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Tomorrow’s 43 squares Mcmansion bogan ghetto
Story by LindyP
Today we live in bigger and bigger houses, enormous Tuscany coloured soulless sterile barns , often occupied by less than 4 people. Families are more and more isolated -hostile shutters cover their windows which seem to say -go away –keep out-this is MY place.
The backyard gate is padlocked shut and behind huge fences we can see gigantic barbecues, swimming pools, water features with special effect lighting and Balinese furniture that belongs in a temple –in Bali…..
Inside you may find vast sterile living areas dominated by granite-topped benches, massive flat screen tv’s and flawless stainless steel surfaces, games rooms and theatre rooms, oozing with ostentation.
At the very end of the house the teenager’s bedrooms are filled with computer technology and more TVs , so they only have to come into contact with their parents if they really want to eat –heaven forbid.
Small spaces , filled with clutter and friendly chatter are my preferred life choices. I like claustrophobic cramped rooms where people’s body space is limited and conversation flows freely and with ease.
I grew up in a small house where cousins, aunts and uncles all sat on the same couch (visions of the ‘Royle Family’ sitcom !), because there was no other place to sit, and sharing of thoughts was warm and cosy as we gazed at the coal fire glowing.
I liked staying outside til dark with friends under the shabby street light , and not being afraid. I liked the smell of Yorkshire pudding in the oven on Sundays , and the sound of Bing Crosby on the radio-it meant that my father was in a good mood –not a common occurrence .
My childhood wasn’t the best , but I sometimes have a longing for those days (the good ones) and wonder what memories we are creating for the young of today.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Not everyone has one of those awful mansions. They are for morons. Big houses on tiny blocks can be found out here in the country regions but they just look so out of place (as well as plain ugly). I think that trend is pretty well finished, but I may be wrong. As for parents’ retreat – I’ve noticed that in floor plans in the papers – how awful.
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We drove up the Hunter Valley a few weeks ago. There are sprawling, Western Sydney style ‘developments’ dotted here and there, but all the same, huge houses on small blocks, with no upgrade to roads or public transport, no local shops, etc. Drive in, drive out communities.
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Mrs A went to the Hunter a few weeks ago for a girls weekend away. One of them when tasting talked how she had a “sophisticated palate” of course the person serving her talked about sweet wines (that wonderful put down for wine tasting wankery). Many years ago when walking through these display homes (and a lot smaller than now) we’d describe them as being ostentatious but cheap.
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We have plenty of those out of town rural lifestyle developments (I hate them) but they have sealed roads (though narrow) – council makes the developer put in ‘proper roads’. For me one of the big mistakes is not making it mandatory to extend and provide the gas mains. We have it to our Village (gas) but not elsewhere. As a result most of these lifestylers need wood fires and so our wood supplies are rapidly diminishing. Not extending the gas was crazy but it seems it never occurred to the council bods and yet these areas continued. And now one of them is complaining about a dangerous rail crossing – it has been there since the rail first went from Sydney to Melbourne of course ! And, they want the government to fix it. I was actually a councillor at the time the first development was approved – I was against it but it got the nod from the rest of the drongos on the council. Twenty years later it is just a vile settlement full of complaining morons.
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Our unit runs a seminar every year, at the same place in the Hunter Valley. The caterers go on with all of that blab, but, this year the food and wines were appalling, and I let them know it.
These days developers are selling ‘lifestyle’, not just homes. Unfortunately, the lifestyle enjoys all of the drawbacks we’ve all described.
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It’s not just Western Sydney, M, Its all over. Mrs A comes from WA where understand lindyp writes from. We wonder where we might retire to even though it’s possibly a decade away. Of course it will depend where the kids settle, if its around Sydney then we’ll stay in the area. If they scatter well we’ll think about it.
I bring up WA as that’s a possibility for us. On many of our earlier visits when it came time to go to Perth we’d take a cabin at a caravan park at Coogee. Fairly private and pathway down to the beach. As time has gone on the area has been developed. Now they’ve stuck a “marina” there as well as many of the bogan villas so “nicely” shown above. There are still some nice parts there though.
Having had some involvement with land developments I can only agree with you vivenne. Rouse Hill is a classic example. Got the waste water right and nothing else. Transport was a disaster, still is. Liberals in charge of the development failed to put a train out there let alone buses or anything better than a two lane road. Took a Carr government to fix up the monstrous mess they left behind. Now they are looking to put trains out there (which I agree with) but a cheap version that won’t tie in with the rest of the network. Same mistakes a different horse.
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Of course the ‘lifestyle’ motto is a bit of a marketing tool. When it is rural housing development offering blocks of .5 ha to 1, 2, 3 ha etc and the land is ex farming land which the council helpfully rezoned rural residential what you wind up with is 300 hectares (and more) of small blocks which are (in the case here) 5 to 15 kilometres from the nearest village. So they are almost a village in population but with nothing else that a rural village offers. We live on 3 ha six ks from that village. Our block and many others like it are scattered throughout the shire and although we are zoned rural we are in fact rated on a higher rate (the council’s current zoning and rating system is totally up the shit but that is another long story arising from an amalgamation/division of the original shire with two others – run down ones unfortunately).
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Speaking of getting waste water right as we were I recall thinking it wasn’t at a project we were touring as a community group with visitors south of Adelaide and considering the seeming conflict between the role and likely lack of sound intention of the private developers in that instance doing the subdividing on the denuded hill (a small mountain of subdivisions really) and the common good being pursued (you’d like to think really) by the council in a waste water management project at its base. The place was awash with sand.
