The Era Of The Mega Mansion Is Upon Us

[Guest danax]

I just read this Bizjournal article about some huge houses that are going up around town and throughout the country. I don't think there has ever been a period of time or a place where such enormous homes have been built like they're being built here right now in the US. Will the upsizing of home square footage continue indefinitely? I'd have to say no, just on the basis of natural cycles. What will cause people to reconsider? Likely economic reasons as the idea that bigger is better seems like it will continue in most people's minds for quite awhile. Another reason could be due to lack of available land to build on.

Where the old mansions once lined Main St. here in Houston, now they're in the suburbs. I suppose Main St. WAS in the suburbs 100 years ago.

Like 'em or hate 'em, we're living in a unprecedented time period for residential architecture that could one day be historically significant.

[RedScare]

In the end, economics dictates everything. Just as $3.00 gasoline gutted the SUV market this year, if electricity and natural gas prices continue to escalate, home buyers will suddenly find the innate charm of a smaller home. No matter how well built a home is, the cost of heating and cooling it will be much larger than a smaller home.

Additionally, despite the suggestion to the contrary, old age brings a corresponding wish for simplicity, which dictates a smaller home on a smaller lot. Obviously, some will go the other direction, but the larger percentage of baby boomers will downsize as they age.

I agree that in time, people will marvel at the sheer number of oversized homes being built. The question is, with todays building standards of 40 year lifespans, will they still be around?

[rps324]

Are McMansions Going Out of Style?

October 2, 2005

By Fred A. Bernstein

The New York Times

Last year, McDonald's phased out its "supersize" French fries and soft drinks. Portions, it seems, had gone about as far as they could go.

Could the same be true of the supersized houses known as McMansions?

After more than 30 years of steady increase, the size of the typical American house appears to be leveling off, according to statistics gathered by the Cencus Bureau.

"The Generation X-ers who are becoming home buyers right now want more amenities - and they are willing to trade away space to get them," said Jerry Howard, vice president and cheif executive of the National Association of Home Builders.

Sandy Kennedy, a real estate agent, said the house she and her husband, John, are building in Cheshire, Conn., will be around 3,500 square feet, which is larger than the national average but smaller than many homes in the area. "We could afford more, but we want to limit ourselves to spaces we'll really use," she said. "We're looking more at quality than quantity of space."

A few years ago, she might not have felt that way. The size of the average American house rose from about 1,500 square feet in 1970 to more than 2,300 square feet in 2001, with a particularly big growth spurt in the late 1990's.

But from 2001 to 2004, the growth practically halted. "That suggests that the size of the average house is stabilizing," said Gopal Ahluwalia, a statistician with the home builder's association. For the second quarter of 2005, the average new detached house measured 2,400 square feet, according to the Census Bureau.

Mr. Howard says consumers are thinking less about space and more about "bells and whistles," including professional-style appliances and exotic woods with names like ipe and wenge.

Ms. Kennedy's house will have high ceilings, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and radiant heating embedded in the floor of a glass-walled "conservatory". And there will be lots of architectural moldings, her architect, Melanie Taylor of New Haven, said.

In a 2004 nationwide survey, the association asked homeowners: "For the same amount of money, which of the following would you choose: a bigger house with fewer amenities, or a smaller house with high quality products and amenities?" Only 37 percent of the 2,900 randomly selected respondents wanted the bigger house. Sixty-three percent said they would prefer the smaller house with more amenities.

In 2000, when the association asked the same question, the results were sharply different. Back then, 51 percent said they wanted the bigger house; 49 percent opted for the smaller-but-better house, Mr. Ahluwalia said. He added that he believes that even more will choose "the smaller house" when the association asks the same question in its next survey, in 2006.

Across the country, developers say they are seeing signs of that shift. "More and more people who come in are willing to talk about less space," said Catherine Horsey, a vice president of Urban Edge Developers in Dallas. She said new houses at the company's Urban Reserve development will average 2,500 square feet.

That, she said, is small for Dallas.

