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This is a great point too. My wife and I have looked at some lovely historic homes, but they are either in a horrible district or, more often the case they are on the edge of a very busy road which is a deal breaker for us. Too bad, there are so many nice, older homes out there.
That does not seem to have stemmed the tide of teardowns in the north Dallas area where the schools are mostly terrible but people cheerfully drop up to $25k per child on private school, plus over $1 million on a 5,000 square foot Tuscan theme park built on land that used to host much more modest (but still larger than the average American house) 1950s ranch houses. Some of those ranches are still around, dwarfed by their oversized neighbors. The neighbors also usually kill whatever natural light used to pour into these older homes by literally blocking out the sun.
The only thing that has stemmed the tide of teardowns in this area is the economy, but all that has done is murder real estate values in neighborhoods where teardowns have a toehold but do not comprise a majority of construction. The houses are worth nothing; the land is what is valuable; and if an investor cannot sell a $1 million spec home built on that lot, values go down across the board. Some owners in some areas have seen 25% of their property's value evaporate in the last 12 months. This is not universal across Dallas but it is happening in one or two neighborhoods.
In my part of Dallas we killed most of the teardowns/McMansions before the economy through conservation, historic districts and NSOs (Neighborhood Stabalization Ordinance - height, setback not style). However some sub-areas tried to get NSOs and they did not succeed. For some reason the conservation districts were the easiest to pass even if they are much more restrictive than the NSOs. The NSOs mostly failed in areas of 50s-60s-70s ranch homes somewhat like the ones my fellow Dallasite "Geek" mentions. The ranch home lots are generally wider and sometimes not quite as deep.
Fortunately we have some excellent schools in our historic areas of East Dallas and Lakewood.
We have a Historic district near me that with homes that what was consider mansion back then approx 2800' to 3200' homes. I been picking (refuse) up in this district for over a year and never looked at these homes for what they were until this thread. A few have custom cedar siding, carved and etch wood work along the roof and around the windows. I like various paint schemes they used to seperate different aspect/detail of wood work carvings and cedar siding. A lot of detail went into these homes right down to the mailboxes.
The roof line on some home have the cone shape or castle like peaks/ pitches, this one roof has something that resemble a bell house in the middle of the roof. Courtyards, wrap around porches with 2 to 4 post at each support instead of the normal one post beams you see today. 20'+ pillars across the front of the houses or at the door entrance.
The down size to this area is most of the architectural design homes outside the historic district were converted to low rental multi units and commercial use ( realtors office,dentistry or law office) property. Some owners fail to paint the wood details, cedar siding, replace/repair the 50+ years shingles and other architectural details in and around historic district. Its a shamed these homes sit in what is the ghetto in that part of town.
Who cares? Let people do what they want with their own money. What is waste to you may be a luxurious well-earned extra to others.
People should NOT be able to spend their money on anything they want, especially when their choices will end up affecting the world in a negative way. Not only do these oversized homes use a ton of energy, they also consume acres worth of carbon dioxide consuming trees and tons of additional natural resources typically trucked in from far away places. There should be a limit on the size of new homes and the mortgage interest deduction (a massive government subsidy for the rich) needs to be capped at a reasonable amount. These large homes have quickly become today's fur coat.
People should NOT be able to spend their money on anything they want, especially when their choices will end up affecting the world in a negative way. Not only do these oversized homes use a ton of energy, they also consume acres worth of carbon dioxide consuming trees and tons of additional natural resources typically trucked in from far away places. There should be a limit on the size of new homes and the mortgage interest deduction (a massive government subsidy for the rich) needs to be capped at a reasonable amount. These large homes have quickly become today's fur coat.
Mike
Mike, there is a lot worse things going on in this world than people building big houses - get a grip.
My issue with many of these is the "wasted" square footage. Hallways wide enough to drive a semi-truck through, bathrooms with entrance atriums, closets that are the size of a garage ... all adding square footage, but without increasing the usability.
Nevermind the operating costs for heating and cooling the air space too.
While there will still be a market for such gargantuans (much like oversized SUVs), the trend will be more towards efficiency nowadays.
I don't know that I agree with that. I love my huge bathroom, with my own toilet room, and love my huge closet even more. I can stand in the middle and see ALL of my clothes and ALL of my shoes and ALL of purses, scarves, etc. It's wonderful. My husband has his own big closet which he seems to like, but I am quite sure that I appreciate mine much more.
Does this house look like a McMansion? Find New Homes & Home Builders in Purcellville, Virginia 20132 at iNest.com (http://www.internest.com/city/purcellvilleva.asp - broken link) I like the stone work up the front and on the front porch. I also like that it has 5 acres and the other neighbors have more, 15 acres, 13 acres, and 12 acres. Really enjoy their horses too. There are many, many, advantages to living in a house that big. But then I'm buying a big SUV. With so many dirt roads out here, everything drives a truck of some kind.
