Tag Archives: single-family homes

The large homes of politicians

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While this gallery of photos doesn’t offer “proof” that most or even many politicians have big homes (and it may just be a play to pull in Internet visitors and clicks), it is an interesting subject to think about:

1. What exactly is the causal relationship here? Did they have bigger than normal homes before they were politicians (meaning they were wealthy when running for office) or are the big homes in part because of their political office?

2. Are there large homes any different than other people within their income brackets?

3. How should the public think about this? Should there be outrage that public servants don’t live like public servants? Do we not usually care because it is their private home and many Americans would buy bigger homes if they had the opportunity? Occasionally, this becomes part of a campaign – John Edwards took some grief for this and his haircuts – and others like Al Gore can be mocked.

4. How much time can a politician even spend in these homes with duties and homes elsewhere?

5. Would a politician who lives in a McMansion (and the implications regarding bad taste, etc.) be considered worse off than one who lives in a mansion?

Toll Brothers, former McMansion builder, near completion of luxury condos in NYC

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During the housing boom of the 1990s and 2000s, Toll Brothers was well-known for its large homes that they often called “estate homes” and critics called “McMansions.” But now Toll Brothers is branching out into new kinds of construction, including luxury condos in New York City:

The kinder, gentler Toll Brothers are debuting new luxury condos at 205 Water Street in Dumbo next month, and to support that image, the 67-unit “modern loft” building just got a huge PR boost from a Wall Street Journal preview calling it “unerringly contextual, but also elegant, and even at some points, whimsical.” Unlike Toll Brothers’ previous, shinier attempts in Brooklyn, the seven-story scale of 205 Water fits right in with its landmarked historic district (zoning allows up to 12 stories) and the rusty steel and concrete facade by architects GreenbergFarrow takes cues from the nabe’s industrial past. Adhering to the LPC’s requirements meant constructing 205 Water out of reinforced architectural concrete, a “temperamental material rarely used anymore as the primary material in new buildings” that projects a “world-weary sort of workingman’s facade” to the street. Upper stories are clad in cor-ten steel, a lighter material also seen on the Ford Foundation headquarters in Manhattan.

I wonder if the people at Curbed are disappointed since it sounds like Toll Brothers is building fewer homes they would view as McMansions and instead built contextualized structures that fit in more urban neighborhoods that maybe could even be considered green. Could Toll Brothers turn their image around?

Not just single-family homes: McMansions can be townhouses

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McMansions typically refer to single-family homes. I had not seen this before but here is a reference to “McMansion townhouses” in a letter to the editor:

The proposal also appears to be extremely bad financially for the county. EYA proposes to build 30 McMansion townhouses on River Road at the Kenwood doorstep. Each household will have two to three automobiles, not counting transient maids, maintenance, deliveries and other service vehicles, adding to present traffic. Presently, this dangerously narrow bottleneck pours excessive traffic onto River Road at the Kenwood doorway. Furthermore, the proposal to allow an outlet onto Little Falls Parkway is bad precedent and the proposed inadequate land swap and will do nothing to solve the traffic impact. It will diminish the amount of “real” park land. Little Falls Parkway is already overly and dangerously congested — it is an extremely narrow road at the proposed outlet.

An earlier piece on the proposed development says the townhomes would be built on a former industrial site. More details from a report suggests there will be “25 market-rate townhomes and four Moderately Priced Dwelling Units.”

Even though I found several documents regarding this proposal, I don’t know exactly what the townhomes will look like. If I had to guess at what a McMansion townhouse might look like, here are some ideas:

1. The structure incorporating several townhouses would look cartoonish with large rooflines, bloated details (two-story pillars, three-car garages that stick out, etc.), and a disregard for nearby architecture.

2. The homes would take up a large percentage of the lots, prominently backing up to other developments who won’t be able to avoid the new construction.

3. These will be large homes, perhaps greater than 3,000 square feet.

But perhaps the usage of McMansion in this case is a little different. It could refer to:

1. The homes are newer construction. By virtue of being new, the townhomes get this moniker.

2. Larger processes of sprawl. Residents who already live in the area want to defend what they bought into, preserve open space (even if it is fairly ugly industrial land), and limit the density of development.

3. The term is simply meant to paint the townhomes in a negative light, regardless of their actual design.

I will have to keep my eyes open to see if others refer to McMansion townhouses.

As a side note, this letter contains a classic NIMBY argument: the new development will add too much traffic to the area and the development will not bring in the money needed to offset the services that will be required.

The rise of granite countertops from a sociology of culture perspective

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Homebuyers today seem to want certain features in a new home: stainless steel appliances, updated bathrooms, and granite countertops. But how exactly did the granite countertops become so popular?

