Nothing makes you feel like you've stepped into a movie quite like a neighborhood full of charming houses. But buyers and developers have taken to stealing the spark from dreamy locales in favor of cold concrete and garish stone facades. Welcome to McMansion Hell.
A post on the r/McMansionHell subreddit details one such transformation that is truly baffling. The before-and-after photos showcase a classic center-entry brick Colonial Revival in Illinois completely demolished for a sprawling, poorly designed mansion.
"This was an act of vandalism," one commenter wrote in response to the post.
"This breaks my heart slightly," another commenter added. "What a waste of time and history for a hot steamy pile of drywall and concrete."
The story of this particular McMansion unfortunately gets worse. An internet sleuth in the Reddit comments found the referenced McMansion listed for rental on a real estate site for a shocking $17,000 a month in 2022 after previously being listed for $3,500 for the previous home built there.
The new house has 15 rooms with six bedrooms, six bathrooms, and two half baths. The home sold for $3.5 million this July, and the Zillow page shows the yearly property taxes went up from $27,915 per year to $72,354.
McMansions are homes with massive floor plans often designed to be quickly churned out by developers rather than carefully designed by architects. Despite qualifying as a mansion because of their immense size, McMansions are often cheaply made, using low-quality materials and corner-cutting practices. Windows and rooflines often clash with the whole structure, which lacks a clear style. Space is also often used inefficiently, prioritizing size for impression rather than function.
In a parallel that speaks to the aura of McMansions, one Redditor compared the unfortunate before-and-after and the famed 1970 Joni Mitchell song "Big Yellow Taxi." Paraphrasing the song's lyrics, the commenter wrote: "They literally paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
While upgrading your home to be more planet-friendly can be a worthwhile endeavor, home renovations purely for aesthetics are often costly and taxing on the planet. As The Spruce wrote, McMansions are often seen as environmental nightmares for this reason — and others.
"McMansions guzzle precious materials, promote excessive energy use, and exacerbate the climate emergency — the antithesis of the necessary pivot to sustainable and regenerative architecture," The Spruce explained.
🗣️ Do you think America is in a housing crisis?
🔘 Definitely 🙁
🔘 Not sure 🤷🏽♂️
🔘 No way 🏘️
🔘 Only in some cities 🏙️
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
To complete purposeless McMansion renovations, developers also often strip the land of native greenery to make room for excessive floor plans, winding concrete driveways, and cropped green lawns. This can not only strip charm from neighborhoods but can harm biodiversity, disturb local wildlife, and deplete pollinator populations.
"Took the big pine tree out to run a driveway through the back," one commenter wrote in response to the Reddit post. "I can't look at this anymore, I keep noticing more bad choices."
What's more, the previous gorgeous home doesn't seem to have anything obviously wrong with it, though as some commenters noted, it's possible there were issues. Leveling it for a huge new property is still a highly questionable use of resources, and the construction process would have burned plenty of dirty fuels.
It's also hard to imagine needing quite as much living space as the new house offers, though the point of the criticism is much more to do with tearing down what was nice in order to build something a bit excessive, rather than to criticize someone for a sizable home that could be a fit for their family.
Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
