating a meal in their large dining room. Here is the house from the front:

SopranosMcMansion

Here is my look at the individual parts of the house to assess whether it contributes to the McMansion nature of the home.

1. The front exterior. I don’t know that the front looks that garish. There is certainly a large entryway with a double door and little vestibule but it has a two car garage, the proportions aren’t too bad, and roof has a smaller number of gables. Interestingly, the first season includes several long shots of the house from a distance (including prominent floodlights on the house/driveway) but later seasons include more views from the house down to the street and it appears much closer to the other homes and interlopers, like federal agents, pull into this shorter driveway multiple times. McMansion rating: looks like a big house but not too garish.

2. Foyer. McMansions often have expansive foyers. The Soprano’s house has two sets of doors, one to the outside and then another set into the room. It is a fairly big space with the main staircase to the house to the left when you enter. The foyer also has two columns which we see in later scenes have guns stored inside (they are locked up). McMansion rating: pretty big space.

3. Dining room. The family seems to be shown eating here more than they do in the eating area just off the kitchen. These meals include family members as well as “family” members. It is a big table but not too large. McMansion rating: not really.

4. Kitchen. The room is decorated in a more country style with lighter colored cabinets and floral patterns. The kitchen also has a large island that faces out to the foyer, eating area, and family room. The usable kitchen space itself is decently large but there is a lot of open space just beyond the large island. McMansion rating: no stainless steel, dark wood cabinets, or granite countertops but plenty big.

5. Family room. This room involves one large couch, some other seating, and a decent-sized TV (though nowhere near the common large flat-screen TVs of today). McMansion rating: big but not too ostentatious.

6. Garage. While it is only a two-car garage, it is quite deep. The show doesn’t have too many scenes in the garage but it seems to have lots of space. Also, it is pretty clean. McMansion rating: plenty big.

7. Upstairs. The kids’ rooms aren’t too large but the master suite is pretty  big and also has an ensuite bathroom. A pretty dark room, particularly when Tony is depressed and the curtains are drawn. McMansion rating: plenty big.

8. Basement. This unfinished space is where Tony often carries out face-to-face work conversations while in the house. It is used for some storage and for laundry. It has some decent light next to the laundry area. It is a little strange that the family owns a pricey house and hasn’t finished off the basement. McMansion rating: nope.

9. Pool and pool house. There is a large in-ground pool in the backyard and some important scenes, including Tony’s fascination with ducks in Season One and AJ’s attempted suicide in Season 6, take place there. Tony seems to use the space more than anyone else; we never see Carmela out there alone and the kids aren’t playing in it regularly on the show. There is a pool house which acts as a theater space. This is a definite luxury point in the home. McMansion rating: large luxury items.

10. Backyard. This is pretty large as there is space for a pool, pool house, areas for Tony to hide cash, and it is a little hike to the back fence to interact with neighbors. McMansion rating: plenty of space.

Areas of the house not examined: the more formal living room (rarely used), the eating area just off the kitchen (a small table with four chairs fills the space), the bathrooms (not portrayed much).

Overall, this home fits the general McMansion definition of a large house. It is hard to estimate from watching on the screen but the home is at least 3,000 square feet. Unlike some other McMansions, it is on a large lot – a mobster can’t live in a large house where the next door neighbors are peering in the windows just a few feet away. The architecture and design doesn’t seem too jumbled though there is a clear emphasis on space. And, the home is clearly a reminder of the suburban nature of the Sopranos: the house is the setting for both “normal” suburban life as well as the unusual family life that made Tony’s purchase of the home all possible in the first place. Such a home is intended for the boss, whether it is Tony or John Sacrimoni, as the guys below the boss tend to live in denser suburban settings.

“Have You Noticed How Adam Sandler Characters Always Live in Giant Mansions?”

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This level of commentary is not usually associated with Adam Sandler movies but this is an interesting question: “Have you noticed how Adam Sandler characters always live in giant mansions?”

Ostentatious displays of wealth are a tricky thing onscreen: Movies are meant to be aspirational, but if the main characters live in over-the-top splendor, not many audience members will be able to relate. No one has passed this note to Adam Sandler though; his characters, more than those of any other modern movie star, tend to live in gigantic, multi-million-dollar megamansions. How does Sandler so often manage to luxuriate in his own wealth without alienating his less fortunate fan base? It probably helps that as his characters’ homes grow ever grander, Sandler’s clothes remain eternally grubby. (Hey, you don’t have much money left over for new duds when the mortgages are this high!) Join us now on a tour of Sandler’s biggest screen houses, accompanied by a look at his wardrobe in each corresponding film. Get ready for some sticker shock!

I have seen two of these seven movies but I have a few ideas about why these characters might live in such homes.

