When Kathryn Anthony showed relatives in Greece photographs of her 1,400- square-foot Dutch Colonial, their first question was: “How many families live in it?”
Americans love their space, says the architecture professor who studies the issue at the University of Illinois. She would even go so far as to call many U.S. homeowners spoiled.
“Space is the new luxury,” says John Finton, a custom homebuilder who is working overtime erecting Southern California mansions that are almost as large as the White House’s 55,000 square feet. Two decades ago, the ultra abodes he built were 6,000 to 8,000 square feet. Now his clients want that size for guesthouses.
But how much living space do you need to be happy? Experts say that depends on the stage of your life, size of your family, entertaining styles, financial restrictions and, most of all, lifestyle.
The space you want, says psychiatrist Peter Whybrow, can be traced to a primitive urge to be dazzled.
“We’re reward-driven creatures who love novelty and trinkets. Our curiosity is good – it has enabled us to thrive,” says Whybrow, director of the University of California at Los Angeles’ Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and author of the new book “American Mania: When More Is Not Enough.” “But we can become victims of what once was a great survival mechanism if it is not reined in by a more intellectual part of the brain.”
The “other” homes
With all the opportunities and choices we have, he says, we tend to be seduced into acquiring objects that we love but don’t really need.
“If you can afford a 70,000-square-foot house, that’s dandy,” he says. “But if you have a stable income that affords you a 1,000-square- foot house and you buy a 3,000-square-foot one, and you’re working two jobs and you never see your family, that happiness you were seeking goes out the same window that you thought had such a good view.”
Some of Colorado’s largest homes are in Bachelor Gulch, west of Vail.
Realtor Ed Swinford is selling one of the largest – a 10,150-square-footer at 3791 Daybreak Ridge that is listed for $9.46 million. He describes such residences as “other” homes, properties bought by families with several vacation homes.
“Many have primary residences in the cities where their businesses are located, but also have mountain, ocean and desert retreats,” said Swinford, an agent with Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate.
Those who need – or want – expansive digs have the attitude of “you only go through life once,” real estate and construction experts say.
These owners of the oversized feel they have earned the right to spread out by working hard and playing their finances right.
Something else also may be at the root of this urge to splurge on space: pride.
“Compared to many other countries, our public environments in the U.S. are lacking compared to our private environments,” says Anthony, who lives in a relatively humble home in Urbana, Ill., that her overseas relatives consider lavish. “Hence, we place greater emphasis on our private spaces in our homes.”
Producer Aaron Spelling made headlines when he built a football field-size residence in Holmby Hills during his “Dynasty” years in the late 1980s.
At 56,000 square feet, his French chateau dwarfs the nearby Playboy Mansion, which broke Los Angeles’ $1 million barrier in 1971 and bests the White House by 1,000 square feet.
Manor as reward
Spelling said his manor – with 16 bathrooms – was a reward for growing up in a one-bath house with “wall-to-wall people,” and, since he doesn’t fly, it’s where he and his family spend most of their time.
“People I know are having more children and need space for live-in help, their personal luxuries and entertaining,” says John McMonigle, a Newport Beach, Calif., real estate agent who built a 10,700- square-foot Tuscan estate overlooking Shady Canyon Golf Club in nearby Irvine for his family of five.
Personal utopias
McMonigle’s clients, who have bought more than a half-billion dollars’ worth of real estate in coastal Orange County in the past three years, expect their houses to serve as personal utopias.
Author Dean Koontz, who says he grew up poor and rarely takes a vacation, calls his new 25,000-square-foot Newport Beach estate “outrageously indulgent.”
It was scaled back by half from its original plans, took more than a decade to build and has a full-time staff of 11.
“I’ve had clients move into a big home, and they lasted a year and then sold it,” says builder Finton, who adds that operating expenses for megaproperties can run $30,000 a month or more. “It’s not for everyone.”
