retromodernjeff

I have been in that house, its very very bad as well. Walking through it was like a fun house at the carnival, it has serious foundation / structural products, with buckling floors, some dumb flip your house re-muddles, like a solid granite counter that is actually 3 remnents they tried to put together and it obvious, cheap laminate floors. It seems like it was a house flip gone bad. The guy who owns it could not have possible been inside that house before he bought it, the structual issues are way too obvious. I said to the realtor I would not take it for free.

This one is really really bad inside, I don't think its worth saving

Wow this guy was right on, it IS a mod variation I think the answer about context of the house and neighborhood is, ME ME ME ME Texasdago is correct, but I will go further, there are many new mcmansions in MB that are suitable for teardown lot only sales. Obviously no one is buying them. I have to laugh every time I drive by the Memorial and beltway feeder mcmansion, I hope they planned on owning that forever.

There is just something different about architects that had to use a pencil and slide rules instead of todays computers and CAD.

Oh great, its going to have a cheap townhouse look to it, that's much better.

I once read that the multi-angle roof lines came about due to efforts from roofing products manufacturers. Roofs on these homes would be very expensive to replace and repair. Don't know if that's true, but does make sense.

Ya Neo Post Modern would be close. I love all the landscaping in the backyard photo This is a great example of a mcmansion. Its like the home itself and interior "design" were basically the result of someone walking through a store and looking at magazine pages and saying "I like that, and that and really like that" then threw it all together, that resulted in the mish mash designless thing that you see. Out of all that space, who puts a piano in a towering staircase ??

Today's homes are comparable to the cars of the 70's - 80's Detroit. The real estate bubble era thinking circa 2000-2007 and the greed factor it brought with it created the idea of a show of wealth = actual wealth, but in reality these people had very little if any of actual wealth and their perceived wealth was actually huge debt with trick financing. This is the incorrect line of thinking that guys like Dave Ramsey put forth as net worth. Can't find it now, but I had a great article that mentioned the cost of building a house is the same now as it was in the 70's inflation adjusted. So the builders mass promoted and marketed the "show of wealth" mcmansions, that way they could make more money by building a larger home on the same lot as a properly scaled house would normally be built. The cities also love that because that means larger property taxes as well. The average home size in the U.S is on the decline, happily. I think the future of these mcmansions will be pretty short, failing because no one wants them because of their conspicuous consumption look, very high energy costs. As well as structurally failing due to the popular EIFFS stucco system, OSB, the mold that always follows and nail guns combined with unskilled labor. The mcmansions and new homes in general will become major problems to society as the shoddy materials and shoddy construction will cause a majority of these to need either huge costly repairs to eradicate the mold and structural issues or will have to be demolished altogether because the costs do not make financial sense. I think you will find the American ranch be it traditional or MCM will be around far into the future. Does anyone really believe future generations will look back to the 1990's to today as a great event in the history of architecture, design and building. I don't think so. Most likely it will be best compared to the "greatness" of the cars that came out of Detroit in the 70's and 80's

How much does a penny cost in 2009?

Well how can this be? was he not building his own house to be near his girlfriend? Hey Granit builders, call for you on line one, its Ken Lewis.

Love this one, but it seems this size of house would be for a family, and the schools there look to be, well awful.

Yup that's true as well.

"Lest we forget the eternal flame fixture that really only says: I'm all about wasting natural resources for the purpose of creating some sort of throw-back look (i.e. Victorian England)." Oh ya, that's exactly it ! The more I look at the "architecture" of mass consumption and debt that was the bubble era, the more all of these houses look like they are built as a movie set. You know where it is really just a front facade and what is behind is just a generic stucco box.

Its just going to be a bunch of empty lots, the stupid mcmansion builders just don't get it. I am sure they still think "Obviously someone would buy my mcmansion I just built around the corner" instead of the ones that are sitting there unsold for how many months? A little off topic, but this is the same attitude that has destroyed communites and parts of cities all over. Look at that Las Vegas City Center fiasco, its going to go bankrupt very soon, MGM can't even sell parts of its casinos to try and keep paying the interest on the construction loan, it was to be a trophy of the new Las Vegas, it will be an unfinshed concrete eyesore of a trophy to greed and short sighted thinking for everyone to see for many years.

Well not Chase Home Mortgage, they were smart and stopped (mcmansion) construction loans. No more loans

Yes, I don't know why people continue to say it didn't, when in fact it did. All the same economics and lending practices from the rest of the country were also done in Houston. Obvioulsy not 100% all areas. Look at some basic data for this house. You tell me an approx 80% run up in "value" in 4 years is not boom bubble numbers? Does not even matter if you look at inflation or not, still too high to be "normal". The fact that one could even flip homes shows the housing bubble was present, if it were traditional redlining type of mortgages, it really would not be possible. As in the same as other McMansion infected areas, these neighborhood bubbles were created by builders who artifically ramped up the home "values" by building the out of scale Mcmansions. They were able to sell them due to cheap bubble years money, thats over and prices have to come way back. What is even more puzzling is people that try and say that certain neigborhoods are basically excluded from basic economics. The people who live in Laguna Beach / Dana Point areas of SoCal also thought that, now they realize its not true.

Not a good deal at all, price still way to high. With 7611 River Point Dr down the street at $795,000 listing price, it starts to make this one a little more realistic. Its just taking a long time for people to realize the boom days are long gone and the prices need to come on way back.

Saw the house today. Really nice original condition inside. Very symmetrical, felt more like a large loft really, party design house. Very large sliders and single glass doors. Quality contruction and materials for sure. Apparently the pink kitchen cabinets and other paint in the house are original too. The outside needs a good cleaning though. On a good note the listing agent mentioned it was not being sold as a tear down and reacted negatively to the idea. She did mention 307 Friar Tuck to us as well.

Those curvy wood chairs in the foyer are the same ones I saw in the dining room at the Steen mansion in Reno NV. I thought they were something new, but maybe they were popular high end back then. http://www.steenmansion.com/media/index.html

Hopefully the re-muddlers have to now live in their Home Depot off the shelf dream. Would be just like actually living in the Home Depot aisles.

Not sure exactly, but there was one or two others listed as foreclosures and one was a McMansion.

This one seems to have gone off the radar now. I don't think there is a sign anymore. Now there is no way this thing sold, based on two reasons, the obvious re-muddle and the completely unrealistic price. Either its rented or look for it to be a foreclosure soon. I think the fate is going the way of that Gessner re-muddle, a house that no wants wants and waiting to be torn down for an empty lot. And they way real estate is going even that will be a very long time.

Boy, this one is almost a year old saga.

Just saw this one today. Notice the nice remuddled roof as compared to the Mike's MB website photo. http://har.com/9958541 http://memorialbendarchitecture.com/12939mem.htm