Reply to 50 States of McMansion Hell: Fairfax and Loudoun County, Virginia

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are local custom builders and we employ a licensed AIA architect who cuts up designs just like these.  Some are spec homes, others are where our homeowner clients comes to us and then sits down with this architect to design the plan.    So the argument that builders just use a "draftsman/CAD operator" is just BS.   The fact most don't want to face is these homes sell because they are large and spacious and that is why architects design them and we build them.  I don't see this changing anytime soon..[/quote]

I think the distinction is that some of these (what she terms "McMansions") are to many folks' eye ugly.  There is nothing inherently wrong or ugly about a well balanced, large house well situated on a lot. The things that turn a house from appropriate to hellish for me are (1) when it looks like the architect/designer/builder played spin the wheel of architectural features rather than constructing a cohesive whole and (2) when the house to lot square footage ratio gets too high.  A 4000 square foot house on a .75 acre lot (house sqft being about 10% to 15% of lot).  This seems about right to me -- maybe could have supported bigger.

The blog does a great job with the former objection so I'll demonstrate the latter point with a few examples from Arlington (I'm trying not to choose ones that are total trainwrecks):

This on the other hand has a house to lot ratio of almost .75 --   https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4531-40th-St-N_Arlington_VA_22207_M53621-71773?view=qv

This one is nearly .80 -- https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/2817-N-Jefferson-St_Arlington_VA_22207_M65362-54520?view=qv

Over .85 -- https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/707-N-Barton-St_Arlington_VA_22201_M60548-32591?view=qv

For those of you who point out that Arlington is intended to be more high density (but perish the thought of multi-unit on one of these lots), here are some from Vienna which most of you likely view as "the sticks":

.45 -- https://www.redfin.com/VA/Vienna/107-James-Dr-SE-22180/home/9539940

.48 -- https://www.redfin.com/VA/Vienna/114-Tapawingo-Rd-SW-22180/home/9454174

.55 -- https://www.redfin.com/VA/Vienna/207-Ross-Dr-SW-22180/home/9529378

[/quote]

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