Tag Archives: McMansions

Country music highlights the ideals of the country in the midst of a suburban nation

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A music critic suggests makers of and listeners to country music are mostly in the suburbs, not the country:

Of course the actual lives lived in those small towns are somewhere within these songs, but many of the details are glossed over, romanticized, politicized or just plain ignored. There are megachurches in small towns now, not just cute little white chapels. There are Meth labs. There are business sections of town that don’t look too different from what you see in suburbs around big cities; e.g., not very pretty. There are factory farms, which bring some uglier realities than the idyllic farms of country songs (the stench of large-scale hog farms, for one). There are immigrants from other countries, possibly even (gasp!) illegal ones, often working the least appreciated of the farm and factory jobs. There are eccentricities and new developments that just don’t fit the portrait of rural America in country songs.

Plus, the country singers and songwriters aren’t all living in the country these days, but are just as likely to be found in your McMansions in the suburbs (look, for example, at the neighborhood Brad Paisley stands in, whether it’s actually his or not, in the music video for “Welcome to the Future”).

Country music fans live in such suburbs and cities, as well. Country today preserves the myths, half-truths and conjecture associated with the divide between small towns and cities, rarely acknowledging the gray areas in between. (Montgomery Gentry: “Don’t you dare go running down my little town where I grew up and I won’t cuss your city lights”). In country music today there is a constant sleight of hand going on with regards to “the country life”, shuffling up ingrained ideas of what it means with ones rooted in today or yesteryear.

Sometimes this might be political, a way to smuggle (or, more often, showcase outright) conservative ideas about the way America should and shouldn’t be. More often it’s probably of convenience or laziness, repeating past successes or playing into what artists imagine their audiences want to hear. But on another level this is about genre, about preserving a certain library of scenes and stories, to make the music recognizable as country and further the tradition. Then again, genres are shaped by the minds of the fans as much as the musicians, and by the times we live in.

In this argument about country music, the themes of country music highlight (a stereotype of?) the rural nature of America even as the producers and consumers are all part of a suburban or exurban existence. I tend to think of suburbs as an American adaptation to the issue of cities versus rural areas, a debate that began in the early days of the American project. The suburbs offer some of the city life, particularly the access to business and culture, with some of the country life with single-family homes and lots and a closer proximity to nature. In this case, the genre of music highlights a past era of American history as we are clearly a suburban nation today.

Are there country songs that celebrate the suburbs? I’m always on the lookout for cultural products that highlight the suburbs. Also, is it fair to single out a country music star for a McMansion – do other music stars also in suburban McMansions?

If there is a popular genre of music that holds out an ideal vision of the country life, is there a genre that does the opposite, hold out an ideal vision of city life?

“The 2012 New American Home”

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Each year, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) puts together a “New American Home” featuring the latest and greatest for single-family homes. Here are the features of the 2012 New American Home:

Phil Kean of Winter Park, Fla., the architect and builder of the 2012 home, seeks to honor the architecture of the past while taking advantage of current technologies and design trends. Kean is focusing on functional and transitional spaces and attention to detail instead of square footage and the design uses space efficiently to create a calm and serene living environment.

The latest green building products and methods are factored into every aspect of the home’s design. Kean designed the home to achieve “emerald” status under the green building certification process administered by the NAHB Research Center and based on principles set forth in the ICC 700-2008 National Green Building Standard™ certified by ANSI – “Emerald” is the highest of the four levels of achievement a home can attain…

Kean has designed The New American Home 2012 to take maximum advantage of Florida’s friendly climate. Walls of movable glass panels and motorized screens provide a seamless flow from the indoor to the outdoor spaces.

At 4,181 square feet, the home will be the smallest in The New American Home series in many years. It will be displayed as a two-bedroom floor plan that will appeal to empty nesters, and will have four additional rooms that could be converted to bedrooms if needed.

Kean is building The New American Home 2012 on an infill site in an older neighborhood close to downtown Winter Park. Amenities within walking distance include shops, restaurants and a public library.

See videos of the home here. A quick discussion of some of these themes:

1. While the Wall Street Journal suggests this home provides evidence that “the love affair with supersized McMansions is waning,” the home is still 4,181 square feet, significantly larger than the average new house size of about 2,400 square feet.