Of course, megahouses that outrage neighbors - and keep armies of contractors employed - are still going up in affluent areas. And companies like Toll Brothers that builds thousands of homes each year say that some of their biggest models are among their biggest sellers.

But even at the high end, where master bedrooms suites the size of tennis courts are common, there are signs that the trend toward bigness has abated.

Richard Warren, a planning consultant on the East End of Long Island, helps clients obtain zoning approval for new houses. In the last few years, he said, the number of people looking to build the largest permissible house has declined. "There will always be people who want big houses, but we're not seeing the grossness we'd been seeing," he said. "People are thinking twice about why they need all that space."

There are many reasons the appeal of big houses may be waning, including the high cost of maintaining them. "In a city where $1,000-a-month air-conditioning bills are not uncommon," said Ms. Horsey of Dallas, "people are beginning to say, 'Maybe I can have less space, and spend the money on a trip to Europe.'" Increasingly fuel prices are likely to make large houses even less appealing, Mr. Ahluwalia and others said.

Rising interest rates and land prices also make large houses harder to afford. And an aging population increasingly includes empty-nesters who are looking to downsize, said Ms. Taylor, the designer of Ms. Kennedy's house in Cheshire.

Then there is the cost of furnishing the houses in a style appropriate to their dimensions. Robert A.M. Stern, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, said he believes many McMansions are actually empty nests. "You walk in the door, and there's not a stick of furniture - certainly not furniture large enough to justify the spaces," he said.

But it may also be that Americans have simply attained all the space they need. The home builders' association, in its polls, asks consumers how big a house they would like to have. The average response in the 2004 poll was 2,426 square feet - barely bigger than the average house built this year. Mr. Ahluwalia, who has worked with the association for 29 years, said the gap between how big the houses are - and how big people would like them to be - has never been so slight.

Mr. Stern, himself the designer of many large houses, agreed. "I think we've reached a size that satisfies most people's ambitions," he said.

George Suyama, a Seatle architect, has designed more than 100 houses in the Pacific Northwest. During the 1990's - the peak years of the dot-com boom - he was designing houses so large that he declines to give their dimensions. But now, he says, the houses he is being asked to design are far more modest.

"At least in Seattle, the people who can afford to do really huge houses have already done them," Mr. Suyama said.

Mr. Warren, the planning consultant on Long Island, said that several clients had "built large homes, and after they were finished they decided they were too big and they sold them to move to smaller houses."

Ron Jones, the owner of Sierra Custom Builders in Placitas, N.M., near Alburquerque said. "There's been a shift in the culture: More and more, people are realizing it's not just the square footage. They're thinking more about issues like durability, and they're open to the idea of flexible spaces."

The public perception of big houses may help explain the shift. Owners of oversized homes are routinely portrayed as architectural yahoos whose "plywood palazzos" leave neighboring buildings in shadow. Some also associate the big houses with greed. In the corporate scandals of recent years, "a persistent motif was the grotesquely large houses of the perpetrators," said James Gauer, author of "The New American Dream: Living Well in Small Homes" (Monacelli, 2004).

At a recent zoning board meeting in New Canaan, Conn., speaker after speaker described new megahouses as intrusive. Residents demanded measures to reduce the so-called loom factor, or the degree to which new houses overpower their neighbors.

In less populous areas, builders of large houses are derided for despoiling the natural environment. Arthur Spiegel, who is retired from the import-export business, is building a 10,000-square-foot house in Lake Placid, N.Y., in the Adirondacks. The hilltop house has brought protests from the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, and construction has been halted by local building authorities.

Mr. Spiegel said that the house "is only 6,500 square feet, unless you count the basement," and that it's the right size for his extended family to gather in for ski vacations.

It may also be that, in the way skirts get shorter and ties narrower, housing styles change. For decades, houses with historical details - often rendered in a kind of fake stucco - have been in fashion. Ornaments reminiscent of Versaille or Buckingham Palace require extensive facades.

