Tag Archives: McMansions

Does Michael Jordan own McMansions?

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One headline for a story about Michael Jordan’s most recent home purchase suggests it is a McMansion: “Michael Jordan buys lakefront McMansion on a North Carolina golf course.” More on the house:

Bobcats owner Michael Jordan has purchased a 12,310-square-foot lakefront home in Cornelius, N.C., for $2.8 million.

The home is about 22 miles north of uptown Charlotte where the Bobcats play their home games and where Jordan owns a spacious condo…

The home is located on Lake Norman and the seventh hole of The Peninsula Golf Club. The listing states it features six bedrooms and eight bathrooms and a “stunning panoramic lake views from almost every room.”…

Last year he purchased a 28,000-square foot home in Jupiter, Fla., for $12.8 million after selling his mansion in Chicago.

I’m leery of dubbing a $2.8 million, 12,000 square a McMansion and not just a straight up mansion. On one hand, the home is less than half the size of the Jupiter, Florida home and it is built on a golf course, a common site for a McMansion. On the other hand, this house is five times larger than the average new home in the United States and is quite expensive.

Also, I wonder how this idea of owning a McMansion fits with Jordan’s image. Jordan’s brand is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and his image doesn’t quite fit the mass produced, garish home that the term McMansion implies. This is far-fetched but what would happen if this home purchase started hurting his brand?

Can a $10 million home really be a McMansion?

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I’ve worked on defining a McMansion before but after seeing a recent story about a new house listing few times, I stumbled into a new definitional issue: is there a price point where a home can no longer be considered a McMansion?

Location: Los Angeles, Calif.
Price: $10,000,000
The Skinny: Just weeks after closing on a 9,000-square-foot McMansion in Bel Air and reported plans for a gut renovation, hip-hop star Kanye West and reality TV regular Kim Kardashian have decided to cohabitate elsewhere. According to recent reports, the duo have flipped the property for around a million more than they paid. Redfin lists the previous sale price at $9M, so it seems Kim and Kanye have unloaded the place for somewhere around $10M. The mansion, completed in 2010 on less than an acre in the Holmby Hills neighborhood, features five bedrooms and seven bathrooms, but that wasn’t enough for the celeb couple, who were planning to gut the place and expand to 14,000 square feet.

Several features of this home would seem to put it in McMansion territory: it is 9,000 square feet (though this is getting close to regular “mansion” status), it is on a fairly small lot for a house its size, and it may be located in a neighborhood with a number of similar homes.

Yet, the price for this home may be way beyond the typical McMansion at $10 million. This is not just a mass produced home for the American masses; it is a home that from the beginning was only available to the wealthiest in global society. In this case, two of the biggest entertainment stars were able to flip the house. Because of this, I argue this home isn’t really a McMansion at all even though it might exhibit some McMansion traits. It should fall more in the mansion category because its price makes it quite inaccessible.

How a developer of big homes differentiates his homes from McMansions

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Few builders are aiming to have their new big homes labeled McMansions. Here is how one developer describes how his new homes differ from McMansions:

According to brothers Taylor and Milton Chamberlin, the goal for the Georgian style homes is for them to be an alternative to “McMansions.”

“We really take our time to design the homes to fit in the neighborhood. We’re not builders that come in and put this huge McMansion in a small neighborhood where it doesn’t fit. That’s not what we do,” said Taylor. “All of this is really thought through and it’s really livable, usable space. It’s not those McMansions where you walk in and wonder, ‘What do you do in this room?’”

The base model runs around $1.4 million and features four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, with the possibility of another bedroom and bathroom on an additional level. Costs will vary based on the different lot sizes and individual add-ons the purchasers want in their homes…

Another goal is to foster a 1950s sense of community among the owners of the nine properties, in which everybody knows and interacts with their neighbors. The homes will only be accessible via a private road and there will be a small fence around the subdivision…

The brothers noted The Barrett Companies’ effort toward green building and energy efficiency. From better insulation and caulking to installing appropriate outlets in the detached garages for plugging in an electric car, the Chamberlins believe small touches make their properties stand out.

These are big new homes that at first glance might fit several traits of McMansions. But, here is the argument the developer uses to say their homes are not McMansions:

1. The homes will fit the neighborhood. Critics argue McMansions, particularly teardowns, can disrupt the character of existing neighborhoods.

2. The home is not just about space; it is about well-designed and usable space. One argument about McMansions is that they provide lots of square footage but this is often contained in cavernous rooms or in poor layouts that are difficult to utilize in day-to-day life.

