McMansion

In suburban communities, McMansion is a pejorative term for a large "mass-produced" dwelling. Virginia Savage McAlester, who also gave a first description of the common features which define this building style, coined the more neutral term Millennium Mansion.[1]

A series of McMansions in Leesburg, Virginia

An example of a McWord, "McMansion" associates the generic quality of these luxury houses with that of mass-produced fast food by evoking the McDonald's restaurant chain.[2]

The neologism "McMansion" seems to have been coined sometime in the early 1980s.[3] It appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 1990[4][5] and the New York Times in 1998.[6] Related terms include "Persian palace",[7] "garage Mahal", "starter castle", and "Hummer house".[8] Marketing parlance often uses the term "tract mansions" or executive homes.

Description

The term "McMansion" is generally used to denote a new, or recent, multi-story house of no clear architectural style,[9] which prizes superficial appearance and sheer size over quality.

McMansion may either refer to oversized and cheaply built houses developed at once in a subdivision, or refer to a dwelling that replaces a smaller house, in a neighborhood of smaller houses, which seems far too large for its lot (such a McMansion may lack side windows due to the proximity to the boundaries—another McMansion-related cliché.).

One real-estate writer explains the successful formula for McMansions: symmetrical structures on clear-cut lots with Palladian windows centered over the main entry, and brick or stone enhancing the driveway entrance, plus multiple chimneys, dormers, pilasters, and columns—and inside, the master suite with dressing rooms and bath-spa, great rooms, breakfast and dining rooms, showplace kitchen, and extra high and wide garages for multiple cars and SUVs.[10]

Typical attributes also include a floor area of over 3,000 square feet (280 m2),[11] ceilings 9 to 10 feet (3 m) high, a two-story portico, a two-story front door hall usually with a large chandelier, a three or more car garage, usually five or more bedrooms and many bathrooms, extensive crown-moulding style features, and lavish—if superficial—interior features.

As noted above, a McMansion replacing a house in a community of smaller-sized houses will cover a much larger portion of the lot than the construction it replaces; in the other usage, McMansions are built en masse in homogeneous communities by a single developer.[12]

Origins

Beginning in California in the 1980s,[10] the larger home concept was intended to fill a gap between the more modest suburban tract housing and the upscale custom houses found in gated, waterfront, or golf course communities. Such communities were developed as subdivisions, or pre-existing neighborhoods were transformed by building on empty lots or replacing torn-down structures. The larger houses proved popular and demand increased dramatically, particularly in light of new land-management laws that were enacted in the 1980s and 1990s.

Efforts to economize may have led to a decline in quality for many of these new houses, prompting the coinage of the disparaging term. Because these houses emphasize instant gratification, they are rarely designed with energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, maintainability, and longevity in mind.[13]

In a development that runs counter to the previous boom in construction of McMansions, a 2009 report suggested that the Great Recession (2008–2012) has caused new house sizes in the United States to stabilize.[14] However, as the economy recovered, home sizes returned to their upward trend.[15]

Throughout the 2010s, as the McMansion style started to fall out of favor, a style of single-family homes dubbed McModerns began to permeate urban neighborhoods of North America.[16] Unlike the ornamentation and traditional architectural style of McMansions, McModerns emulate modernist architectural styles and are popular with Millennial homebuyers.[17]

Attributes

Location

A traditional upscale custom house is found in one of the city's most affluent residential neighbourhoods (commonly regarded as "Millionaires' Mile"), which are typically gated, waterfront or ravine, or golf course communities, all of which have some of the highest residential property taxes in the city. Most of these communities are usually well-established, and the real estate prices tend to be high but stable.[18] The houses themselves feature architectural preferences in general accordance with the neighborhood.[19]

By contrast, the McMansion larger house is typically constructed on the outskirts of the city, often further out from the city center than suburban tract housing. McMansions are often found on land that is zoned as (or recently re-zoned from) agricultural instead of residential, and often outside of the city proper limits, as both of these result in lower property taxes. These areas may be in demand by buyers who desire a bigger house than the tract house, but do not have the means to afford houses in the city's traditional upscale neighborhoods. Due to this demographic, which is more susceptible to boom and bust economic cycles, prices are volatile and often fueled by speculation.[10]

