The Wall Street Journal published a zeitgeist watch entry: American Towns Are Rebelling Against Megamansions. It describes how some long-established havens for the rich, such as the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, are trying to tamp down on ginormous houses. This of course comes only after a spate of developing hyper-trophied homes in the area.
Having read the piece with some care, what seems most interesting, at least in terms of various objections made to the Journal writer E.B. Solomont, is the lack of a clear basis for opposing these cancerously-large buildings. What you read is a sense of offense to what the refusniks apparently see as a widely-shared, even if hard to delineate crisply, sensibility, that these really big houses constitute an offensive too-muchness.
To make the point clearer, consider some zoning issues related to arguably overly ambitious building projects elsewhere. In New York City, I have been told of (with the name and addresses, but they are not critical to the logic of this post) a mega wealthy individual who bought there adjacent townhouses in the Upper West Side. It was in a landmarked area, so he had to preserve the facades. However, his purpose was not just to join or perhaps even combine the properties above ground. He started excavating to create a huge basement underneath all three.
The neighbors (not just on the same street but also on the street behind) went nuts. Not only was the noise level insane, but they were legitimately worried that the digging and drilling would damage their buildings. However, there was no way to stop him. They could only sue if they were harmed. They could not find a good legal basis (even under New York City’s strict building codes) to prevent prospective harm. Perhaps residence owners could get protective legislation passed, but not fast enough to stop this particular project.
Communities regularly come up with compromises between builders and incumbents who want to protect their property rights. Again, New York City has air rights, which are regularly traded, to prevent overly-dense development and make sure all of Manhattan does not become a warren of tightly-packed buildings with street shaded most of the day. Similarly, vacation and resort areas often limit the height of buildings near the shore so as not to completely block the views of older homes.
I don’t see any of these actually practical concerns expressed here, as in how the new developments might harm the property values of current owners, and how far it is reasonable to go in protecting them. Instead, this seems to be a new aesthetic, in much the same way that proper tasteful people recoil at noveau riche who not only drive gold Cadillacs but match the color of the curtains in their house to the car.1
Similarly, there are cases where communities enforce a look, such as Santa Fe requiring adobe houses in certain neighborhoods.2 And one can see why overly large houses relative to plot sizes might create a sub-optimal look for the area. For instance, if you go to the flat lands of Beverly Hills, you see very handsome, typically older houses, that come as close as possible to maxing out the land available. The house are sufficiently nice that the effect of so many houses hard by each other is not terrible….but they individually and the block in general would look better if they had been spaced out more.
But again, the article does not mention particular instances of grossness, more a rebellion against increasing grossness. The fourth para does make a case of sorts, but the particular quotes don’t line up tidily against that:
Towns from Aspen to Martha’s Vineyard are in a big-house brouhaha. Critics say mushrooming mansions cramp scenic vistas and local charm, consume excessive energy and inflate prices.
One has to wonder at the hypocrisy. It’s very likely that many of those complaining about the offensively large houses fly in private jets or helicopters, so they are hardly well-positioned to protest about energy use excesses. It is also quite possible to build a modest sized eyesore. Even though they don’t like the bulky buildings, it’s not clear that the objection really is to that as opposed to flouting one’s lucre.
I wonder if this reticence is due ultimately due to the Mark Blyth observation, “The Hamptons are not a defensible position.” In an era of much-derided population and seemingly never-ending increase in income and wealth inequality, some of the rich are getting even more worried about their personal exposure and see a cutback in lavish display as pitchfork protection.
“How big is a house?” mused Jeremy Samuelson, planning director for East Hampton, N.Y., where a working group recently proposed slashing the town’s maximum-allowed house size in half, from 20,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet….
At the May meeting, Mehring read aloud a letter by architecture critic Paul Goldberger, who remarked: “We want to be East Hampton, not Levittown-By-the-Sea.”…
“It’s just really shocking to many of us—these huge houses are the size of substantial hotels,” says Julia Livingston, the head of a working group in the Martha’s Vineyard enclave of Edgartown, Mass.
