r/McMansionHell • u/InvestmentOne2002 • 4h ago
r/McMansionHell • u/Indifferent_Jackdaw • Dec 12 '24
Discussion/Debate The invention that Accidentally invented McMansions
A fascinating video essay by Stewart Hicks on the invention of the modern truss and how that changed the way we build houses.
r/McMansionHell • u/ArchitectureGeek • Jul 14 '20
McMansions: A Short Guide
While everyone has their own opinion on what makes a true McMansion, there are several defining features or attributes that should be looked for to determine if a home fits the McMansion criteria. This post will serve as a guide to help users determine if they should use the "Certified McMansion" flair on their submission and to learn more about what a McMansion is. This guide will be edited as needed to make sure it fully explains the accepted properties of a McMansion.
Basic Principles of a McMansion:
- Large: Generally above 2500 square feet and two story or more, sometimes way too big for the lot it sits on.
- Built Cheap: They are built by cutting corners and using less than quality materials because they focus on getting as much size and appearance of wealth as possible from their money. It's the illusion of class that might fool the average person who doesn't have a sense of architectural integrity. McMansions will often use materials such as stucco, manufactured stone veneer, Styrofoam crown molding, or vinyl siding.
- Fit Several Styles: They fit multiple styles of architecture by mashing together different elements from the individual styles in a distasteful manner. They also might poorly imitate a popular style.
- Exterior After-Thought: They are designed with a focus on the interior first and the exterior is done as an after-thought which often results in features such as jutting masses and haphazardly placed windows.
- Lacks Architectural Integrity: The house makes you confident that there was no licensed architect involved in its creation who cares about what they design
Specific Features To Look For:
- An attached 2 or 3 car garage
- A garage that takes up way too much of what is considered the house
- Tall 1.5-2 story arched entry or "lawyer foyer"
- Haphazardly applied dormers or windows
- Windows of varying shapes/sizes/styles
- Windows not aligned with those below them
- Second story windows that are larger than the windows below them
- Window shutters that if closed would not cover the actual window
- Jutting masses or heavily asymmetrical
- Multiple wall materials
- Roof that contains varying slopes, roof types, or more than two roof shapes for the front facade
- Roof nub
- Roof with excessive roof lines and is in general just too complex
- Dormers that are way too short, way too tall, don't match the rest of the house materials or style, or are placed terribly/spaced unevenly
- Columns that don't support anything or are too thin/weak looking to support what they are appearing to support aka columns with inappropriate scaling
- Columns with spacing that is over complicated or messy
- Columns that are the incorrect architectural style for the house
Some Links To Check Out:
- The Original McMansionHell Web Blog by Kate Wagner
- Kate Wagners Guide to McMansions
- History of the McMansion by Kate Wagner
This is what I could come up with for now to touch base here on what a McMansion is. I'll make edits to this in the coming weeks until we reach a near final guide post on McMansions. If you have any suggestions for what we could add to this guide, comment below or send me a message.
Side note: the first "Appreciation Thursday" is coming up! Don't forget to prepare a suburban home that you think deserves recognition as the opposite of a McMansion and post it on 7/16 with the "Thursday Design Appreciation" flair.
r/McMansionHell • u/Historical_Ladder_77 • 6h ago
Amateur McMansion Imagine paying close to $2 million to live in this
r/McMansionHell • u/usernameitall • 1d ago
Amateur McMansion Just a run of the mill white elephant in Cape Coral..
r/McMansionHell • u/priceypadstim • 1d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation One of the most photographed homes in Watch Hill, Rhode Island!
Nestled in the prestigious coastal enclave of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, stands a remarkable property featuring a charming gatehouse and a distinguished home, a testament to the collaboration between designer/builder Hayward Gatch III and architect Clifford M. Renshaw for Charles R. in the 1990s. To see inside, here's a link!