But those looks appear to be losing ground to a style that harks back only to the mid-20th century, with flat roofs, generous overhangs and large glass walls.

Modernist houses stress connections between indoors and outdoors. Well-designed terraces, architects say, expand livable space, without requiring heating or air-conditioning.

While magazines like Architectural Digest regularly feature chateau-sized houses, upstarts like Dwell show modernist homes as small as 1,200 square feet.

Many architects are happy to see the tide turn away from big houses. Ms. Taylor of New Haven began her career 25 years ago designing 600-square-foot houses in Seaside, Fla. But in the 80's and 90's, she said, it became harder to find people who wanted smaller houses, and her projects crept up as high as 11,000 square feet.

"I worked on houses, especially for developers, where you just had to fill the space because it was there," Ms. Taylor said. "It just seemed ridiculous. You just keep wondering what people are going to do with all those rooms."

Mr. Ahluwalia of the home builders' association can't hide his relief that houses aren't continuing their rapid increase in size. He called the new statistics "a ray of hope."

But aren't members of his association hoping houses will keep getting bigger? "If the consumer doesn't buy it, the builder is stuck with it," he said. His job, he said, is to tell builders what people want in a new home.

Added Mr. Howard, the association's chief executive, "What builders build is entirely market-driven. And the market appears to be changing."

Edited December 29, 2005 by rps324

[nmainguy]

Here's a viewpoint from a descendant of classic Roosevelt Liberals. My parents-both born in 1920 in familys of modest means were thrust into the Great Depression by the time they were adolesents. My dad grew up in Boston with 8 sisiters and a brother. They jumped boxcars and stole potatoes to help feed the family. They lived in a 3 room tenament. My dad and his brother went to war, came back and raised their kids in far better conditions than they were brought up in. My uncle had 5 boys and a girl and provided them with a 3 bedroom home in Brookline. They all are now successful, productive citizens with-mostly-successful, productive off-spring.

On the other hand, my mom grew up on E. 11th with her grandparents, parents and brother in a big Victorian with not alot to lack for.

She and my dad met in Galveston during WWII, married, moved to San Felipe Courts on Allen Parkway [now Allen Parkway Village], had my oldest sister, moved into one of the first homes in Oak Forest, had another girl, then me and then my little sister-all in a 3 bedroom home with one bathroom.

So in one way, economics may have dictated the way we lived. But knowing my grandparents and parents, I'd like to think that wasn't the only driving factor. My sisters and cousins and I never went hungry. We never went without. We always knew we were loved and valued. We were afforded every opportunity to advance and the vast majority of us took advantage of it.

I can't fault a family with a 22,000 sq. ft. home with 45 TV monitors. Good for them, I suppose. My sisters and I all live in bigger and nicer homes than we grew up in. I think it's a good thing for the next generation to to be better off than the previous. It should'nt be easy to get there but it should'nt be as hard either.

It's not that way anymore. Our culture has swerved off course, leaving many good, hard-working and honest people toiling to keep their kid's heads above water while the people in power quietly pass more tax-cuts for huge corporations and the wealthy while telling those that struggle silently and honestly-those that play by the rules- that gays will destroy their marriages, immigrants will take their jobs and liberals will burn every American flag in sight "but don't worry because we're looking out for you". It's an upside down world and a sad commentary on our times.

[bachanon]

It's not that way anymore. Our culture has swerved off course, leaving many good, hard-working and honest people toiling to keep their kid's heads above water while the people in power quietly pass more tax-cuts for huge corporations and the wealthy while telling those that struggle silently and honestly-those that play by the rules- that gays will destroy their marriages, immigrants will take their jobs and liberals will burn every American flag in sight "but don't worry because we're looking out for you". It's an upside down world and a sad commentary on our times.

this last comment is exactly what has chased away some of our most admired and interesting posters. reducing every discussion to gay/straight, right wing/left wing focus has hurt our website. if you are lurking or agree please stand up to these extremist posters. i appreciate everyone's views but objective discussion has come to a stand still. every post before this last one was on the verge of creating an interesting observation or discussion of the economics on the ever increasing size of custom and spec homes. reducing it to the excesses or lack of morality on one or more segment of society is to divert the conversaton.

objectivity has left the forum and i miss it.

