As McMansions Begin to Die Off, Look to the Past for Housing's Future

The end of the housing bubble may also signal the end of the McMansion, that much-maligned symbol of suburban American excess.

Its demise cannot be attributed to the critics' constant harping on the huge size, overdone glitz and mish-mash of historic styles associated with the McMansion, a derogatory term that can cover just about any house an observer considers big and ugly. The public was oblivious, and millions of people bought these houses anyway.

Rather, the shift is largely a matter of practicality, said Middleburg architect Russell Versaci, who has had many clients seeking alternatives. "The Gen X and Boomers who snapped them up have finally concluded that owning all that space that needed to be furnished, heated and maintained but was rarely used was illogical."

What will take the place of the McMansion?

There's no one solution, but there are sensible premises that many homeowners forgot during the McMansion era, Versaci said. His advice to clients: Build only rooms that you will use everyday and make your house as energy efficient as you can afford.

What would such a house look like? Versaci would urge you to take some cues from America's rich cultural heritage in domestic architecture, which he describes in his recent book "Roots of Home: Our Journey to a New Old House" (Taunton, $45)

During the first 200 years of settlement, immigrants from six regions of Europe settled in virgin territory along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Coasts and the Southwest, Versaci said. Each European region had many architectural traditions; across the newly settled lands there were as many as 24 distinct house types, and some are better known than you might think. The Swedes, who settled in what is now Delaware, built what eventually became the quintessential symbol of the American frontier, the log cabin.

There have been some misattributions as well. The "Dutch Colonial," with its angled, gambrel roof, was actually introduced by English settlers in Connecticut. But, Versaci said, the door style with glass panes that is known as a "French door" really did come from France.

Despite the many differences in the appearance of the houses, they shared a common thread, Versaci said. Most of the early settlers were from farming villages where house forms had evolved slowly over centuries. Building traditions were based on practicality rather than aesthetics. A homeowner might change a roof detail because it made the roof shed water better, not because it looked better. After his neighbors observed that the modification was an improvement, they altered their roofs, too. Eventually everyone did so, and it became simply "the way we build roofs." Subsequent generations often had no idea why their roofs had a particular profile, they just knew it kept the rain out.

In the New World, the houses continued to evolve, but some details that were no longer needed remained because of custom.

A good example of this, Versaci said, were the houses of the Flemish farmers who settled in the Hudson River Valley and northern New Jersey. Their roofs had a curve at the drip edge along the eave line that projected three to four feet beyond the exterior wall. The roof's curve was an embellishment, but back in Flanders, its projection protected the mud walls below from water damage caused by heavy rain.

In the areas where these Flemish farmers settled, they found an abundance of stone to use for their walls. The projecting curve became extraneous, but it continues to this day in an abbreviated form, as a sentimental reminder of this old tradition, Versaci said.