Beautiful, massive homes catch our eyes in movies and real estate listings, but what makes a property a mansion? What is a mansion, exactly? While size is certainly a factor, a mansion isn’t just about having tons of floor space and extra rooms.
In this post, we’ll examine mansions’ unique features and characteristics and how their popularity has shifted over time. While we’re at it, why not dip our toes into the world of McMansions?
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What is a mansion?
As William Shakespeare famously wrote, “What’s in a name?” The name itself, “mansion,” has a myriad of connotations and is evocative, perhaps, of times past or of the mega-mansions now being erected in cities like Los Angeles and Singapore. Precisely, what is a mansion?
Earl Wilson, a principal at San Francisco’s highly regarded BAR Architects, says it’s a word that’s not in the lexicon right now. “I don’t use it, and my clients don’t use it. Yet, everyone has an association with that word. I don’t think of it as an architectural term. We use words like “villa” or “palazzo” as those conjure real architecture images, but mansions are more of a lifestyle thing from a past period.”
Niall Washburn, architect at Hart Howerton, further clarifies that now and in times past, the word mansion wasn’t much used by their owners. “Mansion is an odd word, everyone knows what it means, but the people who live in the houses themselves don’t often use the term. The enormous houses in Newport, Rhode Island, were all referred to as ‘cottages’ even though they are among the grandest and most extravagant group of large houses ever built in one place in the U.S.”
Thus, while the term mansion may or may not be used to describe a home, it still may unmistakably be a mansion. The term mansion has changed over time, yet we all still can picture what a mansion is when we hear the word. Let’s get to work further defining what a mansion is.
Leisure and entertainment
What is the purpose of having a mansion if you don’t have spaces dedicated to enjoying it? Basking in the glory of your mansion is half the fun! If half isn’t an appropriate estimate, you’ll have to let us know.
In terms of leisure spaces, in times past, this translated to greenhouses, music rooms, conservatories, or libraries, which are all the utmost symbols of refinery and tradition. Today, the leisure spaces of mansions vary greatly in grandeur and in poshness, including fitness rooms, tennis or basketball courts, home theaters, and high-tech media rooms.
Consider Bel Air’s “The One,” which is home to a 400-foot jogging track, a four-lane bowling alley, a spa, a movie theater, a 10,000-square-foot sky deck with a putting green, a juice bar, a cigar lounge, and a custom tequila bar.
Mansions are also important venues for social and political gatherings. Having ample entertaining space is non-negotiable. Mansions will often have enormous ballrooms or even a wing dedicated to galas and gatherings. Other popular entertaining spaces include billiards rooms, wet bars, and pools.
One of the most impressive examples of a historic mansion’s leisure spaces is the Georgian Court. In 1899, George Gould, heir of a railroad fortune, commissioned a grand house to be built as his private summer residence and playground in Lakewood, New Jersey. Architect Bruce Price designed it.
As Washburn expounds, “Price designed an indoor polo field because it sometimes rained too much to play polo outside when the family’s guests came for the short summer season. Price also included indoor facilities for swimming and bowling, as well as for racquets and court tennis — both alternate versions of tennis imported from Europe. Only a few dozen courts were ever built for racquets or court tennis in the U.S. Entertaining spaces in mansions are, often quite literally, derived from the play spaces of European royalty.”
Upscale grounds
There’s more to a mansion than just the structure itself. The land that the mansion sits on is also a key factor when defining what is a mansion. Mansions dwell on upscale grounds that can feature gardens, majestic views, sweeping grassy knolls or fields, and hiking trails. Having multiple guest houses dotting the property isn’t unheard of, either. Neither is having a moat around the mansion or your very own waterfall.
Part of what makes a mansion a mansion is the space around it. Even if there aren’t hundreds of acres of land involved, as Washburn reveals, “up and down the Hudson, you can find these grand homes, often set in a park-like setting. During the Beaux Arts period, as the mansions became larger they were typically set in faux-picturesque landscapes modeled after Italian villas or English estates.”
Mansions are not called mansions just because of their size. The entire atmosphere, the land itself, must be pristine, beautiful, and intentional.
The mansion throughout history
The creation of mansions, chateaus, palaces, manors, and castles dates back thousands of years. Since the pre-Industrial Revolution, enormous homes have been emblems of aristocracy and wealth for generations. Understanding the history of mansions sheds further light on answering the provocative question: What is a mansion?
Pre-Industrial Revolution
According to the 1790 U.S. Census, more than 90% of all U.S. laborers worked in farming. Wealth in the pre-Industrial Revolution was held in land, and very few individuals were at a station where they could own a large home. The select few owned vast estates where they collected rent, produced foods and goods for sale, and continued to accrue wealth.
Consider the elegant Essex Estate in Massachusetts, built in 1684 and measuring 5,674 square feet on a lot of 9.29 acres. It has stately English gardens and a path to a nearby Lake Chebacco. The property used to be a 300-acre farm, and today, it is an idyllic home that is up for sale as of October 2024 for $1,916,000.