Granite is relatively new to the kitchen counter; back in 1987, it was pretty much available in only two colours, it was incredibly expensive and was not even considered good counter material because of its lack of resilience. Yet in less than a decade, it went from being luxurious to ubiquitous- it is in every new condo and apartment regardless of price. It became the cherry on top of the McMansion sundae. The price dropped so far and so fast that one can now order it online in Florida for $19.95 per square foot, almost as cheap as a laminate counter. (Although at the time of this writing no doubt there is a significant oversupply in Florida.)

Here is why it became so cheap: “it got globalized…containerized…computerized.” Here are a few details about these:

Granite used to be a very local business- if you lived in the Northeast you got it from Vermont, in the midwest from Minnesota, in eastern Canada from Quebec. It is heavy stuff, and the main market was architectural stone, cut by craftsmen to exacting specifications for the commercial building industry. Taking it out of the ground was dangerous work; granite quarries were often ecological nightmares. However the industry provided a local material, and well-paying skilled jobs…

But granite is found all over the world, and it is cheaper to dig it out in India and Brazil. The environmental standards are not quite as high either…

Unlike architectural stone used on the exterior of buildings, the stone for counters and floors is a uniform 3/4″ thick. By cutting the stone on site the flawed slabs can be separated before they are shipped, and can even be processed further into tiles, so that there is less transport of waste. Once sliced into the new standard, the 3/4 inch thick slab, it can be put into the standard solution for transport, the shipping container. So what if most of the container is full of air, the cost of shipping is more than compensated for by the low cost of the material. Suddenly granite was no longer just available in two colours, but in dozens…

Where cutting granite used to be a skilled craft working in three dimensions, as counters it became a simple matter of cutting the slabs in two dimensions. Often the slabs would be shipped from India or Brazil to shops in China with finishing and edging equipment. Now a kitchen designer in Toronto might send a CAD file to the shop in China where a computerized saw cuts the Indian granite into a countertop, which is then put into a container and shipped to Toronto and installed in a condo.

On one hand, someone could argue that Americans have developed a taste for granite and have made individual choices to have it in their homes. Americans became fed up with their old counter options, like Formica, Corian, or tile. They developed finer tastes and wanted to show off their kitchens.

On the other hand, one could utilize the production approach in the sociology of culture. Granite became an aesthetic choice because of technological change: it has become cheaper and easier to create and install. Through the process of globalization, granite became a better option for American consumers looking for a more durable and flashier surface. Perhaps granite became cheaper because there was some demand for it but Americans didn’t simply choose granite – it was a choice made for them.

It would be interesting to see figures that would show when homebuyers started looking for granite over other surfaces. And who had it first?

Reasons for saving “Modern homes” in New Canaan, Connecticut

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Teardowns often raise a furor in a community when they result in the razing of significant older homes. Regulations developed by a New England preservationist group have helped protect Modern houses built by Marcel Breuer, the rationale for saving the New Canaan homes is interesting:

New Canaan became a center for Modern houses when the Hungarian-born Breuer — a product of the Bauhaus school of design in pre-Nazi Germany — and four other architects moved to the town in the 1940s and used it as a canvas for their creations. Breuer adapted new designs to American architecture, such as a flat or nearly flat roof and cantilever construction.

Other Modern characteristics include muted colors, the lack of ornamentation and the emphasis on structural systems. The homes have since become a New Canaan tourist attraction. The town’s zoning rules do not forbid razing the homes but require 90-day notice for tear-downs.

“People come from as far away as Japan on a routine basis,” First Selectman Jeb Walker said.

Modern homes also serve as models for today’s new energy-efficient houses. Their modest size, overhangs that provide shade and features that take advantage of sunlight for solar power are old features suddenly new again.

The article suggests several possible reasons for saving these homes:

1. One involved person said “the preservation effort is “a way for America to keep its architectural memory.””

2. The homes are older and older homes deserve some recognition. Too many new homes at one time can radically alter the character of a community.

3. The homes were designed by an important architect and were part of an important style (Modernism).

4. The houses draw visitors which adds up to tourist dollars. This also helps make New Canaan distinct from other communities.

5. The Modern homes were the opening wave of environmentally-friendly homes.

Of course, there could be counterarguments to these five arguments. But this particular community has decided that these Modern homes are worth saving. Interestingly, another community (the article hints at a case in Westport, Connecticut) might choose otherwise. I suspect Reason #4 above, the fact that New Canaan is known for these homes, goes a long way in protecting these homes. The Wikipedia entry for the community says about 80 modern homes were built after World War II, something few suburbs could boast of.

“Ugly houses” dragging down the housing market

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Here’s an interesting possible explanation for the problems of the housing market: buyers don’t want “ugly houses.”