The article describes how some towns have imposed size limits: 3,600 square feet for Truro, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, 7,500 square feet in Routt County, Colorado, which includes the Steamboat Springs ski resort, and 9,250 square feet in Pitkin County, Colorado, which includes Aspen. The expressed reason for the limits in Pitkin was energy use.
This section makes clear that the reservations extend well beyond gigantic houses imposing on the property rights of neighbors:
East Hampton’s working group is also tackling “iceberg houses,” where basements are as big (or bigger) than the homes above.
Until now, basements—and attached garages—haven’t been counted in the total square footage of a house, encouraging homeowners to dig enormous, swanky subterranean lairs. Under the proposal, the garages and finished basements would count.
At the May meeting, Samuelson highlighted a real-world example: an 11,863-square-foot house on a lot meant for 6,100 square feet.The basement, Samuelson noted, has “two guest rooms—bedrooms—an entertainment room, a wine lounge, a wine cellar, a theater, a tech room, a spa, a sauna, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
“And that’s all lovely. That sounds amazing. I’m incredibly envious of the wealth and lifestyle of these people,” Samuelson added. But “it has nothing to do with whether this is the right size house for this property.”
Oddly, I didn’t read a single objection that these huge houses, with all their rooms, attract more than occasional big visitor influxes. I could see that as being obnoxious (noise levels, perceived safety risks):
Mind you, I am not a fan of this palace-masquerading-as-housing at all. But it seems instructive to see the mental gymnastics that opponents, many of whom presumably live in large homes in these luxury areas to object to these whopper buildings while exempting their own.
And perhaps some of the super and next level rich are also coming to recognize that panic rooms aren’t a great solution to resentment of their excesses (they can’t stay in them forever, no matter how well stocked) and maybe not engaging in resentment-inducing behavior would be at least as good protection. Of course paying the lower orders better would greatly reduce their vulnerability, but we are a long long way from any, let alone many, having that sort of Damascene conversion.
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1 According to a tax maven, who makes a point of studying many American and international subcultures, people like this really do exist and even have admirers.
2 Adobe really is a great fit for the weather there, so this stipulation should not be seen as an imposition.
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In a previous life I was a consultant in the UK dealing with issues like this. It is amazing the contortions people come to when it comes to defending their community/property values. I remember once asking a local planner why there were so many objections to a housing development on zoned land for large (by UK standard) detached houses. Many locals insisted they didn’t object to the principle of homes, they just wanted more smaller ones on the land. He just said dryly ‘Because Asian buyers have bigger families so they like bigger houses’.
Here in Ireland there is a similar issue with multiple objections to a very large house in an upmarket (mostly nouveau riche) enclave proposed by MMA fighter Conor McGregor. Its hard to know whether the objections are to the house or the owner. A bit of both I’d guess.
I suspect this is a variation on the gleaming new Range Rover vs mud covered Land Rover thing. Newly rich people like to buy Range Rovers because it makes them look like they own a house in the countryside. Old money people like Land Rovers because they actually own the countryside. In my experience old money types only have very large homes if they inherited them – if they buy one for themselves, they prefer to express their good taste through something characterful and modest. Building a 20 room mansion is for hip hop moguls and car dealers. So I suspect that in this case the objections are less to the houses, than the type of person who is likely to live in one.
Footballers’ houses!
Hilariously, in the UK all the footballers live in the same places (Wilmslow Triangle in NW, Totteridge in N/E London, Surrey in S/W London) so there are gleaming colonies of taste free plate glass, chrome and white render.
We had neighbours like that, with a house full of pictures of their horses, no books and hob and oven still wrapped in the plastic they came in because the family lived on Deliveroo. Husband was self-made but wife came from the kind of land rich, cash poor background that would usually have taste. I guess they were just all about horses….
Anyway, the UK backlash of old rich vs new rich is at its most intense in Bosham. Pronounced Bozzum, this is an ancient tiny port on South Coast of England that is embroidered into the Bayeux Tapestry. The harbour is mostly a very shallow lagoon these days, suitable only for rowboats and tenders and tidal but there are yacht moorings and marinas down river. The heart of the village is a knot of narrow alleys north of the lagoon and a single track road around the tidal lagoon which is underwater at high tide and the approaches to the village are single track lanes across salt marsh fields.
