In Suburbia, Going to Great Lengths to House Lofty Spaces

The benefits of suburban living are well known -- good schools, bigger yards, ample parking. But what value should be placed on that increasingly common feature of the Washington area subdivision, the cathedral ceiling?

That is the question raised by a Herndon homeowner who recently embarked on a months-long odyssey into the labyrinthine world of tax assessments to challenge what he said was a blatant offense to logic and fairness.

Fairfax County, he realized in May, has for several years been assessing his family's 10-year-old home -- and others of similar design -- for 402 square feet more than the 3,600-square-foot house has. County appraisers looking at the house from the outside assumed that there was a second floor room above the family room. In fact, the family room reaches to the roof, with high windows that could give the outward appearance of a second-floor room.

The homeowner, Sean Murphy, waited six months only to have his appeal denied. But he then triumphed when, after a hearing, the Fairfax Board of Equalization lowered his 2006 assessment from $874,000 to $810,000, for a $670 drop in his tax bill.

But the ruling left open a larger question, one about as existential as suburban real estate gets: What is the value of a cathedral ceiling? Is having a big, baronial room worth as much as having another room upstairs? Or is the space beneath a high ceiling just, well, air?

Although seemingly obscure, the question touches on a sensitive point in a region dominated by concerns about sprawl and housing costs. For residents upset about the proliferation of big houses, one consolation has always been that the owners of such houses pay a hefty tax. But as Murphy's successful appeal shows, big houses with space given to cathedral ceilings are sometimes charged somewhat less than one might expect based simply on their overall girth.

As Murphy, 40, sees it, that's the way it should be: If you cannot walk on it, then it is not square footage and should not add to the value. He said his wife and three children enjoy the family room, which is decorated with a huge reproduction of Michelangelo's "Creation of Man," but when it comes down to it, they would rather have a fifth bedroom.

"It just wasn't right," he said of his initial assessment. "If it's not a floor, it doesn't count."

The practice of county assessors in the region is less straightforward than that, with cathedral ceilings falling into a gray area that each office handles differently. But in general, assessors say, homes with cathedral ceilings instead of additional second floor rooms are not allocated square footage for that space and are assessed for somewhat less than if they had another actual room instead.

"Our policy is that people buy bedrooms and baths," said Bob Willingham, the deputy county assessor for Loudoun County. "It all depends on how your equations are set up, and Loudoun's is that it's best to compare square footage."

Generally, assessors rely on a combination of factors including the cost of building the house, the square footage and the location. Features such as a cathedral ceiling are not evaluated in square footage but in a formula for the overall quality of the house.

Some assessors say there are potential downsides to this approach. The cost of building a cathedral ceiling is not necessarily that much less than building a room, since it requires additional scaffolding and wall supports. And for some buyers, having a cathedral ceiling might in fact be worth more than another room simply because of the sense of luxury that it conveys.