Archive for June 14th, 2009

As we drove out to someone’s country house for a party yesterday afternoon, I was struck, as I always am, but the incongruousness of a  spanking new group of huge houses, which look like they were rocket lifted directly  from the suburbs, standing apart from eachother, each in their own mown field. What causes people to build these capitally unsustainable structures? Doesn’t it occur to them that there is no reason for there to be a huge house out in a cornfield somewhere outside Sanger or Krum? What is actually going on in their minds?

For years, I have wanted to write these people an open letter. And here it is, at last.

Dear Suburbanite who has for some strange reason built a McMansion in the Country:

Why are you doing this to the countryside? Don’t you realize that your house is as attractive in the pastoral scenery here as a McDonald’s paper hamburger wrapper in a gutter? What do you think we think of you as we drive by and see that you’ve got a small holding (that’s when we call a country plot like yours of 5-20 acres) with no outbuildings? Do you realize that people are shaking their heads, wondering what you are doing out here? Do you realize that you’ve got acreage and no stock, which is the only reason for having a smallholding?  Do you realize this is a waste of good land?

And another thing. That ostentatious house you’ve got, you should have kept it in town. Where is all the energy to run that behemoth being piped from? Houses in the country are supposed to be sustainable. That’s why they look the way they always have, smaller, closer to the ground, sitting in a grove of trees for protection from the elements, with a stack of wood beside them to burn to heat the place in the winter — your house is out of touch with the geography on which it sits.  Also, very few people drive by it out here, so who’s going to be impressed by those faux Grecian columns? A huge number of those who do drive by, they’re like me, people who expect country homes to be sustainable, not a 25-year wonder like you’re living in.

Yes, I called your house a 25 year wonder. That’s because in 25 years, since it’s made with modern, low-durability construction, it will be in need of an expensive upgrade, but with (probably) increasing gas prices, and (probably) growing intollerance of long commutes, no one is going to want to pay the time or the money to drive out here to live in this McMansion, let alone repair it. Plus the energy it takes to run a big house is becoming more and more expensive, so the McMansion could very well be “upside down” by then, and/or unsaleable. That means it could turn into the proverbial albatross around your neck. Is that what you wanted?

I know the upper middle class needs places to live too, but what’s wrong with our old respectable places like Bluebonnet Hills and Monticello?

I know, you wanted a really BIG house. That’s no excuse, however, for putting scars on the land.

I guess there’s nothing you can do now. You’ve already signed your mortage. I suppose I should be addressing this letter to “People who are considering buying a McMansion in the country.”  But would they listen? Or the builders, would they? County zoning boards? Is anyone listening?