This is prime yachting and second home territory and only a couple of hours from London. But the old money family owners of the listed buildings around the harbour are up in arms about (1) people buying the more “modern” (early 20th century) family houses on the south of the lagoon (accessed only along the tiny roads through the village) and knocking them down for mega mansions and (2) Instagram day trippers who discovered the place in lockdown and crawl all over it, sitting in gardens, looking through windows etc 9-5.
https://archive.ph/prJ1d
We used to visit Bosham for outings when we lived in the nearest town. Similar issues with tiny old money holiday enclaves being discovered have arisen at Sandbanks (most expensive land per sq ft in UK!) In Dorset and Saunton Sands in Devon.
The megabasement trend happened in London last decade (less space, more controls on listed buildings externally). Legislation has been brought in to control it but until then, very rich people were suing each other over nuisance claims about the noise, structural risks etc.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5703283/Map-reveals-4-650-mega-basements-dug-beneath-London-homes.html
Oh, Bosham reminds me a little of Wivenhoe, a pretty little village I used to cycle to on a Sunday when living in Colchester. I believe its had a similar transformation.
I lived in Wivenhoe! I was studying Russian on the Essex University Russian course and the University is properly in Wivenhoe rather than Colchester.
It may be suffering the same pressures but Bosham is really unique as a place, not a lot like Wivenhoe. Maybe like a Cinqueterra or Balearic port village but without the hills. :-)
Oh really? I quite liked visiting it for a walk and a pint when I was too lazy to cycle up to Suffolk on my days off, although I always struggled to get my imagination about what those Roman galleys would have looked like working their way up that muddy creek to Colchester castle.
According to ChatGPT, the average UK new build house is 76 square meters, the average North American new build house would be 232 square meters. (Who knows where it got that from but there is a distinct and noticeable average size difference, so I cheated and took a shortcut.) Would many Irish or UK folk consider a typical North American home to be a McMansion, I wonder?
Sounds about right. The average new build in Ireland is around 100msq (1000 sq foot or thereabouts). A typical house from 30 or 40 years ago would be at least half as big again. A typical Irish rural house (self build) would I think be around 200 sqm.
The Irish equivalent of McMansions used to be called Bungalow Bitz, a play on a very popular design guide called Bungalow Bliss, which led to a mass outburst of cheap and nasty fake haciendas or ranch houses all across the Irish countryside in the 1970’s. Britain largely escaped that due to much stronger restrictions on rural housing policy, although I did once notice a particularly horrible sprawling bungalow outside a pretty little Essex village – when I asked how it got permission I was told that the owners were Irish Travellers (gypsies) and the local Council was too terrified of them to refuse permission.
Since the Celtic Tiger, Ireland has plenty of McMansions, often built around golf courses, but the high cost of heating oil/gas here means only the very wealthy will overbuild in the US style, so they’d still be considered comparably small. The can be similarly crass – I remember a notorious one known as the Kildare Southfork, built during the popularity of Dallas – it was a major feature of the road west outside Dublin until a new highway was built. It was widely joked that the new road was built solely to ensure tourists didn’t head straight back to the airport on seeing the house.
UK planning standards does occasionally allow the odd vulgarity to get through, but in general it encourages very dull and bland housing in any area deemed sensitive. There is some great modern domestic architecture in London, but not so much in the commuter belt areas. Fake Georgian or Tudor seems particularly popular in the UK with rich self builders – but there is such a rich legacy of nice older houses all over England I think the vast majority of the rich opt for restoring or expanding an older building. Even if they lack the taste themselves, they will usually be advised by their builder/architect that getting the house you want is easier that way.
I’ve often thought that many a now lauded and famous house would be considered a vulgar McMansion if built now rather than 150 years ago – Kylemore Abbey comes to mind – its incredibly popular with visitors.
I think this is the most famous example of an English McMansion – sadly the owner had to demolish it. He apparently built it behind a wall of hay bales so nobody noticed until it was already up.
Bungalow Bliss is fascinating,thank you for the link. Now I understand why so many bungalows have been built across Ireland!
I cannot share the article’s view that they now fit in, they look garish and selfish and have no sympathy for landform or massing of neighbouring buildings.