Edited December 29, 2005 by bachanon

[dalparadise]

this last comment is exactly what has chased away some of our most admired and interesting posters. reducing every discussion to gay/straight, right wing/left wing focus has hurt our website. if you are lurking or agree please stand up to these extremist posters. i appreciate everyone's views but objective discussion has come to a stand still.

objectivity has left the forum and i miss it.

I often find nm's posts insightful and well-thought-out. Of course, Most people think my posts suck and that I'm responsible for chasing away admired and interesting posters.

Whatever -- what drives many away from here is the overly eager way everyone tries to knock down opinionated people whose arguments stir this pot a little... that, and the way many imbeciles are coddled when they post lies and assumptions as facts in third-grade English.

Whoah! I actually considered trying to shore-up the sentence structure in that last paragraph, but in reading it again, realized, "why bother?"

[nmainguy]

Most people think my posts suck and that I'm responsible for chasing away admired and interesting posters.

Thank GOD! At last I have someone to blame for driving the saints from the temple.

I suspected you all along but now I know! You are satan!!!!

[not "satin" because I was rightfully smacked down by Spelling Cop TJones earlier.]

OK...Seriously, why are we up at 2:12 AM????

Edited December 29, 2005 by nmainguy

[bachanon]

Whatever -- what drives many away from here is the overly eager way everyone tries to knock down opinionated people whose arguments stir this pot a little... that, and the way many imbeciles are coddled when they post lies and assumptions as facts in third-grade English.

please educate us and give examples of your description above.

and, dalparadise, i look forward to your insightful opinions on most threads here. unfortunately, it seems that many people continuously direct a thread towards a political or ethical persuasion regardless of the intent of the original poster. sorry if that offends. i was attracted to this site, some time ago, because of the objective intelligent banter that put aside political persuasion. i miss that.

[Guest danax]

As a regular member, I think the political discussions are a natural part of our forum as long as they are in the appropriate category but as a moderator, I feel like I need to remind everyone to resist the temptation to add disruptive comments, disruptive in the sense of having the power to send the topic swerving off course. Natural conversations change course and we should feel free to post what we think as long as we stay away from slander, personal attacks and intentional misinformation, but if some comment incites in us a response that will likely derail a topic, I suggest starting a new topic so the discussion can have free expression. We just need to keep the water inside the plumbing and the fires in the fireplace.

But it does sound like the large homes might have hit their peak size-wise. I suppose history will always link the Baby-Boomers, the bull market of the 90s and early 21st century wealth with excess materialism and the large homes will be symbols of all of that. If we are beginning to re-appreciate "simplicity" (just one media room will do), then this would be similar to the architectural trend 100 years ago as the "excess" of the Victorian homes evolved into the smaller Craftsman and Bungalow styles.

[RedScare]

"The public perception of big houses may help explain the shift. Owners of oversized homes are routinely portrayed as architectural yahoos whose "plywood palazzos" leave neighboring buildings in shadow. Some also associate the big houses with greed. In the corporate scandals of recent years, "a persistent motif was the grotesquely large houses of the perpetrators," said James Gauer, author of "The New American Dream: Living Well in Small Homes" (Monacelli, 2004)."

To ignore the political landscape that helped create the oversized home landscape is to be intellectually dishonest in the discussion for the sake of being polite. While that may be a quaint Southern quality, it is not an intelligent one. That being said, the oversized homes and self-centered politics of the 90s and 2000s are not a cause of greed and avarice, but a consequence. They are the results of the baby boom generation's narcissism, not the other way around.

The younger generations' choice of quality over size suggests they may be learning from the mistakes of the parents. The size of homes cannot increase forever, in spite of a few homebuyers' beliefs to the contrary. As I stated earlier, economics will dictate matters. Ever longer commutes, tighter credit, brought on by tighter bankruptcy rules, and the shrinking wage in relation to inflation, will combine to reign in overactive homebuying imaginations.

