DAYS ON THE MARKET
By JODI SUMMERS
Lifestyles, like fashion, run in cycles. Studies show that our standard of living ideals swing from extravagance to simplicity in approximately 30-year cycles. As we are living in the age of “McMansions” and oversized SUVs, you can assume that Americans are at one of our peaks of excessiveness.
Houses just grow and grow. In the last two decades, the average floor area of new homes has increased some 40 percent. Ironically, while house sizes have been growing, the number of members that make up a household has shrunk — from 3.7 people in 1981 to 2.7 in 2001. Many of these oversized homes have been dubbed “McMansions.” This architectural term first appeared in the 1980s, and implies that a house is as large as a mansion, and is as culturally ubiquitous as McDonald’s. McMansions are intended to fill the gap between the modest suburban tract home and the upscale custom-designed home often found in gated communities.
On June 9, 1999, Santa Monica took steps to stop the spread of McMansions by reducing the size of new houses permitted in the residential zone north of Montana Avenue. Three years later, the City Council expanded that ordinance to Sunset Park. Currently, a home’s buildable lot area is 35 percent for the first floor and 26 percent for the second floor. Prior to the change in zoning codes, the buildable area was 40 percent for both the first and second floors.
“Many of the new, larger structures are not compatible with adjacent structures, resulting in negative impacts in terms of the neighborhood’s access to light and air, privacy and the overall amount of open space,” noted a city staff report. The “modifications are designed to reduce building mass and enhance the pedestrian orientation between the building and the streetscape by governing parcel coverage, side setbacks, and garage and garage door orientation.”
McMansions are our most current version of excessiveness, but the trend started with the Victorian era in the second half of the 19th century. The Victoria era was a rebellion against the formal classical styles that had dominated architecture, and can be known for overblown houses full of baroque eccentricities.
The dawn of the 20th century saw a return to simplicity. The arts and crafts movement, with its appreciation for simplicity and hand craftsmanship blossomed. As a result, the Craftsman bungalow came of age. Stressing harmony between the home and environment, the houses were built close to the ground with low-pitched roofs. The Craftsman era coincided with the rise in simplistic Mission architecture, which romanticized the simple Spanish churches of colonial America.
This innocent aesthetic survived into the economic gaiety of the roaring ’20s — when the style and panache of Art Deco became all the rage. Mission architecture evolved into the more wild and expressive Spanish Revival style, which borrowed elements from the entire history of Spanish architecture, from Moorish to Byzantine to Renaissance.
Then came the Great Depression and World War II. The frill of Art Deco was toned down to the aesthetic simplicity of Streamline Moderne. Baroque touches were exchanged for more simple aerodynamic lines.
Post-World War II prosperity brought the United States into another period of opulence. Spacious and sprawling ranch houses with two-car garages became the style du jour during the Eisenhower era.
Then came the Cold War and Vietnam. California became the most populous state, and pollution became a national issue. Practicality again reared its ugly head, and houses returned to a neo-traditional simplicity.
The rise of Capitalism and the double-income family gave people a need to be rewarded for their hard work, and thus bloomed the McMansion. Another factor contributing to the growth in home sizes is the shift in the house and land equation. A house used to cost twice as much as the land. Now that land prices have skyrocketed, land costs twice the price of the house. Just check out all of the $1 million teardown properties for sale around town.
The National Building Museum defines a “McMansion” as a “suburban homes that are almost, but not quite, mansions. They typically make a show of pretentious ornament and grandiose interior spaces. Windows are distinctly shaped and highly decorative creating historical allusions.”
The traditional backyard has gone, leaving fewer trees for kids to climb and less room for them to run and invent games. Now kids play on computers and are driven to soccer practice.
McMansions are twice the size of the homes many American adults grew up in. Sociologist Gabrielle Gwyther notes that McMansion owners are “tremendously house proud, raising their nice children to share their high aspirations, get good educations and good careers, and not get into trouble with teenage gangs. They love cocooning inside their McMansions, which are like castles, fun factories and mini resorts in one.”
In October, thanks to the hurricanes, the Federal Energy Information Administration announced that winter heating bills are likely to jump by about 48 percent for Americans who use natural gas.
According to Michael Carliner, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C., energy crises do not change people’s preferences.
“They don’t tend to buy smaller houses or houses with lower ceilings or houses that are closer to work, to any significant extent,” Carliner concluded. “They tend to be more conscious of how efficient the equipment is in the house and how well-insulated it is. There will be increased attention to things like that.”
Will the economic shift instigate a change in construction styles? Tighter times mean simpler homes — perhaps the nine-seat media room will downsize 33 percent to a six-seat media room. (Jodi Summers is director of the investment division at Boardwalk Realty Santa Monica. Contact her at, or call (310) 309-4219. Visit her community history Web site at www.santamonicalandmarks.com.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 9, 2005. Read the original PDF.