2. There is a continued push to go green. I didn’t even know there was an emerald level…

3. This sounds like a New Urbanist type of setting: it is a new home but is in an old neighborhood so residents could walk to a historic downtown. I wonder what the neighbors think of the new home; while it isn’t a teardown, I imagine it might be different than some other nearby homes?

4. The design and furnishing of this home seems modern, following in the footsteps of “Le Corbusier and Richard Meier.” Perhaps this works better in Florida but I wonder if the average wealthy homebuyer would be interested.

5. And how much would this particular house cost in its current setting or transplanted or built elsewhere? There appear to be some cool features such as a suspended staircase, an art gallery, and a waterfall table on the back patio but I’m sure those things add up.

Still building some big houses in a down housing market

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Builders are still building some big houses even in a down housing market:

It may be politically incorrect, but some builders are putting up larger houses, not smaller ones, according to Builder, a trade journal.

Spurred by inexpensive land costs, builders in many markets are able to erect McMansions for only a small percentage of what they cost before the housing market implosion…

These places are largely big boxes, so they aren’t likely to win any design awards, says the magazine’s editorial director, Boyce Thompson. But they’re decked out with enough sizzle that they are hard to resist, whether or not you need the space.

“Even as average new-home sizes have fallen slightly across the country,” the magazine reports, “builders in some markets are finding a profitable and underserved niche of buyers who need or want a house as big as a mansion with the price tag of a cottage.”

Four quick thoughts based on this:

1. The comment that it is “politically incorrect” to have a big box house is fascinating. This has happened in a relatively short amount of time, roughly 5-6 years.

2. The comment that these houses “are hard to resist” is also interesting. Americans do like their housing deals. Even if people shouldn’t buy these homes, who can pass up a great deal?

3. There is still some money to be made in new houses in the right circumstances.

4. What is the quality of these homes? McMansions have that term partly because people argue they are mass-produced and made of cheaper materials meant to impress rather than to last.

Imagining the conversion of neighborhoods to multi-family housing

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A journalist imagines what might happen to neighborhoods of McMansions:

I’ve long thought with a kind of evil glee about what might happen one day to all those horrid McMansions dotting the suburbs. I visited one for a story a few years back that was three stories. It had five bedrooms — each with its own bath. These places have kitchen, breakfast room, dining room, living room, den, office and solarium.

In other words: Perfect for being split up into multi-family housing…

Enough suburban decline, and who’s to care — or perhaps even notice — about the chicken coop in the back yard?

How long before the entire front yard is a cornfield?

Somehow, thinking about this makes me happy.

Others have also suggested this idea. Wouldn’t the truly green solution to McMansion be to allow these neighborhoods to return to their original natural state?

At the same time, turning McMansions into affordable, multi-family housing would require a lot of changes to communities as well. While it may be relatively easy to convert houses, this would lead to changes for local school districts and other services. Additionally, these neighborhoods would still lack public transportation and still be set up so that walking to necessities would be difficult. This would be a much bigger project to truly transform these neighborhoods.

Crumbling McMansions as “wildlife habitats”

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Mix together a few recent stories about animals encountering people in the suburbs and you can reach an interesting conclusion: McMansions could become “wildlife habitats”.

Great news for folks who have watched the value of their exurban McMansions circling the drain over the past few years: These fringe habitations can be returned to nature to find new life as wildlife habitats. It’s basically the real estate version of composting.

Okay, so there’s not really an official effort to make subdivisions into sanctuaries, but apparently nobody told bears that. In Hopatcong, N.J., a cable TV repairman recently descended into 85-year-old Frank Annacone’s basement and found a 500-pound black bear slumbering there. The folks at Gothamist dubbed it the “Reverse Goldilocks Bear,” and in a true case of lopsided justice, it was quickly tranquilized and subjected to an “examination” (yikes) before being released back into the wild. (What did Goldilocks get, a good scare and a few hours of community service?)

It’s not the first time wild animals have done the “creative reuse” thing on the outer edges of civilization. BldgBlog has dredged up tales of bobcats lounging around foreclosed exurban mansions, bees that turned a California home into a honey factory, and a pack of coyotes that squatted in a burned-out house in Glendale, Calif.