Weirdly, the aspiration for an Irish style bungalow is also the aspiration for every Devon farmer on retirement. Every family farm around here has a 70’s or 80’s bungalow on it, built when the post-war farmer retired and handed the farmhouse to the child….
The article was very kind to the book – it is in fact full of truly terrible designs (the author wasn’t a properly qualified architect, he was a draughtsman with almost no knowledge of real world building). Its impact was quite tragic on the Irish landscape and resulted in a culture of very poor quality building.
An obvious basis for criticism would be the climate change print of such castles. No limits there are but should be settled.
I’d imagine it takes a lot of staff to maintain such a huge place, on the order of a small business. I know one thing rich people hate is having to see/interact with people who do actual work with their hands. So increased worker traffic is one objection (not one you can say in public, but a real one I bet).
I’d also wager that most of these people know that it won’t take much of a financial contraction to make many of these places unsellable, even among their crowd. It used to be the gigantic mansion was a rare curio of the very eccentric. I wish I could see data on the growth of houses of 20k sq ft or more between 1980 and now, but I bet it curves upward steeply in the last decade.
I was just saying to someone the other day that these McMansions always look like prison complexes to me. So one possible basis for blocking them could be the usual NIMBY objections around prisons, group homes, social work/counselling centers, hospitals, homeless respites, nuclear plants, farms…
I have an acquaintance who bought two condos in an older tall building and tore down the walls between them. Nobody could object, nor did he ask the condo board, because layout changes are well within the rights of the owner. I’ve always thought that we’d reach a point where even condos are overpriced and this would be one vector leading us in that direction.
Old news in many western ski resorts, and many of these structures (hate to call them “homes”) are only used two, maybe three weeks a year. They do keep a large property management industry employed and humming.
Best story I heard from a young man on a ski lift. His friend worked in property management in Vail, and had to get into one of these well kept ghost mansions. His boss gives him a number to call, he does, and a man on the other end, without putting the phone down, shouts to his wife, “Honey, do we have a house in Vail?” Maybe he should have asked the accountant who recommended buying it for the tax breaks and portfolio diversification.
I’ve never seen a ski resort so festooned with ski in-ski out chalets as Deer Valley in Utah.
You almost never see anybody emanating out of them, and we looked up the going rate for a ‘compound’ and $18 million will get you 6 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, obviously shit happens more often among the effluent.
I believe the town is called Truro, and it is on Cape Cod, not near it.
Yes, correct on both counts. Fixing.
See Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic that had Lenny Bernstein wearing jeans to his cocktail parties. The Wolfe article was more about the wealthy embracing poor people politics but, being Wolfe, it was also about how they were trying to mimic the sartorial and lifestyle symbols. Or there’s FDR and Eleanor letting the White House run down (not their priority) and serving hot dogs to the King. The malefactors of great wealth may start lowering their profile if 20 year olds are going around randomly shooting people. Doubtless this would be wise.
Everyone should visit FDR’s home in Hyde Park. It’s not much. (Only president who was born and died living in the same home. Buried in the front yard) Bedroom situation was, huh? That’s it? Then drive down the road to see the Vanderbilt Spring and Fall “cottage”. Way over the top. Her bedroom was copied from the royal birthing room at Versailles (? I think. Some European royal excessive place), and the bed is in an enormous high ceilinged room on a stage with a railing (so the subjects back in France could witness the birth). His bedroom was as large. And this was just a home for in between New York and Newport times. Excellent contrast of old vs. new money. Old money won. A Vanderbilt grandchild gave the home to the NPS rather than pay the New Deal taxes.
I’ve been to a number of Presidential Libraries, and FDR’s @ Hyde Park is as you describe, I think I enjoyed it all the more on account of the other ones being so ostentatious in comparison.
Don’t forget the Little White House in Georgia that had like four rooms and a wood stove for cooking.