3. They are hoping to promote a community atmosphere in their small development. I wonder if this is primarily a function of size; the fenced-in neighborhood with a private road will only contain nine homes.

4. These homes will be greener than normal big homes. McMansions are often said to about excessive consumption and part of sprawl.

5. There will be a consistent design scheme with Georgian architecture and detached garages on the private road away from the streets surrounding the neighborhood. McMansions are criticized for mixing architectural styles.

In the end, I wonder if a majority of buyers and critics would think these reasons are enough to separate these homes from McMansions. These are still big homes in the midst of suburban neighborhoods. They may be more consistent and be less mass-produced but are they different enough?

Argument: if you want a Walmart, you have to accept the McMansions and other things that come with it

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Henry Briggs argues that the phenomena of Walmart is related to other phenomena like McMansions:

In any event, the idea of paying less and less and buying more and more is a real driver of our economy. As most economists will tell you: unless the US consumer is spending, the US economy tanks.

That is what’s behind the “You deserve it! ” lines in ads, why having a “McMansion” is part of the “American Dream,” and why the American Dream is no longer a dream: “It’s my right, by God!”

That’s why household debt shot up from $734 billion in 1974 to $13.6 trillion in 2009, from 45 percent of GDP in 1974 to 96 percent of GDP in 2009.

We complain about Walmart wrecking communities, even as we go there for the deals, and then we must go there for the deals because Walmart is all we can afford.

If you walk into a house built in the ’50s or ’60s, you’ll find smaller closets, smaller kitchens and smaller garages. This in a time when people were happier, the country was thriving, and the future glowed with promise.

You want things cheaper? There’s a price.

This is a familiar argument about McMansions: they are linked to larger patterns of consumption. But, if the economy really does depend on such spending, can’t buying McMansions, smartphones, and other items and shopping at Walmart be seen as helping American society? Of course, one can choose to buy “better” items than others – instead of a McMansion, perhaps a passive house or a tiny house. Instead of a regular car that contributes to sprawl, perhaps a membership to Zipcar. While some complain about particular kinds of houses, Briggs and others suggest that consumption comes in bundled packages. If this is the case, then McMansions are just the symptoms of a society that consumes and spends too much and likes sprawl.

 

Supersized McMansions, supersized roses for Valentine’s Day

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I’ve seen McMansions compared to a number of other large consumer items, but until today I had not seen a comparison to flowers:

Leave it to America, land of the Big Gulp, Monster Burger and McMansions, to supersize yet one more thing: the rose.

Make that a six-foot rose, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

This flower-on-steroids — it actually gets this big from special breeding and soils — comes courtesy of several companies, including FTD, The Ultimate Rose and FiftyFlowers.com. Sales are taking off as florists promote the gargantuan blooms, which also come in three-, four- and five-foot varieties. The companies won’t release exact numbers, but FTD says sales have increased 50% year over year since it started selling the roses four years ago…

Skaff says FTD has already sold out of the five-foot variety and had to order more to meet demand ahead of Valentine’s Day. The Ultimate Rose, which supplies the giant roses to FTD and also sells them on its own site, says sales jump this time of year.

The suggestion here is that the presence of McMansions is related to the presence of six-foot tall roses through the desires of Americans for both because they are large. This seems like a bit of a stretch to me; are the same people buying McMansions and large roses? Are both solely about standing out from the crowd? Overall, this seems like a journalistic shortcut of recent years: when an item becomes larger, compare it to McMansions (and perhaps SUVs and Big Gulps might be other apt comparisons). What items if an item becomes smaller – is there a similar go-to comparison?

How much do McMansions contribute to traffic congestion?

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After seeing the Washington D.C. region leads the country in traffic, one reader of the Washington Post suggests McMansions have contributed to the problem:

Regarding the Feb. 5 news article “Washington again rated worst for traffic congestion in annual study”:

I don’t understand. The entire metropolitan region builds, builds and builds, squeezing  condos onto every block and ruining old neighborhoods with ghastly McMansion and townhouse developments.

Do officials consider quality of life? Don’t they realize how these new homes have a tremendous effect on our local traffic? We have overbuilt this area to death.

It would be interesting to see a study on this. I suspect the real answer is not McMansions over other forms of housing and development but rather the issue of sprawl. McMansions may often be found as part of sprawl but not necessarily; McMansions don’t have to be built on large lots, which leads to more spread out development, and they can be built as teardowns in denser areas. But once sprawl has already happened, it is more difficult to provide effective mass transit (even as the Washington region sees an expansion of Metro service to suburban counties). In other words, McMansions are symptoms of sprawl which leads to a lot of driving and traffic.