Another reason why McMansions are generally found in outlying suburban areas is that lot sizes in older neighborhoods usually are not conducive to residences of this large scale. McMansions are usually constructed among other large houses by a subdivider on speculation; they generally are built en-masse by a development company to be marketed as premium real estate, but do not offer custom features. The construction of what seems to be too large a house on an existing lot will often draw the ire of neighbors and other local residents. In 2006, for example, a recently built house in Kirkland, Washington – an affluent suburb on Seattle's Eastside – stood so close to an adjoining property that, in the words of the chair of the city's Neighborhood Association, "you can read the lettering on the canned vegetables in the house next door."[20]

Design
Another typical design flaw: in this example, the decision to create another 45-degree wall just for the main entrance led to an awkward layout even of the roof

McMansions often mix a variety of architectural styles and elements, combining quoins, steeply sloped roofs, multiple roof lines, complicated massing and pronounced dormers, all producing what some consider an unpleasant jumbled appearance.[9]

The builder may have attempted to achieve expensive effects with cheap materials, skimped on details, or hidden defects with cladding:

Though construction quality may be subpar and materials shoddy (from faux stucco to styrofoam crown molding and travertine compounded from epoxied marble dust), McMansion buyers are eager; the real-estate writer locates them in the generation of my angst-ridden Boston University students: "mostly young, mobile, career-oriented, high-salaried 30- and 40-something individuals" who are too time-squeezed to hire an architect but seek "a luxury home" that they might soon (and easily) sell whenever "it's time to move on."[10]

Frequently, priority in McMansions construction is given to the interior layout. It has been claimed that this causes the exterior appearance to suffer from an "amorphous" or "bloated" quality. [21]

Some neighborhoods may also be referred to as "Cookie Cutter" neighborhoods – in some developments, all the houses have the same layout and design with minor differences, such as siding color or shutter color.[22]

House with large garage and short driveway depth taking up a large amount of street frontage. Also evident: several cheaply installed neoclassical elements, a brick facade, no side windows, and poorly proportioned windows on the front.

Economics

From the perspective of a housebuilder, luxury houses of 3,000 square feet (280 m2) or more are more profitable than smaller houses. Many communities have few residential lots available; thus, those builders who acquire them are likely to build a luxury house. As of 2014 32% of the new houses being built were 3,000 square feet (280 m2) or more, and the average size of new construction had increased to over 2,600 square feet (240 m2).[23]

Worldwide

China

McMansions have seen rising popularity in China, and there have been replicas of famous buildings such as the White House and the Palace of Versailles.[24][25]

Criticism

The widespread disdain for the McMansion stems from perceptions that these houses look and feel inappropriate for a given neighborhood, waste land (suburban sprawl, too much room for too few people) and resources (building materials, utilities, long commutes), project the pretentiousness (or lack of taste or refinement) of their owners,[18] and a general discordance in architectural preferences.[19]

McMansions have received extensive criticism in Australia because they do not blend in with the archetypal Australian house (generally single story red brick or bungalows) and because they use render materials perceived as giving an ugly, over the top, and exaggerated appearance. Australians often buy older, modest houses as tear downs and build McMansions on the vacant land, leading to one observer noting that in the country "a poor house stands side by side with a good house."[26]

The blog McMansion Hell, by Kate Wagner, has been critiquing McMansions since June 2016.[27][28]

