“What’s up with your sister?” I asked over the cool clamor of the Lower East Side bar with awesome beer and mediocre schnitzel.
“She’s living in a McMansion outside Albany,” my friend answered disdainfully.
This, from a woman living in a 500-square-foot, sixth-floor walk-up apartment (which is beautifully designed and 100% organized) with her husband, their 6-year-old, and a one-eyed cat.
“It’s so gauche,” she might as well have said.
I used to feel the same way. The new money, eco-unfriendly, Ikea-like McBoxes that popped up like crazy in the pre-crash building boom days got the stare-down from me, too.
I thought I was a badass in my bachelor days, living in various states of privileged squalor on both coasts—from my crummy ’70s guesthouse in Echo Park, to my chic but almost unimaginably small West Village “junior” one-bedroom. I fancied myself an icon of the urban guerrilla lifestyle.
But now, with two kids and 18 consecutive years in New York City, the charm of my own fourth-floor walk-up and my city’s mediocre schnitzel may be wearing off—I think McMansions are friggin’ awesome.
And, as it turns out, more and more Americans are agreeing with me.
To be honest, my previous disapproval, and perhaps the larger cultural dis on McMansions, was not just about suburban sprawl. It was some weird, sideways class warfare. Giant houses held a mythic stature when I was growing up. Gazing at them from the back seat of our ancient family wagon, I imagined the “our troubles are over” lifestyles that existed between their expansive walls. They were royalty and glamour. Anyone with the down payment could get a McMansion—it was like getting the castle without winning the battle.
Those mass-produced megahomes, with their mishmash of architectural styles, their massive frames on little lots, their ivy-green rolls of sod, were like a cheap thrill—the juice drinks of late 20th-century architecture.
And so, after the crash, we veered away from them. My wife (an editor at realtor.com®) tells me that the average house size increased for decades, from 1,525 square feet in 1973 to 2,277 square feet in 2007, but by 2009 it took a dip, to 2,135.
Now the tide is changing again. The average house size rose again, to 2,463 square feet, in 2014, according to the U.S. Census. In May, The Wall Street Journal asked, “Is the McMansion back?”
Just a couple of weeks ago my wife was invited to visit Greystone on Hudson, “an exclusive private enclave of distinguished residential estates.” Not only are McMansions back, if we’re to believe the implication of this collection of Gilded Age–style homes along the Hudson: They’re bigger than ever.
Maybe nobody frets over them now, or thinks about class that same way. “Nouveau riche” isn’t really a thing now. If you’ve recently made a lot of money fast, you’ve likely got “tech money,” and nobody looks down at that. (Of course, if you’ve got tech money, you’ve probably got some 5,000-square-foot mountaintop ultracontemporary hideaway that manufactures its own rainwater and cures cancer, too.)
Other than that comment at the bar, I hardly ever hear a word about McMansions at all. Or maybe the disconnect between the disdain for McMansions and how frickin’ awesome they are is finally shrinking.
Who wouldn’t admit that the McMansion, no matter how gauche, is looking better and better? It’s looking like a kind of pre-crash architecture, when the little guy could have a big house. While my friend in the smart car–size apartment is a hero for surviving and thriving in her elite box, me, I’m getting sick of it. (And for the record, my box is way bigger than hers.)
The older I get, the more my desire to stretch out seems to outweigh my love of city life and my environmental leanings. And what’s not to love? Tons of space? Want it. Some yard? Need it. Big Kitchen? Crave it. Extra rooms for my crap? Do you have to ask? Parking? Please!
I don’t want a Hummer, or even an Escalade (I’m still a liberal for crying out loud!), but a McMansion? Sign me up.