A few issues with Curbed’s timeline of McMansions

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Curbed has a new feature: “Track the evolution of this uniquely American housing on Curbed’s McMansion Timeline.” I have a few issues with what they say.

1. There is a lot of editorializing in this timeline. For example, the entry for the 1980s includes “Upwardly mobile suburban rejoiced, the McMansion was born” and the 1991 entry says “Social climbing middle-class professionals weren’t the only ones hooked by the oversized home boom.” These are typical critiques of McMansion owners but are based more in stereotypes than evidence.

2. The article suggests the first usage was in the New York Times in 1993. However, the Oxford English Dictionary gives an earlier usage from the San Diego Union-Tribune on July 15, 1990.

3. We are only given vague descriptions of what McMansions are. They are large houses but it is implied than a 15,000 square foot home could be a McMansion. There are also hints that McMansions are built with less quality materials and they are mass produced. But what about the architecture and design (the pictures hint at this)?

Overall, learn a lot more by checking out my paper on the usage of the term McMansion in the New York Times and Dallas Morning News.

Choose teardown “mansionization” over sprawl in suburbs

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Anthony Flint argues that communities should see the positive aspects of teardown McMansions:

Yes, some embodied energy is wasted in a teardown. But the new homes are universally more energy-efficient, and can be made with recycled materials and other green construction methods. What families want is a little bit more room. A recent survey by the National Association of Homebuilders found that most homeowners want something in the area of 2,500 square feet – close to the average size for single-family homes, which has been creeping up steadily over the decades.Sometimes the extra space is for multigenerational housing, a certain trend in the years ahead. The homebuilder Lennar recently touted homes with granny flats and in-law apartments – the kind of flexible housing New urbanism has been advocating for 20 years or so.

There is surely another trend of “right-sizing” and smaller homes and even micro apartments, for empty nesters and singles. But that’s the thing about the housing markets – one size doesn’t fit all. If some homeowners want more size, they’ll find a way to get it. They key factor in the teardown phenomenon is location.

The same NAHB survey found that while a bigger house was desirable, families didn’t want that house to be isolated out in the far-flung exurbs, miles from anywhere. They want to be able to walk to school or to a park, maybe even to a store to get a half-gallon of milk, or at least not spend quite so much time driving all around to disparate destinations.

And so we come back to teardowns and mansionization. Another way to describe the phenomenon is “infill redevelopment.” Builders are essentially re-using an established parcel in an already developed neighborhood. That’s a far greener step than building a true McMansion out in the cornfields. It’s the essence of smart growth – build in the places already built up, and leave the greenfields of the periphery alone.

One argument for teardowns is the rights of individual property owners to take advantage of a market that will pay them more money. However, this argument tends to pit the interests of the neighborhood or community versus those of the individual. In contrast, this argument is much more community oriented. Flint argues that the alternative is not between an individual and their neighbors but rather between suburban sprawl or infill development. These new large homes may not be ideal and communities could provide guidelines for how big they should be and/or how they should match existing homes and styles yet they are better than new subdivisions.

Flint is hinting at another issue that many suburban communities will face in the coming decades: just how dense should desirable suburban areas become? While teardown arguments seem to mostly be about neighborhoods and retaining a certain kind of character, the bigger issue is whether suburbs should be packing in more houses or even building up. This will be a problem for two kinds of suburbs: those who have little or no open land remaining (and this ranges from inner-ring suburbs to ones 20-30 miles out from big cities who have run out of space in more recent years) and those that could attract lots of new residents. Naperville is a good example as it has a downtown and amenities that would likely attract people and it has reached its limits on the south and west after several decades of rapid growth. Indeed, Naperville has received proposals in the past for high-rise condominiums (and turned them down) and the latest Water Street development proposal suggests expanding the denser downtown.

In the end, these suburbs will have to decide if they want denser development. If they hope to grow in population or develop more mixed-use areas (for example, through transit oriented development around transportation nodes), this might require teardowns and denser development.

We know a McMansion when we see the outside but what is inside?

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A Quora forum member asks a broad yet intriguing question about McMansions: “What do McMansions look like on the inside?” Most of the attention McMansions receive is about the exterior. There are several common issues. It simply looks like a large house. Such homes do not have a consistent design as they can borrow from a variety of architectural styles. The house looks imposing from the street. The garage, at least two cars, can dominate the facade. The home does not fit with the style of the rest of the neighborhood. It may dwarf nearby homes. The front may be well-appointed but the sides and rear have vinyl siding, little brick, and little character. All of these critiques have something in common: houses should fit in with their surroundings and also present a coherent and less-than-ostentatious image. One group who have critiqued McMansions at times, New Urbanists, tend to make this argument that homes should be part of a larger neighborhood and have less to say about the interiors of large homes.