See also

References
  1. Virginia Savage McAlester: A Field Guide to American Houses. The Definite Guide to Identifying and Understanding America's Domestic Architecture. Second Edition, Knopf, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-4000-4359-0
  2. McFedries, Paul (2008). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weird Word Origins. Alpha Books. p. 99. ISBN 978-1-59257-781-1.
  3. An example from Braces, gym suits, and early-morning seminary: a youthquake survival manual (1985) by Joni Winn [Hilton]: "The McMansion, by the way, is really just the largest house in the neighborhood"
  4. Book Review: Search for Environmental View of Design, Review of 'Out of Place: Restoring Identity to the Regional Landscape', by Michael Hough Yale University Press. Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1990. "What character their history and ecology might offer is being strip-mined to make way for anonymous residential projects, monolithic office towers, climate-controlled retail complexes of questionable design and awkward transportation systems—all in the abused name of progress. We are talking here of the march of mini-malls and 'McMansions.'"
  5. Interiors; Getting Smart About Art of Living Small. Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1998. "The size of the average new single-family home has gone from 1,520 square feet (141 m2) in 1971 to 2,120 square feet (197 m2) in 1996, according to '1998 Housing Facts, Figures and Trends,' published by the National Assn. of Home Builders. 'But not everyone is living in a McMansion or aspires to it," said Gale Steves, editor of Home Magazine". "Every time we do a small house in the magazine, there is lots of mail."
  6. Cheever, Benjamin – Close to home; Life in a Crater Will Do, For Now. New York Times, August 27, 1998. "Twenty mansions were planned for the development, each designed to look like the biggest house in town. The McMansion we thought of as ours had an enormous kitchen, more than two stories high."
  7. The term Persian palace is specific to Los Angeles and West Hollywood and refers to houses built by Iranian immigrants, not to Iranian architecture. Goldin, Greg (2006-06-17). "In Defense of the Persian Palace". LA Times. Archived from the original on 2012-01-14. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
  8. Filter, Alicia (2006-04-20). "McMansions: Super-sized homes cause a super-sized backlash". Illinois Business Law Journal. Archived from the original on 2009-09-29. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
  9. Stephen A. Mouzon, Susan M. Henderson. Traditional Construction Patterns. McGraw-Hill Professional, 2004. "(1) Victorian door and side lights on vaguely classical McMansion, (2) Victorian door and side lights on vaguely Georgian McMansion, (3) possibly an Oriental moon gate door on a vaguely classical house..." Pages 144 and 190.
  10. Cecelia Techi. Exposés and excess: muckraking in America, 1900–2000. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Pages 33–34.
  11. Not including the basement. Used as a working definition by the Environmental Design Research Association in a 2006 report. This represents a floorspace "30 percent larger than the average new house and larger than 80 percent of houses" according to the 2000 Census. EDRA37: beyond conflict : proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association, May 3–7, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia. Page 254.
  12. Zelinsky, Wilbur (2011). Not Yet a Placeless Land: Tracking an Evolving American Geography. Univ of Massachusetts Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-55849-871-6.
  13. Stone, Madeline. "Americans could be killing the McMansion for good". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2019-02-21. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  14. Fletcher, June (2009-06-29). "McMansions Out of Favor, for Now". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2015-04-28. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
  15. Darlin, Damon (2016-06-03). "Homes Keep Getting Bigger, Even as Families Get Smaller". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2016-06-13. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  16. Wagner, Kate (June 30, 2017). "The rise of the McModern". Curbed. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
  17. Garfield, Leanna (August 7, 2017). "Millennials are ditching the cookie-cutter McMansion for the 'McModern'". Business Insider. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
  18. Miles Jaffe. The Hamptons Dictionary: The Essential Guide to Class Warfare. Constellation, 2008. Page 82.
  19. Fiona Allon. Renovation nation: our obsession with home. UNSW Press, 2008. Page 151.
  20. Chiu, Lisa (2006-06-08). "Big homes on small lots crowd Kirkland neighbors". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 2015-04-08. Retrieved 2008-02-11.
  21. From Metropolitan Home, Volume 24 (1992): "This is no McMansion. Every door is perfectly placed, every proportion is exactly right."
  22. "Why do cookie-cutter neighborhoods exist?". HowStuffWorks. 2012-05-02. Archived from the original on 2015-09-16. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  23. Kriston Capps (August 3, 2015). "The Recovery Is Super-Sizing Houses". CityLab. The Atlantic. Archived from the original on August 6, 2015. Retrieved August 4, 2015.
  24. Sebag-Montefiore, Clarissa (2014-04-25). "Why China's rich want to live in McMansions and fake châteaux". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  25. Steinmetz, Photographs by George (2014-09-19). "Let a Hundred McMansions Bloom". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  26. Davison, Graeme. "The Past & Future of the Australian Suburb." Australian Planner (Dec. 1994): 63–69.
  27. Dickey, Colin (3 October 2016). "The Literal Hell of McMansions". Slate. Archived from the original on 10 June 2017. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
  28. "Kate Wagner Profile and Activity – Curbed". Archived from the original on 2017-08-26. Retrieved 2017-08-26.

Further reading
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