[bachanon]

To ignore the political landscape that helped create the oversized home landscape is to be intellectually dishonest in the discussion for the sake of being polite. While that may be a quaint Southern quality, it is not an intelligent one. That being said, the oversized homes and self-centered politics of the 90s and 2000s are not a cause of greed and avarice, but a consequence. They are the results of the baby boom generation's narcissism, not the other way around.

point taken.

The younger generations' choice of quality over size suggests they may be learning from the mistakes of the parents. The size of homes cannot increase forever, in spite of a few homebuyers' beliefs to the contrary. As I stated earlier, economics will dictate matters. Ever longer commutes, tighter credit, brought on by tighter bankruptcy rules, and the shrinking wage in relation to inflation, will combine to reign in overactive homebuying imaginations.

ditto

[Jeebus]

Where are the moderators?

[Subdude]

Where are the moderators?

Here.

Keep it on topic so the thread doesn't have to be closed please.

[rps324]

There are so many homes around town in excess of 5000 square feet now. I wonder how demand for these houses, and the houses themselves, will fair in say 20 years and more. When the generations that started building them in the late 80's/early 90's start looking for assisted living facilities, smaller easier maintained homes, or keel over dead after opening their light bill. Will there be a number hitting the market at a point when they are considered out of style or too costly to maintain or even socially and environmentally irresponsible, (as some find them today), generally rendering them as undesirable white elephants?

Historically it seems like owners have turned to commercialization of large old homes when they were no longer desired by upper-income home buyers. Whether it was Montrose, Main Street, or Riverside & Calumet streets. Will areas like Bellaire turn into block after block of former McMansions turned apartment houses, insurance offices, etc.? Will McMansion neighborhoods ultimately prove unsustainable due to utility costs, taxes, general maintenance, and the changing whims of the buying public?

A shift seems to be emerging, but what do you all see as the overall life cycle for this housing trend?

[bachanon]

it will be very interesting to see what becomes of these homes. over the years, there will be many factors that come in to play such as homeowner's associations, city codes, area wealth and desirability. my hope is that the desire for instant gratification and cheap construction will be seen as passe and real craftsmanship will return. of course, that pendulum swing, if it were to occur, would not be complete in my lifetime.

[texas911]

You can blame it on cheap labor and a giant jump in construction technology. My parents live in a MacMansion in Sugar Land and their electricity bill is less than half what my 1930's (updated in the 80's) bunglow is. Now the designs suck but for less than what people are paying for in my neighborhood, you can get quite a nice house in the burbs. Can you blame people for that?

[HeightsGuy]

My concern with many of these McMansions is what will they look like 10-20 years from now. IMO, the most neglected item in the current market is the upkeep needed on a 5000sf home. Due to the liberal lending industry, there are a lot of people in these homes that really shouldn't be, and I think a lot of these owners are going to be shocked when they try to sell these home 20 years from now after not spending a dime on updates. It's one thing selling a 20 y.o. house with 20 y.o. bathrooms in the $100-$200,000 market, quite another in the $300,000+ market. As pretty as they are now, those modern tumbled travertine bathrooms are only going to be popular for a finite period of time, and when they have to redo 5+ bathrooms to sell their McMansion in 2026, it's going to hurt.

[MidtownCoog]

and I think a lot of these owners are going to be shocked when they try to sell these home 20 years from now after not spending a dime on updates.

And I think you are way off base thinking people don't, or won't, take care of their homes.

Most of this is nothing more than wishfull thinking by folks like you, most of whom, are anti-burb to begin with.

[HeightsGuy]

Sounds like I hit a bit of a nerve.......

It's not a question of don't or won't, the question is CAN'T. A lot of people are so house poor right now they couldn't spend $10,000 to update a bathroom even if they wanted to. I'll stand by what I said. Are you telling me ALL people in ALL McMansions are keeping their homes up to date relative to the market they are in? That would make for one hefty renovation market in Houston that I must be blind to.

