To clarify my point: self-criticism as well as criticism of our comments here (assuming everyone is as lazy as I am, which is a lazy assumption).
I smirked at the witty remarks on the pics.
I thought I could do the same on what is considered architectural gems. I also thought I would be wrong in my own remarks, then.
(I rather would like if someone tries, and follow an ensuing discussion why the remarks aren’t witty. Honestly, I think I could learn something about quality architecture like this. But my intention was mainly slight snark on the snark, as I hopefully explained above.)
I’d probably put it near the McMansion/Actual Mansion crossover point. It’s certainly garish and overwrought enough to be a McMansion, but it also makes extensive use of actual “the good stuff”—things like marble and crystal and exotic woods—as opposed to the architectural foam and other knock-offs that most McMansions utilize. The renovation material costs cited in the Wiki article alone would be enough to buy a handful of typical McMansions.
Yeah, I think the McMansion look comes about only when there’s a sort of lack of cohesion to the building as a whole structure. That house has a clear and rather straightforward profile, still using a lot of garish detail, but it’s clearly doing something intentional with it. I used to draw little towns and cities of twitchy sinewy buildings at one point and I often looked at the sprawling houses I saw in certain-kinds-of-rich Dallas neighborhoods as inspiration as I thought about it. It’s like a mansion has cancer and started overproducing windows and gables. The nightmare of the American Dream has weird geometry.
And they’ve taken that photo from the least photogenic side. The front door is around the corner to the right.
Note: I am NOT a FLW fan, at all, for quite a few reasons. But when you have guests coming to visit from all over the world, at least some of them will have heard about FLW and the fact that the largest concentration of his work is in the Chicagoland area (mostly Oak Park, which is where #1 is located) and will ask to go on the various tours. I have spent more time that I ever wanted to on these tours!
At a brief glance, I’d say the weird multiple rooflines, the foam ‘pillars’ or whatever they are and the inconsistency of the gables (1,2,3 hollow gables and then one teeny, tiny mini bay window with a ‘normal’ gable).
Also the hollow gables which seem to be begging for damp problems unless this property is in the Gobi Desert or somewhere equally dry.
And of course, the two-storey entrance - with arch type thing.
This part is the truth, especially in the northern tier states for “wealthy” (aka - leveraged to the max) “conservatives” (not sure what they think they’re conserving, because it surely isn’t this planet).
This is what makes me crazy about these things.
It’s not like there isn’t a (literal) blueprint of how to design and build a large house that makes sense.
In any style you want.
Say what you will about the older giant homes say in Beverly Hills or whatever, but at least you can get a design cue from a Spanish Revival or something made earlier in the 20th century that’s not COMPLETELY obnoxious.