People should NOT be able to spend their money on anything they want, especially when their choices will end up affecting the world in a negative way. Not only do these oversized homes use a ton of energy, they also consume acres worth of carbon dioxide consuming trees and tons of additional natural resources typically trucked in from far away places. There should be a limit on the size of new homes and the mortgage interest deduction (a massive government subsidy for the rich) needs to be capped at a reasonable amount. These large homes have quickly become today's fur coat.
Mike
So what? We pay plenty in taxes and use very few of the services. We have kids in school and have never need a cop out here in the boonies.
I was a UPS driver in Plano/McKinney/Frisco Texas in the 90's and more. I ran McMansion neighborhoods as they ate the cotton fields and prairies of north Texas, from Dallas to Plano and Frisco and Denton, and on to Oklahoma.
I watched entire developments completed in a matter of months, each inhabiting McMansion being built in three weeks or less from start to finish. I spent my days delivering through neighborhoods so new and sprung from the prairie the streets weren't on any map. All day I wound around nameless cul-de-sacs listening to the ka-whak-a-ta, ka-whack-a-ta of staple guns tacking down roof shingles. I saw foundations poured in one day and a finished house sitting on it just a couple of weeks later.
Construction laborers would roll in like waves--subcontracted framing crews, then the roofers, drywallers, glaziers; then landscape crews rolling out lawns in a day and installing the two trees in front that came with the builder's package. Every so often Border Patrol vans would show up looking for immigant labor.....on those days no one seemed to show up for work and the ka-whack-a-tas were silenced.
I delivered the Next Day Air mortgage papers from Countrywide and GMAC to the new owners who were never home. I delivered their Christmas trees and Christmas presents to darkened houses. Blocks and blocks and miles and miles of McMansions where nobody was ever home. They had to work ungodly hours all of them to make the payments on the house and the cars and the outlandish utility bills, and no one was ever home. They were ghost towns.
When I left their deliveries on the front porch I could see through the faux Palladian windows--there was no furniture in the dark and uninhabited Great Room. The Formal Dining Room set gleamed of polish on a dinner table that had probably never been used. There were no cars and no bikes and no kids and no cats to be seen. Acres of silent McMansion neighborhoods which no one seemed to inhabit. I was the only living soul to be found for blocks.
I did that for years.
I will not miss the empty McMansion syndrome. It's a dead and heartless life and its expiration is long overdue.
Wow. If people started going smaller and insisting on quality instead, we might actually geenrate something with some architectural value from our era. That would be exciting.
If everyone donated 1/10 of the savings from a smaller, better built home. We could fund a lot of charities.
A demand for quality may also bring back some of the job. No mopre call for chinese lumber or Chinese poisonous drywall. No More: "I do not care if my drywall is poisonous, I want a bigger house than the nieghbors and I cannot afford it if I insist on non-toxic drywall from a manufacturer who willtake responsibility for their product." ?
A wise friend once told me not to move to a bigger house. He said that it is very damaging to your family. Caught up in the bigger is better syndrome, I did not listen. He was right. When you have a giant house, people all go off into their own little corner in their own giant room. In a smal;ler house you are forced to stick together more and socialize more. Heck, you might even all be forced to wath the same channel on TV and possibly even talk while numbing your brain out in front o fthe tube.
I would not say that the big house ruined our family, but it defeintely has detrimental effects. While the teens live the privacy, it defeintely creates a speration that we did nto have in a smaller house. Sometimes when I come home from work, I cannot find anyone to greet even though they are all int eh house somewhere. Usually I can find one or tow people, but everyone? Forget it, I will be worn out before I find them all. Luckily I drive a pretty loud car so that the come and find me most nights.
I do love our big old house, but we could have been just fine with 1000 s.f. less. We have roooms that rarely see any use and one person per room is not good for family/socialization.
People should NOT be able to spend their money on anything they want, especially when their choices will end up affecting the world in a negative way. Not only do these oversized homes use a ton of energy, they also consume acres worth of carbon dioxide consuming trees and tons of additional natural resources typically trucked in from far away places. There should be a limit on the size of new homes and the mortgage interest deduction (a massive government subsidy for the rich) needs to be capped at a reasonable amount. These large homes have quickly become today's fur coat.
Mike
By this logic we should all be living in caves. Jay
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The neighbors also usually kill whatever natural light used to pour into these older homes by literally blocking out the sun. 
The houses are worth nothing; the land is what is valuable; and if an investor cannot sell a $1 million spec home built on that lot, values go down across the board. Some owners in some areas have seen 25% of their property's value evaporate in the last 12 months. This is not universal across Dallas but it is happening in one or two neighborhoods.