These sort of animal/human interactions are no small issue in some suburbs. In this area, discussions about coyotes were hot not too long ago.

Trying to imagine McMansions as wildlife habitats is an interesting exercise. One far-fetched solution: some wealthy activist buys up a large McMansion neighborhood and turns it into a preserve. Perhaps people would even pay money to tour the odd preserve. This sounds like it could be a Hollywood thriller where some poor visitors end up trapped in this dystopian world. (Imagine Jurassic Park without dinosaurs and in a neighborhood of crumbling McMansions.) A second option: someone creates art that depicts crumbling McMansions returning to nature and full of animals.

If anyone has images or stories of full neighborhoods that have been “returned to nature,” I’d be interested in seeing them.

Six predictions for American suburbs in 2012

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Since this is the time of year for predictions, here are my six broad predictions for American suburbs in 2012:

1. The suburbs will continue to be the space of choice for Americans even as critics argue they are bland, environmentally untenable, and ultimately unsustainable.

2. At the same time, because of the economic crisis, continuing trends in design, and different tastes among Millennials and retiring baby boomers, suburbs will be pursuing denser projects with more certain long-term outcomes.

3. Many suburbs and other local taxing bodies (school districts, etc.) will struggle to find revenue. The budget deficits at the federal and state levels will continue to trickle down. Many communities will struggle to fund basic services.

4. Minorities, immigrants, and lower-class residents will continue to move to the suburbs and more strongly challenge the image of suburbs as lily-white havens. Some suburbs will struggle to adapt. Wealthier suburbs will continue to look for ways to limit these changes.

5. The issues of funding and revenues will trump concerns like providing social services for new populations, being environmentally-friendly, and providing affordable housing. Some will argue these communities would likely stonewall these concerns regardless.

6. Regarding single-family homes: McMansions will continue to be disparaged, the size of the average new home will drop again, the problems with foreclosures will continue, the President and Congress will continue to express how the single-family home is the foundation of the American Dream, and affordable housing will still be unpopular.

(Note: I’ve written about these trends throughout 2011 and I plan to keep writing about them in 2012. While these predictions are somewhat vague, it is difficult to describe trends across all suburbs as they are a varied lot.)

Learning about the Republican presidential contenders from their (McMansion) homes

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Perhaps showing that drawn out process for nominating a Republican candidate has gone on long enough, the New York Times takes a new angle in looking at the possible candidates: looking at their homes. And the topic of McMansions comes up:

Where better to look than their homes, to get a sense of their style, and what it might tell us about what they value and how they live? …

The New York Times enlisted interior designers and a design psychologist to scrutinize photos and share their thoughts, political leanings aside, on what the homes reveal about the candidates.

Some points are obvious to an untrained eye. There are a lot of big new houses, for example. “I hate to call them McMansions — it gives McDonald’s a bad name,” said Thad Hayes, a New York designer whose many projects have included restoring the Palm Beach mansion of Estée Lauder. “But with so many of them, you can’t tell where they are. They’re totally anonymous.”…

The candidates all seem to be striving for an American colonial look — there is not a fixer-upper or modernist glass oasis in the mix. And many aspire to the formality of the White House — there are lots of wood-paneled studies and use of a pale gold that Benjamin Moore would surely name Oval Room Yellow.

And read further for more specific critiques of each candidate’s home.

Several quick thoughts:

1. I wonder how much the quip about McMansions is prompted by the houses themselves or political leanings of the commentators. Many of the comments about these houses are similar to those generally made about McMansions: the homes are big, boxy, poorly proportioned, full of flashy luxuries, look traditional but aren’t really, and inhabited by social strivers. Perhaps more liberal candidates or officeholders do actually have more “authentic” homes but I wonder…McDonald’s is better than these homes?

2. Despite my thoughts in thought #1, scholars have noted how important the shift was from seeing the home as a necessity to seeing the home as an expression of oneself. While there are varying opinions about how this should be carried out, homes are like many consumer objects: we want them to help express our individuality.