Maybe Americans aren’t avoiding buying homes right now — maybe they’re just avoiding buying ugly homes. The housing market may be splitting into two sub-sectors: well-kept, good-looking homes and run-down, torn-up homes. Could the latter group be preventing the housing market from stabilizing?…

The disparity between these two groups of homes matters, because Lichtenstein has seen prices of the good properties remain relatively strong recently, as prices of worse properties have declined. This means that it’s those run-down, dilapidated foreclosed homes and short sales that will disproportionally bring down aggregate home prices, while well-kept homes should see much smaller price declines, or even appreciation.

Based on his experience, Lichtenstein asserts staging homes is more important than ever, as sellers need their house to appear as pristine as possible to appear to buyers. But his observation could have another logical conclusion: the market could be ripe for some renovate-and-flip business…

This gives investors two options: revitalize the foreclosures that have sale potential and rent out the others. If the inventory is tackled through these strategies, then price aren’t going to suddenly soar, but they could begin to stabilize sooner.

Would it take all that much work for someone to crunch some numbers to test this idea? As a rough proxy measure, one could use the year the structure was built as a starting point.

Reading this, I wonder if this has been a growing issue for much longer than the current economic crisis. Watch HGTV for a little bit and it seems like most buyers want everything in their new home: great appliances, updates (granite countertops! hardwood floors!), and all in move-in condition. How many homebuyers, whether they are younger and will work a lot of hours each week or older and want to downsize and not spend as much time maintaining a house, want to take on the time and expense of fixing up or updating a home?

In the long run, this could lead to some issues if no one is really interested in dilapidated homes. Communities might then have to make decisions about what to do with empty homes and how to best use the land. As an example, I’m thinking of the areas west and northwest of downtown South Bend, Indiana: the homes aren’t worth the time of investors because prices aren’t going up and few people would want to fix them all up. While this issue might commonly be tied to Rustbelt cities like South Bend or Detroit or Cleveland, perhaps it will be coming to more communities.

A growing interest in acquiring property through “adverse possession”?

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I highlighted a story last week about a Texas man who hoped to become the owner of a $350,000 McMansion through “adverse possession.” One writer suggests there is a growing interest in this method of acquiring land:

People have been making adverse possession claims for decades. The most famous cases happened on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1980s and ’90s, when artists, punks and homeless people squatted in vacant buildings and brownstones.

Under the law at the time in New York State, people could take possession of a property if they lived there for ten years and made efforts to “cultivate and improve” the property, says Kathy Zalantis, a real estate lawyer with Silverberg Zalantis in White Plains, NY. That’s why you saw people who did this during the 1980s and ’90s mowing the grass, planting trees and gardens, and making structural improvements to the buildings themselves, Zalantis says.

Now, interest in adverse possession is growing again. Across America, hundreds of thousands of homes are sitting empty. If you live in New York or have visited since 2008, you’ve probably noticed all those big empty buildings that were constructed during the housing boom but never quite finished, and are now sitting empty. Zalantis says she’s receiving a big surge in phone calls from people who have taken up residence in empty spaces (yes, squatting), including one just this Wednesday.

Most of the calls are from people taking advantage of the foreclosure crisis by moving into vacant houses, apartments and condominiums where the foreclosure process has stalled in the courts, Zalantis says. Now they’re living rent-free. And they’re checking to see if they can take permanent ownership of the place.

It seems like two things are key then to acquiring property by this method: being in the building for a certain amount of time (which appears to vary by state) and doing something to maintain/improve the property. I assume, however, that the rightful owners can come back to the property and kick out the squatters. Therefore, shouldn’t someone who pursues this be pretty sure that the current owners have such little interest in the property that they are willing to lose ownership?

In the case of a lot of single-family foreclosures, I can’t imagine banks would be willing to simply write off their losses and lose these properties. However, if housing prices continue to drop, perhaps some institutions will be willing to lose properties rather than devote resources to trying to squeeze some money out of these homes.

A life of leisure in the suburbs

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In addition to noting how suburbs began because of religious intentions to pull women out of dirty and immoral cities, this essay looks at how the suburbs were seen as a place for leisure, ultimately exacerbating the divide between work and leisure:

The idea of the bungalow and its compound, the suburb, caught like wildfire, largely because its hidden message was one of leisure, universal and perpetual. The bungalow exists in dozens of different cultures with almost as many definitions – from seaside shack (Britain) to hotel-side pavilion (Germany) to house fit for Europeans (Africa, Mexico and the Caribbean).

The common theme, apart from the sense of a stand-alone single-family dwelling, is the theme of manifest leisure, obvious waste or, in Thorstein Veblen’s term, conspicuous consumption. ”People will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life,” Veblen wrote in his 1899 Theory of the Leisure Class, ”in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption”.