[MidtownCoog]

No nerve hit, but this topic is so tired and predictable. It comes up on this board every few months.

Inner-loopers in their "bungalows" vs. the "McMansion" crowd in the burbs.

If anything, I'd be more worried about the 100,000-plus existing decrepit homes inside the loop.

Talk about lack of upkeep! What's the excuse for these dumps?

[sevfiv]

i think the nerve reverberates both ways - but it's true on both sides - there are tons of lazy homeowners out there, and *hopefully* more that aren't.

[rps324]

No nerve hit, but this topic is so tired and predictable. It comes up on this board every few months.

Inner-loopers in their "bungalows" vs. the "McMansion" crowd in the burbs.

If anything, I'd be more worried about the 100,000-plus existing decrepit homes inside the loop.

Talk about lack of upkeep! What's the excuse for these dumps?

People fleeing them for McMansions in the 'burbs?...

[MidtownCoog]

There will always be dumpy houses. Some big, some small, and some just the right size.

Take a look at some of the true mansions along McGregor that have fallen into disrepair. Or some of the shacks along Fairview in Montrose.

Or how about some of the 20+ year old homes in Champions? Some look like a page out of Southern Living, while others look like they are ready for the wrecking ball.

That's just the way it is, and the way it will always be.

[Jeebus]

If anything, I'd be more worried about the 100,000-plus existing decrepit homes inside the loop.

Is this an acurate base number?

I'm pro-burb, but I have to agree Heightsguy about the lack of upkeep by some people. There are a few homeowners in my neighborhood that I'm guessing are not concerned with future market values of their home - much less preserving them with needed constant maintainence, upgrades, and cleaning.

This leaves me even more worried about the outerburbs in the future, when todays generation of "one-time-use" gets tired of their home and decide to move elsewhere. Somewhere that offers all those upgrades like granite as part of the new home construction. Then who will move into their old 3000-5000 foot "outdated" homes?

Perhaps the same people that cause neighborhoods like Sharpstown or Inwood to fail.

[HeightsGuy]

No nerve hit, but this topic is so tired and predictable. It comes up on this board every few months.

Inner-loopers in their "bungalows" vs. the "McMansion" crowd in the burbs.

If anything, I'd be more worried about the 100,000-plus existing decrepit homes inside the loop.

Talk about lack of upkeep! What's the excuse for these dumps?

Midtown, no excuse for this at all, but in the end a $100,000+ dump inside the loop will equal about 80% land value to 20% improvement. That's a lot easier to sell than a $100,000+ dump in the burbs where improvements are 80% of the appraised value.

[MidtownCoog]

That's a lot easier to sell than a $100,000+ dump in the burbs where improvements are 80% of the appraised value.

Maybe so, but used homes continue to sell.

Go figure.

[Jeebus]

Maybe so, but used homes continue to sell.

Maybe that trend would slow if the number of new Houston Metro residents didn't continue to rise annually?

[HeightsGuy]

Maybe so, but used homes continue to sell.

Go figure.

Which was my original point. There will always be a market for homes priced under $200,000 current dollars no matter what shape they are in. You can see clear examples of this in places such as The Woodlands and Kingwood with their overabundant stock of circa 1970's-1980's homes. Once you get into the $300,000+ market however, taste gets a lot more particular. People will spend that kind of money on an older inner-loop home without upgrades due to land values, but you're not seeing any circa 1986 homes in the suburbs for $300,000+ selling unless they have had extensive upgrades.

Due to the sheer volume of large homes being built right now, I think it will be interesting to see what the market will bear for the current crop of $300,000+ homes in the suburbs 20 years from now.

[texas911]

Who cares! Buy a house you can use now instead of one you want to sell 20 years from now.

[Jeebus]

Who cares! Buy a house you can use now instead of one you want to sell 20 years from now.

That doesn't seem like the wisest choice, especially when you have a family that depends on you.