3. While it is noted that the candidates generally have traditional-looking homes, is this really any different than most Americans? How many people really live in or desire more unique designs? (It might also be interesting to think about what is a “traditional” look – does stucco count? Mediterranean?)

4. Perhaps this is too obvious to note: this doesn’t contribute much to our knowledge about the candidates except to remind us that most (all?) big-name politicians have big homes.

(Side note: others, like The Atlantic, have picked up on the McMansion aspect of this story.)

Example of advertising language: “executive home” versus “McMansion”

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In a longer article about the role of truth in advertising, an advertising executive notes how two different terms about a house raise two very different ideas:

Language gives marketers power to construct positioning. Consider the difference between using the following terms to describe the exact same house: “executive home” or “McMansion.” The descriptors shape a relative interpretation and even can deliver a value judgment.

Here is a brief overview of what is associated with these two terms:

1. McMansion: mass produced, low quality, emblematic of suburban sprawl, residents are social strivers, too large, not green, more about glitz than substance.

2. Executive home: aspirational (who wouldn’t want to be a executive?), quality, a home (which implies not being mass produced), impressive with gravitas (the executive label).

This difference between terms is not inconsequential: Toll Brothers, one of the biggest builders of large homes in the United States, has claimed to build “executive homes” and does not like the McMansion label.

The decision about whether to call a home a McMansion or an “executive home” often depends on one’s standing and relationship to the designated home. For example, a neighbor who opposes the teardown next door is likely to call it a McMansion. The builder who is putting up the new luxury home is likely to call it a McMansion while an architect who is building a similar home several miles away shuns the McMansion label. So there might just be multiple advertising truths about the same home.

What you lose by having a 3-4,000 square foot home compared to a 5-6,000 square foot home

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If you are going to move into or build a 3-4,000 square foot home instead of a 5-6,000 square foot home, what do you lose? A game room, among other things:

Customers increasingly are opting for alternate uses for the room that used to house the pool table and bar. Real estate agents and builders cite a number of reasons, from people’s tastes changing, a sign of the economic times or a baby boomer generation growing older, as reasons.

Going without a game room is not necessarily a sign that people are entertaining less, but more an indicator that custom homebuyers are making more practical decisions about what they want their living space to contain, says A. Faye Scoller, of the Scholler Group Prudential PenFed Realty…

“Additionally, we are seeing a lot less of the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ in terms of the total square footage,” Booth notes. “Where we used to build 5,000- to 6,000-square-foot McMansions, now customers are reducing their space requirements, and now custom homes, with the same high-end amenities and extras, are in the 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot range.”

A smaller footprint comes from eliminating the game room and dining room and making one large and airy great room that can serve multiple uses, Booth said.

Both home sizes are large but you would have to make changes if you lose several thousand square feet.

The most interesting part of this to me is that although these houses may be smaller, this one builder suggests the smaller homes still have the “same high-end amenities and extras.” People may not want space but they still want the luxury items associated with a big home. At the same time, does this mean that a pool table and a bar are no longer desirable status symbols?

How do we know if there is a small house trend?

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One summary of 2011 makes a provocative claim: “How Small Spaces Trumped McMansions.” The problem: the review has little to no evidence to back up this claim.

Here are ways we could know that small spaces really trumped McMansions:

1. Look at the average size of the new American home. This has indeed dropped. But this doesn’t necessarily mean Americans are buying small or tiny houses, just smaller new homes. And McMansions have been on the decline for the last few years, not just in 2011.

2. Look at how many small or tiny homes are sold. I haven’t seen any statistics on this nor do I know if anyone is actually compiling this data.

3. Look at whether there is an increase in media coverage of small or tiny homes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this did happen in 2011 but this means a change in media coverage, not necessarily a shift in people’s actions.

4. Look at what builders say they will be building in the near future. Builders seem to think the trend is downward but again, I don’t think most of them are really building small houses, just smaller.

5. Look at whether small or tiny homes are drawing the attention of our best thinkers about homes (architects, designers, others) and government officials. Perhaps this has happened but some data would be nice.

Overall, we need some more data about this possible trend. I think there is evidence that McMansions have been on the decline but we need more data about small houses.