The McMansion Got a New Look This Year. Enter: the McModern

"You know it when you see it: the supersized suburban home that sits on a disproportionately small lawn, its incongruous roofline jumps from gable to dormer to conical, then back to gable again. There are probably ill-placed and mismatched windows, and the façade is finished in a medley of vinyl, brick, and stone. Inside, specialty spaces-from a movie theater to an at-home gym-fill every homeowner's residential desire. It's garish! It's aspirational! It's the McMansion."

"In the last 40 years, these types of mega-homes have tapped a variety of architectural inspirations: the Tuscan villa, the Colonial Revival, the modern farmhouse. The typical decorative attributes of each style are loosely incorporated-their sizes maximized, their scales randomized. But in 2025, the mass produced expression of the American dream is taking on a whole new look. Welcome to the age of the McModern."

""Throughout architectural history, if you get really rich, you build something that is both a testament to your success and a form of extreme self-expression," explains Kate Wagner, an architecture critic who is largely credited with coining the term McMansion through her blog McMansion Hell. Today, McMansions capitalize on this desire. Drawing superficial inspiration from historic manse styles, their designs allude to the upper echelon, but are often built quickly with inexpensive materials to squeeze the most living space out of a lot size."

Supersized suburban homes have long combined borrowed stylistic cues with oversized scale, mismatched rooflines, and mixed materials to create the McMansion, full of specialty interior spaces like home theaters and gyms. Over the past four decades these mega-homes pulled from Tuscan, Colonial Revival, and farmhouse motifs, loosely incorporating decorative attributes while maximizing size. The new McModern iteration favors streamlined forms: flat roofs, perpendicular white walls, and large glass expanses that convey modernity and privacy. McMansions capitalize on displays of wealth and are often built quickly with inexpensive materials to maximize living area on small lots.

Read at Architectural Digest