Industrial Revolution and Gilded Age
Most historical accounts place the start of the American Industrial Revolution at roughly 1820, as factory labor and entrepreneurial innovation were the driving forces of industrialization. It is not surprising that the Industrial Revolution ushered in the Gilded Age. The Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid economic expansion attributed to coal mining, railroads, and factories, whereas the Gilded Age, a period from 1870 to the early 1900s, was a time of urbanization, technological creativity, and the invention of electricity.
By 1890, the United States was home to 4,000 millionaires, who held 20% of the country’s wealth. The affluent viewed themselves as America’s royalty and demanded estates that reflected that status. In fact, some of America’s most famous mansions were constructed in the Gilded Age.
The Biltmore estate was built in Asheville, North Carolina, for George Vanderbilt. It’s a 250-room chateau completed in 1895 that is jaw-droppingly beautiful and spans 175,000 square feet. Along with the castle-esque mansion, there are expansive grounds with a dairy, horse barn, and elegant gardens.
The Breakers, located in Newport, Rhode Island, is another Vanderbilt mansion commissioned for Cornelius Vanderbilt, a railroad tycoon. The mansion was built in the Italian Renaissance style and was completed in 1895. It has a gross area of 138,300 square feet and 70 rooms. In addition, The Breakers has a stable and carriage house, along with 13 acres of picturesque landscape.
The Rosecliff is another of Newport’s stunning Gilded Age mansions, spanning 65,000 square feet. Silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs commissioned the home, and architect Stanford White modeled it after the Grand Trianon at Versailles.
Situated in Palm Beach, Florida, Whitehall is a stunning neo-classical 100,000-square-foot mansion with 75 rooms and an impressive exterior marked by massive marble columns. It was built in 1902 for Henry Flagler, an oil mogul, and his wife Mary Lily.
World War I era
The WWI era was marked by labor reforms that brought about much-needed wage and worker protections. The other side of the coin is that this now made it more difficult for landowners to pay the squadrons of employees needed to upkeep their enormous mansions. Thus, the top tier of America’s aristocracy started to decline in wealth.
That being said, there were still a few incredible mansions constructed during this era, including the iconic Hearst Castle. Located in San Simeon, California, and designed by the prolific architect Julia Morgan, it’s a Spanish Colonial Revival mansion with 165 rooms. It was built as the private residence for the newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Construction began in 1919 and was finally completed in 1947.
Tech revolution
We would be remiss if we didn’t directly mention what has happened in the most recent past, the tech revolution. In the late 1990s, the wealth gap began to widen again as tech skyrocketed in the U.S., and millionaires and billionaires wanted houses that matched their new stature. Enter a resurgence of massive mansions.
Take, for example, the “Manor,” built in Los Angeles for TV producer Aaron Spelling. It was completed in 1988 and spans 56,000 square feet. Another example is the Bel Air 35,891-square-foot home built for entrepreneur and former chief executive of Packard Bell Computers, Beny Alagem.
What is a McMansion?
In recent years, the term “McMansion” has become a popular topic when large homes are discussed. Think of it as the “fast food” version of mansions, a derogatory term used to refer to supersized suburban homes.
To be specific, a McMansion is a large home that is at least 3,000 square feet, constructed with less expensive materials than a traditional mansion, and more cookie-cutter in design. They became very popular in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, before the 2008 financial crisis. Today, however, these mass-produced, gargantuan homes may be considered eyesores. In fact, there are even lists of the worst McMansions in America.
Unfortunately, many of these McMansions have turned out to be pretty bad investments for many and have decreased in value over time. McMansion owners across the country looking to downsize are having a tough time selling them.
The purpose of a McMansion is to have more living area and a more spacious feeling inside a home. With this design, every child can have their own room, bathrooms are sizable, playrooms or TV rooms are capacious, kitchens are bigger, and office space is separate and secluded. In order to achieve these larger homes while on a budget, they are generally constructed with less expensive materials and forgo the cost of architects or designers.
“A McMansion is a house, often suburban, that is too big for its property,” Washburn explains. “For example, high-end neighborhoods in Houston, Texas, are seeing a growing number of free-standing McMansions on small lots. Some of them are quite nicely designed inside and out, but you could throw a rock and hit your neighbor’s house — which might be only 10 to 20 feet away. That’s never the case in the siting of the best traditional, exurban mansions, which were always set on park-like estates that emphasized privacy.”
Moreover, Wilson explained how McMansions missed the mark in designing classical architecture, a style rooted in proportions and details that are time-honored to be attractive.
“With McMansions, the misappropriation of those details and mishandling of those elements — in terms of those proportions — can result in something that is kind of bizarre and is, therefore, not attractive at all. I think we see that in imitations, like McMansions, that are not well done.”
When it comes to homes, bigger isn’t necessarily better. But as you consider your options, it’s important to choose a home that feels right to you, regardless of any labels.
If you are in the market to buy a mansion, connect with a top buyer’s agent to help with your search. These professionals have in-depth knowledge of the luxury market, from the best neighborhoods to off-market properties, making finding the mansion of your dreams a breeze.
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