Mini Mansions are No Longer Instyle

Mini Mansions are No Longer Instyle In America, bigger is always better, right? Our cars, our accomplishments, even our personalities have always been outsized. But the fact is that bigger isn't always better -- at least not when it comes to our houses. Just a few years ago bigger was better. I lived in Huntington Beach in a 1400 sq.ft. home on an 8000 sq.ft. lot and thought I was sufficating. We had a monster sized truck and all the toys you could dream of. It wasn't enough. So we bought an acre of land and a nearly 4000 sq ft. home. We are living large... too large. I am lost in my house and I have too much stuff and clutter. The yard is a whole other beast. The expense of gardeners and water are unreal. Now, you'd think this would be the proverbial dream come true for most people. But like Citizen Kane at Xanadu, we always seemed ill at ease shuffling around all the stuff in the empty spaces in our so-called "home." My husband withdrawals to the office study the size of a normal suburban bedroom, or to the garage, where all his guy stuff is stashed. And I to the kitchen where I hang out with the kids and guests who visit. Not surprisingly, this made me wonder about the use or value of all the rest of all the huge spaces that made up the bulk of living large. The problem with really big rooms is that we human beings are naturally ill at ease inhabiting them. Our primitive brains still feel more secure, and hence more comfortable, in spaces we can traverse in a few steps. In the past, the huge public rooms of mansions served mainly to flaunt their owner's wealth and good taste -- though these attributes don't necessarily go together. Yet even the wealthiest masters of such houses carried on day-to-day life in a much more modest suite of rooms elsewhere in the place. Living in some huge, drafty hall, regardless of how sumptuous the decoration, was no more comfortable then than it is now. Are you interested in homes for sale? Even in the face of this grinding recession, Americans are only slowly turning away from our 30-year obsession with bloated houses, despite the fact that we've already learned this lesson once before. Around the mid-19th century, houses of every class, from mansions to workers' cottages, began to get bigger and bigger. Ceiling heights swelled from less than 8 feet during Colonial times to 12 feet in the Victorian era, while floor plans got more and more complicated. Victorian kitchens grew into complex warrens of three or four rooms. Yet, rather than making their owners happier, these vast houses instead provoked a backlash -- especially among women, who typically got stuck having to keep them up. This disenchantment with the bloated Victorian design ushered in the bungalow homes of the early 20th century, with their credo of "smaller and simpler is better." I miss our little house and little yard where we spent our evenings together. I am so happy to see that Americans have come to the conclusion that bigger is not always better. We no longer drive the monster truck, rather we drive a Prius and often ride our bikes around our new cozy town in Ojai, Ca. We could learn a lot from these downsized homes of a century ago, provided we have the sense to think small for a change. Tami Winbury Keller Williams Realty 805-798-3412 http://www.LiveOjai.com http://www.venturacountyhomesforsale.net Arrol Gellner's inspired this story.