First, the big home represents the pinnacle of success but ends up contrasting with characters who find they need more than money to enjoy life. Big homes are shown as lonely places – there is a lot of room for fun activities but it might take you a while to find other people or have regular interactions with others in the house. Thus, we see the big homes early in the movies as supposed success but we are meant to leave with the idea that one can be house rich and love poor. This is a theme of a lot of movies, not just Adam Sandler films.

Second, big homes (and other garish displays of wealth) are associated with bad people. In other words, movie-goers are intended to see the unnecessarily large home and quickly make the association that the characters living in it are not nice people. The big home is then a shorthand image intended to reveal more about the character of those living there.

This requires more analysis for a definitive answer but these big homes are certainly plot devices. Given the relatively short amount of time in a movie (particularly compared to longer novels or multiple seasons of a television show), these large homes are likely the product of careful decisions.

Just how much should McMansions cost?

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Curbed San Francisco asks whether a McMansion in the city should sell for $2.16 million. The pictures are interesting and here are a few more details on the home:

The big abode was built in 2011 and features things like “5 luxurious baths” (one of which is photographed with an awkward looking dog in it) and too much recessed lighting. In fact, there’s too much of everything. Too much moulding, too much granite, too large rooms. The 5-bed, 5-bath home clocks in at 4,487 square feet and is asking $2,160,000, which is way more than half of the neighborhood average list price of $869,500.

The main argument here, both in the post and in the comments, appears to be that the home is priced too high compared to the neighborhood in which it is located. Prices for real estate, of course, are relative. But, this could lead to a larger question: how much do McMansions cost? It is assumed that McMansions are big so they will cost a lot. But, just as I have argued that at some point the square footage of a home makes it a mansion rather than a McMansion (perhaps around 7-8,000 square feet?), is there a price point where the mass produced McMansion becomes something only for the wealthy? In addition to being big, another trait of McMansion is that they are more mass produced in terms of architecture and design. Yet, how many Bay Area residents could afford a $2.16 million home? I’m not sure exactly where this price point for a McMansion versus a mansion is, particularly in expensive markets like San Francisco, but there is a line somewhere.

Los Angeles neighborhood group has a comprehensive set of arguments against McMansions

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A neighborhood group in Beverly Grove, Los Angeles is fighting mansionization and McMansions. Here are a few highlights:

-A definition from the front page: “Mansionization replaces older homes with houses that are out of scale with the homes around them. These oversize houses deprive neighbors of light, air, and privacy. They spoil the character of established neighborhoods.”

-From the page “Why Garages Count“:

Current LA City code excludes the first 400 sq ft of attached garages from the Floor Area Ratio (FAR). But the case for including that square footage is solid:  -Attached garages would not be prohibited, they would simply count towards the FAR calculation. -Attached garages add bulk to homes, eliminate the buffer of a driveway, and spoil the character of older neighborhoods.- Most people do not park in their garages. Excluding attached garage space from the FAR encourages bigger houses but does little to relieve street congestion.

-From the page “Mansionization myths and fallacies“:

 They say the city has no right to set limits on their property rights.

But the city’s zoning code does just that:  It balances individual rights and community responsibility.   And good zoning promotes compatible development.

They say the RFA will stop local residents from remodeling or rebuilding. 

But the RFA absolutely allows remodeling and rebuilding.  It just sets reasonable size limits.

They say the RFA will discriminate against large families that need large houses. 

But the RFA will allow spacious 3,000 sq ft homes that do not put a burden on their neighbors.

-From the “Debunking Green McMansions” page:

New York might have alligators roaming its sewer system, but LA can now boast of its own urban legend: “green” McMansions.  Yes, that’s right; in Los Angeles, McMansions, those boxy, oversized, energy-demanding suburban houses plopped into the middle of older neighborhoods are officially considered to be sustainable development.

How could this be?  After all, McMansions require huge amounts of energy to assemble their building materials and move them to job site.  Furthermore, the houses themselves are massive, which means enormous heating and air conditioning bills, even if their windows are double-paned, their walls padded with extra insulation, and their restaurant-sized refrigerators and stoves Energy Star rated.

Then we need to consider their multiple bathrooms and heated outdoor pools and spas, the most energy intensive features of modern houses.

Other McMansion features also have their detrimental environmental effects.  During demolition they release dust and asbestos into the air.  After construction, their large patios, pools, spas, and double driveways reduce natural open space.  Combined with their elimination of parkway trees and landscaping for driveway cuts, the cumulative result is a heat island with less penetration of rainwater.

Last, but certainly not least, we need to factor in their transportation system.  All McMansions are built on single-family residential lots located away from bus stops and transit stations.  This is why McMansion residents rely on their cars to get around; the only difference being that most of their vehicles are large, thirsty SUVs.

