Death of the McMansion
Stand on the shores of Lake Johanna while the sun sets over the bell tower of Northwestern College and you would never know you are only 10 minutes from downtown Minneapolis. The scene feels as though it belongs five minutes from the Canadian border, not Arden Hills, a Twin Cities suburb five minutes from Interstate 35W. But its character is changing. The historic cabins that dot its shores are being torn down one by one and replaced with enormous houses.
Ken Malloy, a local accountant, lives with his wife, Lynne, in such a house just a few dozen yards from the water’s edge. “A lot of times I come home early from work on a nice day. The dog and I go out in the boat and take a slow cruise around the lake. I really enjoy that,” he says.
Malloy’s house could be described as a McMansion—a term that sprung up in the 1990s as a way to describe the oversized, cookie-cutter houses that have been sprouting up all over American suburbs. The Malloys’ 5,200 square foot home features cathedral ceilings, five bedrooms, a whirlpool bathtub, a three-season room, a billiard room, a two-car, one-boat garage and a model railroad that runs throughout the walkout basement. But McMansions are not limited to the sprawling fringe of urban areas. Just like at Lake Johanna, older houses in historic areas are sometimes razed to make way for new ones that often have little regard for Mason the character of the area. Today, experts are asking how long such a sumptuous lifestyle can last.
A desire to live in the suburbs in nothing new. Americans have tried to escape the grit and noise of the city ever since the industrialization and urbanization of the 19th century. It wasn’t until the 1950s, however, that suburban living became a reality for the masses.
For most Americans, owning a home simply wasn’t an option until after World War II. Returning GIs, eager to establish their own households, saw the suburbs as a good place to raise a family. The subsequent baby boom added millions of people to the population; they needed somewhere to live. Reliable, government-backed mortgages made the dream of homeownership a reality.
As more and more Americans started to claim their own little slice of suburbia, expectations began to change. Whereas most turn-of-the-century Americans could only dream of having their own space, 21st century Americans have come to expect it. We’ve grown so accustomed to our backyard barbecues and perfectly landscaped yards that anything else seems odd, according to John Archer, chair of the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota.
Critics see McMansions as “wrong” on two levels, Archer says. First, there’s standardization – the “Mc” part. New homes are often part of master-planned communities regulated by strict ordinances that can regulate a house’s appearance, from its paint color to prohibitions on unsightly clotheslines. The results are standardized, homogeneous neighborhoods that leave little room for homeowners to express their personal tastes. Second, detractors decry the scale of McMansions. They see their vast size as frivolous and excessive (do they really need that breakfast nook? that two story foyer?). Their immensity becomes an even bigger problem when McMansions are plunked down where older houses once stood, inherently changing the character of a neighborhood. “They’re like beached whales next to ordinary, normal-sized houses,” Archer says.
The Malloys didn’t always live like this. They built a house 30 years ago for $49,500 and sold it 18 months later for $85,000. The couple then moved to another home in Arden Hills and have since built their current home—a perfect place to raise their two daughters, who have since grown and moved out.
Ken is aware that some might call his house excessive for just two people. “I don’t regret building this house as big as it is. Now it’s bigger than what Lynne and I need,” Ken said. “But on the other hand, when [granddaughter] Rosie says, ‘Can I stay overnight?’ I know I have room for her.”
That’s the thing about McMansions. You’d be hard-pressed to find a person who will own up to having one. “Nobody lives in a McMansion,” Archer said. “They’re always somebody else’s.”
As the millennium dawned, McMansions proliferated. By 2007, the median size of a new construction, single-family home reached an all-time high of 2,235 square feet, more than double the median size in 1960. By the third quarter of 2008, post-recession, that number had dipped to 2,216, marking the first time in nearly 20 years that the square footage of a new home had decreased. The downward trend continued, reaching 2,091 square feet for the second quarter of 2009.
Is the drop simply a result of thinner wallets? Or are Americans’ values fundamentally changing? “We don’t know yet,” says Judith Martin, director of the University of Minnesota’s Urban Studies Program. “It could be that this is a more environmentally conscious generation that chooses to live in smaller houses.”
Some industry insiders believe America is witnessing a grassroots change in the way people are choosing to live. Joshua Fowler, executive vice president of the Builders Association of the Twin Cities is certain that the murky economic situation is pushing consumers to realize that “need is the new want. [The McMansion] isn’t dead, but it’s certainly on life support,” he says.
Martha Yunker of Yunker Associates Architecture has been remodeling old homes and designing brand-new ones since she started her firm in 1984. “The standards we have are so much higher than they used to be,” she says. It’s not uncommon for clients to ask for bathrooms with multiple sinks or state-of-the-art entertainment centers. “There aren’t all that many who’ll say that smaller is better,” Yunker says. “But smaller is better. No question.”
The jury’s still out. No one can tell if the square-footage drop of 2008 is a harbinger of an America less obsessed with consumerism and more willing to live within its means. But no matter how the trends in design or square footage fluctuate from year to year, homeownership is still a quintessential part of the American Dream.
As for the Malloys, is their spectacular 5,200 square foot lakefront house their dream home? “Of course,” Ken says. “Our dream was always to live like this. It’s just a beautiful place.” The couple plans to stay there forever, or “at least until they put me in a home.” Luckily for Ken, Presbyterian Homes is located just across the water, so he really will be able to enjoy the sunsets over Lake Johanna forever.
I live in a McMansion, and I love it! It’s light, airy, well-designed, lots of room for me, my husband, our children and their dogs. It’s in an amazing neighborhood located near everything my family needs. We used to live in a “distinctive” home (read: inconvenient-but-quirky design features) with lots of “character” (read: maintenance headache). Every time we had to replace something, we found out it was something they didn’t make anymore, or it was a non-standard size, or some other such annoyance. After years of living there, my husband and I were ready for a little homogeny, something predictable, modern, and convenient. And though the heated square footage is almost triple that of our old house, our new McMansion is heated and cooled for about the same monthly expense. In fact, energy efficiency in home design is probably the biggest reason home sizes have grown, just as car efficiency is the biggest reason people began commuting to jobs from further and further distances. But I suppose it’s far more emotionally satisfying to engage in self-righteous disapproval, class envy and speculation that McMansion homeowners are overcompensating or living a desperate facade (you know, like the brick one that faces the fronts of our houses).
At the end of the day, it’s a house. I’m glad we can afford to live in it. I know some day it may be too big for us. And I know that our house, along with all our blessings, ultimately belong to One who can take as easily as He gives, though He does delight in being the Giver of good gifts!