But, there is another aspect to McMansions that seems to receive less attention. I assume the reason for this is fairly obvious: most observers of McMansions, whether they are driving by homes on the way home from work or academics writing about the phenomenon, have less access to the interiors. In other words, homes are private spaces that generally aren’t open to private viewing. We might know some of the broad trends: people in recent years like granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, McMansions can have large foyers, there is a lot of interior space including rooms in addition to the standard ones, relatively more money is spent on the size of the home so less is devoted to long-lasting appointments, and McMansion owners may have little furniture or nice appointments because they spent so much on the house (this is a common stereotype).

There are architects and others who are more worried about the interiors of large homes. Architect Sarah Susanka, developer of the Not So Big House, argues that it is much better to have a home that fits a homeowner’s individual needs than to simply have a large house. She advocates for custom spaces within a home that both reflect the individual tastes of the homeowners as well as their activities. In contrast, McMansions are viewed as soulless homes that homeowners must fit into rather than the other way around. There are also others who argue there should more of a psychological fit between homeowners and their home.

This reminds me of the 1981 book The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self. The two researchers spent time observing people’s homes as well as talking to them about how they related to the objects they had in their home. I think there is a lot more research that could be done in this area. On one hand, we often buy into the idea that the products we buy and display say something about us (and we often also view our homes as expressions of our self) and yet, we don’t think too deeply about this most of the time.

Average new house size expected to drop to 2,150 square feet by 2015

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A short report on McMansions links to a National Association of Home Builders survey that suggests building professionals believe the square footage of the average new American house will fall by 2015:

Respondents expect the average, new single-family detached home in 2015 to be about 2,152 square feet, 10 percent smaller than the average size of single-family homes started in the first three quarters of 2010. Overall, 63 percent of respondents expect the average size of new homes in 2015 to be somewhere between 2,000 square feet and 2,399 square feet, 22 percent expect it to be between 2,400 square feet and 2,999 square feet, while 13 percent expect it to only be 1,600 square feet to 1,999 square feet (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Average Home Size in 2015

Data from the Census Bureau indicates that the average size of single-family homes completed peaked in 2007, at 2,521 square feet, was virtually unchanged in 2008, and then declined in 2009 to 2,438 square feet. Preliminary data for 2010 shows a further decline, down to 2,377 square feet. Although part of the recent drop in average home size may indeed be temporary due to hard economic times, a number of factors lead building professionals to expect home size declines in the long-run: consumers are focused on lowering the cost of heating and cooling their homes; they no longer have sizeable equity in their current homes to finance a much larger one; diminished expectations for house price appreciation has reduced demand for extra square footage in order to achieve appreciation on a larger base; demographics, 29 percent of the US population will be 55+ in the year 2020, demanding smaller homes; and strict mortgage underwriting for the foreseeable future. Combined, these factors will weigh on the consumer to purchase homes based on need more than want.

My interpretation of this is that a majority of builders think new homes in 2015 will be slightly smaller than new homes of today. Additionally, 23% still believe new homes will be larger than 2,400 square feet. Interestingly, there is not reported evidence of whether building professionals think these smaller new homes of the future will be cheaper.

And here is where square footage will be dropped from these future houses:

To save on square footage, the living room is high on the endangered list – 52 percent of builders expect it to be merged with other spaces in the home by 2015 and 30 percent said it will vanish entirely.

“As an overall share of total floor space, 54 percent of builders said the family room is likely to increase,” said Rose Quint, NAHB’s assistant vice president for survey research. “That makes it the only area of the home likely to get bigger.”

In addition, the relative size of the entry foyer and dining room are likely to be diminished by 2015. However, opinions were fairly evenly divided on the fate of the kitchen, master bedroom and bath and mudroom, she said.

The survey methodology is also worth noting – it was sent to a lot of interested parties but the response rate was under 10%:

NAHB’s The New Home in 2015 survey was sent electronically to 3,019 builders, designers, architects, manufacturers, and marketing specialists. The sample was stratified by region of the country (to be proportional to housing starts in each of the four Census regions) and, among builders, by their number of units started.

A total of 238 responses were received, of which 30 percent came from single-family builders, 19 percent from architects, 26 percent from designers, 7 percent from manufacturers, and 18 percent from “other” building industry professionals.

At first glance, this suggests to me that the findings are quite untrustworthy.