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Hate McMansions? There’s a Website for That

You’ve seen them. We’ve seen them. They sprout up nationwide like high-priced kudzu and loom over neighborhoods with their oh-so-abundant attributes—corny columns, mismatched windows, and construction that buts right up to the property line. The term of non-endearment for these big, unlovable houses? McMansions, of course.

We’ve struggled to cover McMansions. For starters, they’re not pleasing to the eye. And, more importantly, we can’t put our finger on exactly what it is about these sad but pricey structures that inspires such a visceral negative reaction.

Thankfully, there’s a new architecture aficionado on the scene to help us get to the heart of this quandary. Kate Wagner, the proprietor of the website known as McMansionHell, has been on the beat for a couple of months. She intelligently—and caustically—breaks down the dubious design choices, the phony stabs at grandeur, and the overarching excess these homes represent. While not an architect, she’s been a keen follower of architecture and home design for over a decade. And she feels that McMansions deserve a special place … in hell.

Fascinated by the work being done in unearthing McMansion missteps, we talked with Wagner to get her take on the basics of how we arrived at this very beige moment in time.

Q: We’ve grappled with this one for a long time here at realtor.com®. McMansions are like the classic definition of obscenity—”I know when I see it”—but we’ve never come up with a concrete definition for them. So how do you really define a McMansion?

A: Many attempts have been made to quantify the McMansion, and I think the obscenity analogy is spot on. It’s a large house (larger than 3,000 square feet), designed without consideration of architectural history or basic principles of good design. They’re built cheaply and without concern for the landscape around them, leading to the trope of the giant house on the tiny lot.

As far as individual features, I think the second installment of Mansion vs. McMansion, a recurring series on the site, does a pretty good job of distinguishing obvious mansions from their McMansion counterparts, using a set of discrete criteria. I designed the criteria so that there is a lot of wiggle room to allow for houses that are built cheaply, but are ultimately well-thought out designwise.

Q: So, of course, we can read your blog to learn more about these defining features. But can you outline some of the criteria? What are the elements that make up a McMansion?

A: Architectural features of McMansions include massive, complex rooflines, multistory entryways with oversized transom windows, the use of many different materials applied to exterior surfaces in a wallpaper-like cladding, and the use of several different shapes and styles of windows.

Q: OK. The roof lines are complex, but is the origin story of the McMansion simple? How the heck did we get here?

A: Well, if you take a look at the Census data, the average floor area of single-family homes in the U.S. grew by 36% between 1985 and 2005. There was a huge boom in spending and a trend of cultural materialism that began in the 1980s as a reaction (one could say a rebound) to the end of the energy crisis of the 1970s.

The previous decades were filled with cultural angst and strife, and the ’80s saw a population that wanted to move past that and have fun without questioning social ills or the environment. The introduction of neoliberal politics and economic theories during the Reagan administration not only aided these cultural shifts, but triggered the beginning of an era of intense mortgage speculation.

Also in the ’80s, we started paying more attention to how the rich and famous lived. [Editor’s note: Shoutout to Robin Leach!] This fascination grew throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with shows like “MTV Cribs” and the proliferation of magazines like Best Life, House Beautiful, and Martha Stewart Living, as well as the rise of networks like HGTV.

One final factor in the rise of the oversized home is the establishment of huge corporations with questionable marketing strategies building houses.

So combine all those factors: a post-energy crisis economic surge, a cultural shift of publicizing our private lives (leading our home-building and -buying decisions to be based on what other people think, over our personal needs), intense mortgage speculation (leading people to buy homes based on their resale value rather than how well they suited the buyer), the establishment of huge home-building corporations putting profit before quality, and neoliberal economics and politics. They all came together to birth the McMansion in the mid-1980s, and we’ve been living with the things ever since.

Q: Are there areas with more McMansions? Why are particular areas rampant with them?

A: Areas that saw huge mortgage speculation are usually the areas where a lot of McMansions are built, including big cities like Houston, TX, and luxury areas in Florida and Las Vegas—the places hardest hit by the 2008 crash.

Most McMansions sit in exurbs outside of major cities, such as Encino, CA, Scottsdale, AZ, Fairfax County, VA, and Morris and Hunterdon Counties in New Jersey. The reason is pretty simple: People with tons of money work in these cities, and want to build their luxury home in the ‘burbs, even though doing so is becoming less and less practical. Generally, if you look up the wealthiest counties in any state, that’s where you’re going to find the McMansions.

Q: What’s been the response to your site? Have you heard from Realtors®?

A: The response has been overwhelmingly positive. People are thankful that someone is coming out of the woodwork, so to speak, and giving them the vocabulary to describe why they do or do not like something.

Many people hate these houses, and they don’t know why. We’re helping them articulate it.

All of the mail from realtors I’ve gotten has been really positive as well. I think that realtors are generally tired of McMansions, especially since they’re so difficult to sell. They find a lot of catharsis in reading McMansionHell.

Q: Have you had any haters? Is there anyone who stands up and defends the honor of McMansions?

A: I’ve had some haters, but not too many. There’s really no defending the McMansion. Aesthetics aside, they are still a huge blight on the environment—and a bad financial investment to boot.

The post Hate McMansions? There’s a Website for That appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice – realtor.com.

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