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Comment by quantumwannabe | Hacker News Reader

Remember that a 4000 sq ft house without a basement (common in the South) has around the same interior square footage as a 2000 sq ft house with a basement (common in the North). The Southerner's house looks a lot larger from the street, but it's actually around the same size inside as the "modest" house and is therefore not a "mansion".

Most of the "McMansion" photos I've seen criticized on architecture blogs are either middle-class houses from areas where basements are uncommon or cherry-picked examples of unusually bad design (many of which are actually custom builds!).

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> it's actually around the same size inside as the "modest" house and is therefore not a "mansion".

I think there's an issue with this premise. McMansions are not 'mansions' and the criticism stems from that fact. They are too small for the architectural features they try to cram into their facades (balustrades, numerous columns, far too many windows of awkward sizes). Also because they are small, they try to maximize the use of space leading to the exterior looking very weird due to overlapping roofs so individual rooms can be as large and tall as possible.

The article makes an interesting argument that the typical McMansion design, internally, can be distinguished by being more-or-less the same as a suburban home floor plan but inflated beyond all sense: an entry hallway turned into a grand foyer with a huge staircase (which, obviously, never actually gets used for anything, because it's still too small for actual parties), chains of special-purpose rooms stapled on to the same core set of rooms from the original nuclear family concept, access to the bedrooms stretched and stretched out as all the other spaces get bigger, etc.

It strikes me as, conceptually, a distinct contrast to an 'average' Victorian home floor plan (which is probably the other closest thing to 'mansion' that an average person might think of living in), where even a very large home is going to have pretty tight and efficient layouts meant to maximize collective practical use of the space (especially with a large family or guests), rather than just giving a ton of square footage to each individual inhabitant.

> far too many windows of awkward sizes

Hmmm, actually it’s usually the case they have too few windows because windows (carpentry to house them and the actual window) is far more expensive than just having a wall.

But you’re right, they’ll often have a window that is incoherent with the rest of the house and/or in a weird spot when viewing the home from outside.

Wouldn't that be if it's a one-story house?

If it's got a 2000 sq ft footprint, with one story above ground and one below, that fits your description, but I don't think most McMansions tend to be one story—if they're 4000 sq ft, I would guess that many are likely to have about a 2-3000 sq foot footprint, with part or all of it having a second story (actually, rarely all, because a full-height foyer is a fairly common feature, from what I've seen).

I obviously can't comment on what you've seen derided as "McMansions", but I've seen a bunch of the stuff on McMansion Hell specifically (the blog the author of TFA maintains), and in general I wouldn't say they fit what you describe. Or, at least, some of them may not have a much larger livable square footage than a rural/suburban middle-class house, but they certainly cost appreciably more, because that middle-class house is built in a more or less standard manner, and the McMansion has a three-stall garage, four separate sets of pillared porches on the front, and three bay windows (in three completely different styles).

McMansions are a very specific thing that "you know when you see" - and they are in no way "all houses currently being built".

Go here: https://www.wausauhomes.com/search?& and play around, you don't really start seeing things I'd definitely call "McMansion" until you're in the 4+ bedroom category, and many of the 3+ are quite nice looking.

(I personally get much more annoyed by "attached/built in garage" because I know what that can do to the mechanical envelope of a house.)

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