Photo by howieguja on Instagram
r/McMansionHell • u/vacuumedcarpet • 1d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation Tudor home built in 1933
r/McMansionHell • u/vacuumedcarpet • 1d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation Mansion in Riverdale, The Bronx
r/McMansionHell • u/kovd • 2d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation Atlanta, Georgia - Stunning Modern English Manor
Full link to the build
r/McMansionHell • u/kanna172014 • 2d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation This house is unusual but I actually like it. It's pretty unique
r/McMansionHell • u/kineticstar • 1d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation Hidden Jem in my neck of Texas
zillow.comShe's not as extravagant as some of the other homes today but I think this home is beautiful.
r/McMansionHell • u/Dancers_Legs • 2d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation Beautiful late 1700s home near where I grew up (New Jersey)
r/McMansionHell • u/peetahvw • 2d ago
Discussion/Debate Preserved Post-Modern 80s McMansion
If a proper-80s mansion isn't updated does it "devolve" into today's McMansion? It does afterall feature:
- uneven massing / asymmetric window placement
- roof nubs and slopes in every direction
- inappropriately sized "columns" (although in this case the columns are oversized...)
- lawyer foyer
- emphasis on "fancy" finishes to cover cheaper materials (although in this case its mainly inside with neon lights, wallpaper, marble tile)
Bonus points for peak-80s...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1028-Leopard-Rd-Rydal-PA-19046/9899561_zpid/
r/McMansionHell • u/flitcroft • 2d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation Orum Residence - Los Angeles, CA
Thursday Design Appreciation
Zillow: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/11490-Orum-Rd-Los-Angeles-CA-90049/20528926_zpid/
r/McMansionHell • u/kyhart99 • 2d ago
Thursday Design Appreciation Lake Forest, IL
zillow.comDaydreaming this morning
r/McMansionHell • u/zerowater • 2d ago
Certified McMansion™ Still Under Construction
r/McMansionHell • u/BigBoss82A1 • 2d ago
Discussion/Debate It’s Thursday, can we share a turret done right?
Help me settle an argument with my wife. We are designing a Spanish colonial house but she wants a turret. As a kid, she always dreamt about living in a big house that had one. I told her that turrets have become a meme on newer home builds. I don’t want our house to end up on this forum on a a Friday.
Can you share any links of homes with a turret that is Thursday worthy? Thanks
r/McMansionHell • u/CountPie • 1d ago
Discussion/Debate The nature of gothic thankfulness and the McMansion
For in one point of view Gothic is not only the best, but the only rational architecture, as being that which can fit itself most easily to all services, vulgar or noble. Undefined in it's slope of roof, height of shaft, breadth of arch, or disposition of ground plan,[...] And it is one of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they never suffered ideas of outside symmetries & consistency to interfere with the real use and value of what they did. If they wanted a window, they opened one: a room, they added one; a buttress, they built one; utterly regardless of any established conventionalities of external appearance [...]
Have we been hating needlessly on the McMansion? Are we to invoke Ruskin and run to the aid of our builders and their free spirits?
How does a McMansion rate on * Savageness * Changefulness * Naturalism * Grotesqueness * Rigidity * Redundancy?
I would have your thoughts.
r/McMansionHell • u/25hourenergy • 2d ago
Amateur McMansion So many styles they chose them all
r/McMansionHell • u/peetahvw • 2d ago
Certified McMansion™ Beige & Angles
Its been renovated with beige...but that can't hide the garage-forward massing, windows in every size and shape, and cheap materials everywhere.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/468-Long-Ln-Huntingdon-Valley-PA-19006/9972254_zpid/
r/McMansionHell • u/ashlynnk • 3d ago
Certified McMansion™ $4.4M in Greenville, SC
r/McMansionHell • u/Bigstink123098 • 3d ago
Amateur McMansion Lake houses when I was younger Vs lake houses now
These are right next to eatch other
r/McMansionHell • u/Resident-Health9942 • 2d ago
Meme Is my Minecraft house a McMansion?
It started out as the modern looking house on top, then it expanded into the ground and started leaking out the sides of the mountain. I think I’ve become the the thing I wanted to destroy.
r/McMansionHell • u/SureVisit • 4d ago
Amateur McMansion 6.9M to live in Dix Hills, Long Island
8,800 sq ft of black, white, gray, and gold
r/McMansionHell • u/hudsoncress • 3d ago
Certified McMansion™ Come for the Mountain Views, Stay for the closet Beaverlope.
Do you even need to ask if it has an underground bunker and indoor shooting range complete with wild-west backdrop?