The idea that this waste-time, or leisure, might be available to everyone quickly made it despised by the upper classes but beloved by the rest. It was as if, in buying a bungalow, you were buying the promise, or at least the possibility, of perpetual vacation.

But there’s an irony here which, like so much of Western modernism, looks set to rebound on us. For excess leisure doesn’t make us healthy or happy. We’re just not that kind of primate.

I wonder how this has changed today for generations that were raised in the suburbs. The contrast between the life of leisure in the city versus the suburbs was probably quite clear for those who lived in the city, particularly industrializing cities in the 1800s and early 1900s, but for those that have only known the suburbs, do the suburbs still operate as a haven for leisure? Is the key to suburban leisure the actual relaxing nature of it or its contrast to alternatives that are perceived as being even worse?

This essay also hints at how the work-leisure divide can be bridged. One option presented is to construct more mixed-use developments where workers and residents could interact more. But another option would be to construct or rebuild “third places” where people could find a middle ground between home/family and work. Such institutions (commericial or not) could mediate these two realms. Third, I wonder if this problem might dissipate as younger adults may be more willing to mix these two categories as work becomes less of an income-earning activity and more of a passion, vocation, or calling.

More “comfort architecture” on Long Island

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Many homes are built in current styles, even if that style is a return to traditional architecture:

On an island where the traditional is king, most residences can easily be dated — Capes to the postwar Levittown era; ranches, split levels and then high ranches in the ’50s and ’60s, cedar-sided contemporaries in the ’80s, and during the McMansion boom in the late ’90s, “colonials on steroids.”

Over the last decade, many architects and builders have veered toward a more ageless, classic approach.

Some of the materials used to achieve that nostalgic charm, however, are increasingly 21st century, more energy efficient and durable. The exterior trim on the stone manor is a resin-based material called AZEK that looks like wood but is rot-proof. Ira Tane, the president of Benchmark Home Builders in Huntington Station, recently completed a gabled Victorian in South Huntington with fake cedar siding, a cultured stone facade on the front porch, authentic-looking but modern windows with “simulated” divided light panes, AZEK-type trim, fiberglass porch columns; composite porch rails and decking, “all of which contribute to a look that will stand the test of time.”

 Homeowners stick to traditional styling because “there is a real comfort zone in what is very familiar,” Mr. Tane said. “It conjures up a warm, fuzzy feeling. For eating, we have comfort food. For homes, we have comfort architecture.”

Two things stick out to me:

1. Even though these homes are built in a traditional style, they can be easily dated just as much as other homes like 1950s ranches or 1990s McMansions. If you look, for example, at the picture of the home at the top of the story, I think most people could tell it is recent construction. While the homes may have certain traditional style, I don’t think they are going to be confused with older homes.

2. The goal here is invoke tradition withiout really being traditional. As the story notes later, people don’t really want the “100-year-old house with 100-year-old problems.” So they simulate the sense of permanance and tradition instead AND they get all of the modern amenities including big closets and energy efficiency.

I would be interested to hear builders and others explain how these homes are really that much different from McMansions. Perhaps the main difference is that they are not as mass-produced on smaller suburban lots, though it sounds like a decent number of these traditional homes have been built. They are still large homes for wealthy people though they may be more energy efficient. Maybe these new traditional homes are just mansions which are at least not as common as McMansions. Would the same people who complain about McMansions also complain about these homes?

A unique way to acquire a McMansion: “adverse posession”

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Amidst many foreclosures across the country, one Texas man believes he has found a way to acquire a suburban McMansion for $16. The move involves invoking “adverse possession” to take possession of the $300,000 home:

“This is not a normal process, but it is not a process that is not known,” he said. “It’s just not known to everybody.”

He says an online form he printed out and filed at the Denton County courthouse for $16 gave him rights to the house. The paper says the house was abandoned and he’s claiming ownership…

But, Robinson said just by setting up camp in the living room, Texas law gives him exclusive negotiating rights with the original owner. If the owner wants him out, he would have to pay off his massive mortgage debt and the bank would have to file a complicated lawsuit.

Robinson believes because of the cost, neither is likely. The law says if he stays in the house, after three years he can ask the court for the title.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out as it would require someone, the true owner, the bank holding the mortgage, or the government, to move this guy out. It is funny that the neighbors seem to be the ones leading the charge against this guy: are they simply jealous that he was able to acquire a home for this little money?

But perhaps this story hints at a positive side effect of the foreclosure crisis: states and other governmental bodies get a chance to review all sorts of laws regarding mortgages, foreclosures, and housing possession.