-And some photos of the McMansions in the neighborhood.

The full site seems to have a fairly comprehensive set of arguments against McMansions. Now, it remains to be seen whether this rhetoric is persuasive…

Are McMansions due to Baby Boomers?

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I’ve seen this suggestion before: Baby Boomers are responsible for McMansions.

For decades, demographers, marketers and pollsters have been carefully tracking baby boomer trends, from the increasing demand for classroom space during their early school years to the rise of the McMansion as they began to raise families of their own.

This could be a case of confusing correlation and causation. The average new home in the United States in the 1950s was under or around 1,000 square feet while it has risen to near 2,500 square feet in recent years. There is little question that homes have gotten bigger. At the same time, is this due to the actions of the Baby Boomers? Are McMansions really a generational issue? A few thoughts:

1. This could be related to the common argument that McMansions are symptomatic of excessive consumption. After World War II, the prosperity in the United States made possible all sorts of new and more purchases including items like houses, cars, televisions, and more. However, this consumption might cross multiple generations and be the “normal” American pattern.

2. There is recent data suggesting two things. Aging Baby Boomers will look to sell many of these larger homes in future years as they retire and downsize. At the same time, Millennials may be less interested in big houses that their parents purchased. But, might this be more about life stages than generations?

I argue it is too soon to tell whether McMansions and big homes can be closely tied to a specific important American generation or whether McMansions have cross-generational appeal. It may be beneficial to an argument to tie the homes to Baby Boomers (they get blamed for other issues, they are aging so it suggests McMansions could be on the way out, etc.) but we need to see more evidence.

NIMBY conundrum: live near a prison or McMansions?

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Here is a letter to editor that presents a dilemma: would the average American rather live near a prison or a large McMansion development?

After all, the new facility could very well provide an experience so rewarding and beneficial that an inmate would not want to leave. The main benefit will actually be to provide developers the 700 acres of valuable land the prison now occupies in order to build McMansions. I’ll bet the board will surely come up with many ways the prison proposal will benefit all of us. But the “in” crowd will be the only beneficiaries. You and I will suffer a tax increase.

Neither of these options would be very attractive. Prisons involve convicted criminals and ugly buildings. McMansions involve large garish houses and new infrastructure costs. However, prisons bring jobs and McMansions bring new housing options. If presented with only these two options, I suspect more people would settle for McMansions. But, these same people would probably want to do what they can in their communities to avoid a choice like this in the first place.

Claim: “McMansions Murdered Big Fireworks”

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According to the president of a fireworks company, one reason fireworks have gotten smaller in recent years is because people are living closer together:

That’s not just your childhood memory at work. Fireworks shows really were slower and fueled by bigger explosions just a few decades back. Today, shows tend to pack in more, smaller fireworks to make up scale in bulk. There are a variety of intersecting anthropological and financial reasons for that, explains Doug Taylor, the president of Zambelli Fireworks (a company that will put on roughly 600 fireworks shows across the country this holiday weekend). People live closer together, safety regulations have gotten tighter, and if you don’t have size, fireworks are exciting in sheer density.

To understand firework lingo, you have to realize that fireworks are described in inches per shell, and each inch correlates to 100 feet in launch height. That means a 2-inch shell fires 200 feet into the air, and a 4-inch shell reaches 400 feet. The bigger the shell, the bigger the pyrotechnics.

“What’s happened is, the size shell that you can shoot in a particular location has decreased,” Taylor explains. Just as shell width correlates to height, so too does height correlate with regulation. Old regulations dictated that you needed 70 feet of area cleared for every inch of shell fired around a launch area. The new industry standard is 100 feet. So when you play that out, practically, a large 12-inch shell needs 1,200 feet (or nearly a quarter of a mile) cleared in every direction to be considered safe.

Taylor tells me that fireworks sites nationwide have been shrinking with both urbanization and suburban sprawl. And fellow fireworks company Pyrotecnico echoes the sentiment. “What we’re finding is that sites are shrinking,” explains Pyrotecnico Creative Director Rocco Vitale. “Growth is happening. More buildings are going up. And when that happens at a site, a show you could use 6-inch shells two years ago becomes a place for 4-inch shells.”

So the term McMansion is used here as a shortcut for sprawl. More suburban homes makes it more difficult to find open spaces for big fireworks. The use of the term McMansion seems gratuitous to me – sprawl is composed of all sorts of homes and other buildings but the term will grab people’s attention.

So, armed with this knowledge, could anything change? Probably not. Americans like fireworks but they also like their sprawl. However, this might be another piece of ammunition (pun intended) for proponents of open space. At the same time, those who like open space may not like the idea of fireworks shells in natural settings anyhow. Does this then make it a better fireworks experience over large bodies of water?