I think that I can see the motivation at work here. It’s one thing to be sitting pretty in your mansion which you consider it to be more of an asset than a home. One so large that if you cannot see anybody when you walk in the front door, you have to ring them on your mobile to find out which part of the mansion they are in. But then you get those who want to one up everybody else and so build a monster mansion. One whose real estate values will overshadow yours. And it is not like the people that build these places are renowned for their taste. Otherwise there would be no such site as McMansion Hell-
https://mcmansionhell.com/
So you put limits on sizes before the whole neighbourhood starts to look like an architect’s circus. After all, those mansions have lots of big windows and do you really want to look out on monster McMansions? Especially ones that may interfere with your own views which is why you paid the big bucks? This is one neighbourhood competition that you do not need hence the kickback against this trend.
Here in our little pueblo in Baja Sur Mexico, where 20 years ago a $100K house was a rarity, there are now dozens of homes for sale in the $2-15 million dollar range. Most of them were built for .com gazillionaires, who typically, only occupied them for a handful of long weekends, before becoming bored and scurrying off to the next trendy place to construct another monstrosity, that they can impress their rich friends with photos of at charity events.
Maybe they saw Obama’s hideous Napa compound and came to their senses. Probably not though.
The US is littered with districts where the nouveau riche of days gone by built big monuments to themselves. Once they are no longer fashionable, what do you do with them? They wind up getting subdivided into apartments, or just decay into a blighted zone, because they are too expensive to maintain. Or perhaps worse, become a burden to some poor historical society to try to save.
It’s justifiable for the neighbors to be opposed to these monstrosities for the same reason we could use less big-box stores; they will eventually be abandoned eyesores. And this time these houses aren’t masterpieces of skilled craftsmanship (well some are) built for the ages, they are mostly just monstrosities that eventually no one will be able to afford to heat and cool.
Tsarist Russia famously had some very large mansions. They were put to good public use afterwards.
In regards to living in a huge house, it just seems like a hassle. You either need an army of employees to maintain it, or de facto mothball large sections. Then again, I’m not the demographic who is keen (or able) to purchase one of those, so maybe there’s something I’m missing.
Royal McMansion, UK-style.
And let’s not forget Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu…
Being a geologist, i can’t help but wonder how a large, deep basement can be constructed and maintained without extensive dewatering. Considering the freshwater situation (a groundwater lens essentially floating on saltwater) on islands and sandy peninsulas typical of coastal areas between NYC and Maine, dewatering for huge basements has the potential of ruining the fresh groundwater system for everyone in the area.
The PRN* does a pretty good job of restraining this sort of excess.
Only allows certain colors of paint, enforces what is pretty much a dress code for houses.
There’s a sort of funny story about the objections to updating the interior of an early 19th Century abode.
The sentiment is expressed in a bumper sticker: GUT FISH NOT HOUSES.
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*Peoples Republic of Nantucket
Interesting coinkydink that we posted at the same time. Another favorite bumper sticker alludes to the island’s reputation as the’grey lady’ – sporadic fogbanks were frequent and the little airport was not equipped for instrument landings. The airport gift shop did a brisk business with a sticker that read, FOG HAPPENS. I’m one of many who had to make a last minute scramble from Hyannis airport to the ferry dock (back then, a3 hr trip compared to maybe 20 minutes in the air – now they have faster boats (people, no vehicles) roughly half the time…. Modest B&B cottage lodging was not unreasonable, and the entire island is accessible by bike- picturesque is an understatement! A return visit is definitely on the bucket list.
The current must-have bumper stickers:
Piping Plover Tastes Like Chicken (Not at all new)
NANTUCKET SUCKS — TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS. (Post Covid)
A ‘few’ decades ago (70s?) Nantucket Island passed stringent building codes that required ALL new construction to be covered in traditional cedar shake shingles- apparently triggered by some rich knucklehead that built an oversized PINK monstrosity on a bluff overlooking the Bay- plainly visible to everyone arriving by ferry. The architect who spearheaded the zoning ordinance turned out to be older brother to a close musician buddy of mine – anyway, the brother was designated as an ‘honorary native’ in gratitude. The “ old money “ folks that own these cottages prefer to keep a low profile – the ‘showoffs’ can go to nearby Martha’s Vineyard tyvm.
that’s the thing…”old money,” while a lot by bottom 99% standards, is chump change compared to the money made possible by stock grants from companies with extreme multiples on earnings
Eric Schmidt become a billiionaire thanks to his Google stock grants when by Japanese standards he is a glorified “salary man” lol