I’m glad I’m not a town planner. How hard is it. Looking at that I would think sometimes nerve wracking. btw about the pictured house the only difficulty I have is that they are built on tiny sites and cemented in, ruin everybody’s outlook, are ugly in the context and I do feel sorry to think about the difference between the way families within each other’s sight use common space and develop bonds that cannot as cosily be developed where people spread out in a mansion including disappear. Mind everybody, that house as a roof looks to me in the retrospect of experience like a mighty adequate and economic space to housekeep a family of my size in. If that was all that was offering, I wouldn’t have said no.
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I’m very fond of this topic. I grew up in a 7 square fibro two bedder built in 1957. In Sydney’s then south western outskirts. Last station on the metro line – now extended into more distant climes.
About 20 years ago we had to move out of our then inner west two bedder – with the arrival of Emmlet II. We bought a three bedder Californian bungalow about 5 km further out – that was in deep need of renovation. We had the choice of adding a second storey and a family room out the back – or pulling it down and building something new.
We checked out project homes – and to our horror, all we found were these awful mcmansions with 8 foot ceilings (we had gotten used to 10 footers – but get this – despite their huge interior floor space, Main bedrooms were ridiculously large, but the other bedrooms – especially the kids bedrooms were pissy little 4 X 3.5 m boxes – that is less than 1.5 squares. Kids need heaps of space. And then there were all the add-ons they tell you about after they think you’ve fallen in love with their designs – like $10,000 to clear the site, $5,000 to reconnect services .. and on and on. And they had these weird spcaes called “parent’s retreats” – like you’ve made the mistake of having kids – so now you can run away from them. GOOD GRIEF !
So we chose to renovate. It cost a bomb in time and money – and probably ended up as a major contributor to the failure of our marriage, but our architect and builders created a wonderfully sympathetic addition to the Californian bungalow style. And it only cost about twice the cost of a mcmansion. But it was truly excellent – people used to knock on our door, praise the house and ask us who the architect was – which was how we found him in the first place. And the beautiful thing was reflected in the price when we eventually sold it twenty years later.
Now, seven years after that, FM, Tim – and soon to be Emmlet II – and I live in an 1890 Italianate palace that will keep me in dulux daubed clothes for the foreseeable future. This one has a name “Cambria” after the home country of the architect and builder – one Richard Jones – no relation. He put the house in his wife Rachel’s name, foreseeing the 1890s depression that wiped him out financially. It was his last house and he passed away in 1893. She passed away in the 1940s and had no heirs – the state took the house and used it for 40 years as a half-way house for ex-prisoners – turning it into 5 small flats. FM bought it in 1987 and spent ten years returning it to something closer to its former glory, but some aspects just cannot be recovered. Still, it’s an elegant place. I’ve graduated to 12 foot ceilings (such fun to paint) but I try to cosy up my spaces and we enjoy the open fireplace in the lounge room in winter. It worries me a bit that there are 18 steps to get up to the bedrooms, so I’m hoping my fitness holds up for a few more years yet.
Wow – quite a long story in return !
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Wow, with eighteen steps to the bedroom and domestic bliss, I’m sure you’ll keep fit.
ps. high ceilings are important. It creates space and room to breathe..
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As for growing up in a two-bedder – how many bedrooms does a one-child family NEED? Having said that, I’d prefer the Mcmansion instead any day of the week as surely would they? And I’d prefer the California bungalow with quality fittings and architect designed modernisation and extensions to that. But give me Kirribilli house over either any day. Come to think of it, if you threw a few million pounds at a good architect to fully renovate a Knightsbridge apartment I wouldn’t sneeze too hard at that either.
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When the house is so big it almost covers the block of land it’s built on, I question what happens to the Aussie backyard….only big enough to fit in a barbecue. Might as well live I a big unit with a large verandah.
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You could add Lindyp that these 43 square monstrosities are being built on 500 square metre blocks where the side walls are less than 2 metres apart. They are architecturally devoid of style.
I bought my grandmothers house 20 odd years ago. A two bedroom house that it was then with a kitchen dining and living room. the laundry was attached out the back. Built in the late 40’s early 50’s and at the time all of 12 squares. It managed to house my grandmother and for a time my aunt and her two children. It also accommodated my parents wedding reception with about 50 people in the house which at the time had an outside toilet. We’re talking 1956 here. We’ve added 4 bedroom in a second storey and with one of the bedrooms now a stairwell with storage and a pantry.
Recently we had a development on two large blocks across the road three town houses and two detached houses. I’ve no problems with this development the town houses are fine for the block. The two houses well when the auction was held I said to the owner that they clearly didn’t employ an architect to design these 5 bedroom obscenities. He of course walked away. The houses are about twice the size they need to be for the block. I will say they were well built though.
Around the corner there’s another town house development. 3 months from demolition of the old house to the houses going on the market. They started putting the frames and bricks on the concrete slab 4 days after it was poured. I wouldn’t touch them.
Thanks for this Lindyp, like Gez there is much resonance here also.
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Your grandmother’s house sounds like it’s got so much character — and history. I lived in share houses in Melbourne in the old suburbs, and all 5 of them were small old weatherboards with front veranda, and out the back , the old dunny, complete with a huntsman spider.
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I had to put a huntsman outside during the week, not the prettiest looking things but do no harm to you. It’s a well built house, my grandfather building it after the war would have to wait for materials due to shortages. I doesn’t have the character that houses built prior to the war have but its solid and has some interesting features.
My favourite thing about the place isn’t anything to do with the house but the mango tree at the front which grew from a from a seed just thrown in the front yard. Actually gave us a tray this year. Its been 10 years since anything like that.
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An article after my heart. And we wonder why the young go on an alcoholic bender.
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