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Size, Size, Size Has anyone else noticed American houses are getting too big? It’s not enough to keep up with the Joneses anymore. Now you have to put the Joneses to shame. We’re not talking mere luxury here. We’re talking a paradigm shift to more bedrooms than family members, second cousins included. Take this simple quiz. Does your maid have a maid? Is your ride mower a combine? Do you have a moat? Do light and sound from the family room reach you at different times? Do you still get mail addressed to Saddam Hussein? Question—what do you call a 4,500 square foot residential structure on a two-acre lot? Answer—a great starter home. You call my mortgage a heating bill. I call your mortgage an endowment. You make a payment of 20, 30, or 40 thousand dollars every month like it’s a cable bill. I do it once or twice a lifetime and break down in tears. Not that I don’t like your gargantuan home. Give the word, and I’ll move in to your walk-in closet. I like your pad. I just liked it better when it was called an apartment building. There is something wrong when the floor plan by the elevator says, “You are here.” As bigger has replaced better in the American consciousness, even the era of home additions is quickly drawing to a close. There’s nothing worse than his and hers sinks practically on top of each other. Bidets without a phone jack, showers without a seat, solariums without a retractable roof, pools without a spa, breakfast nooks without a dedicated heating zone—there is only so much a human being should be asked to take. Essentially, anything without 14-foot first floor ceilings screams “tear-down.” We must, as a nation, carve deeper and deeper into wetlands, forests, and wildlife refuges in search of heated Olympic swimming pools and bi-level four-car garages. Sure it’s upsetting to fly over the northeast and still see patches of green larger than a fairway. But little by little, we can and will conquer that evil empire known as nature. I remember a simpler time. A time when the game room had only a standard slate billiard table and a half-dozen basic Nautilus stations. Those were the good old days. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. Huddled around the 48-inch flat screen, soaking in the Jacuzzi, you made do with what you had and grew stronger as a family. Not that there isn’t another side to the story. The stucco suburban palace can be ideal if you’re a kid. Why clean up your room when you can move to another one? You could run away and no one would notice. As an adult, you can have discreet affairs in the east wing while living in domestic bliss in the west. The whole family can rough it by tinkering with the Bentley in the non-climate controlled carport. Perhaps the pursuit of happiness does, in the final analysis, require skylights in the pantry. But whatever you do, please don’t tell me that you “built” the house. A bunch of Bosnian immigrants built it. You wrote a check. How long can this trend continue? As egos, discontent, and materialism balloon, so do the buildings that house them. Suddenly, the great room isn’t so great. With unchecked consumption, the glass is always one-tenth empty. What do you call cabinets that don’t open and close smoothly? Answer: litigation. The golden rule is lost on golden fools, whose idea of a Fresh Air Fund is letting the in-laws sleep over. After the revolution, your 8,000 square foot faux Tudor McMansion will be inhabited by three dozen squatters who lost their jobs at Sam’s Club. Let’s hope they know how to work the indoor wave pool. But one should never jump to sweeping conclusions. Any sort of meaningful upheaval is unlikely in a nation constantly running out to get more AAA batteries for the remote. And the difference between a charming 1,800 square foot craftsman home and Oprah’s place is not all that obvious to a Yemenite sheepherder living on flaxseed. All this wasted space and conspicuous consumption is not why they hate us. It’s why I hate us. Click here to rant back. |