Big houses bother me

The other day, out on the golf course, I was once again confronted by one of my pet peeves — big houses. In the beautiful wide-open valley in which I live, lined with foothills that stretch to the horizon, I am noticing more and more…big houses.

I don’t mean 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom, 2000 square feet family homes — maybe one story, maybe two — where each kid gets his or her own room and the extra one is an office. I can live with that (though I still think that’s a pretty big house).

I’m talking about those monoliths, those McMansions…those big, boxy houses on steroids, with super-vaulted entry ways, two story ceilings, bonus rooms, attic rooms, closets you could sleep a small family in — inflated with air as much as with floor space.

And my guess is a lot of them don’t house more than four people, if even that many. They’re multiplying like rabbits in subdivisions all across the valley, and likely elsewhere — ironically, on smaller-than-postage-stamp-size yards. At least I can’t complain they’re taking up a lot of land, but this land-to-house dis-proportionality makes their size even more obvious and ridiculous.

The eyesore factor is not my main complaint, though I’m irritated they’re increasingly dotting the barren but beautiful foothills. It’s the pure excess for no good reason, and what I presume to be a significant ongoing energy drain too — not to mention the natural resources that go into building one of these design-less piles of wood, glass and ego.

Come on…how much room does one family need? And how many in-need-of-a-home people could you effectively house in something that size?

I’m all for compact housing — enough rooms for everyone’s needs but not so many and of such a size that you’re greedily taking up too much space in the world.

Here comes my radical proposal. I think there should be a square footage limit on house size — based on occupancy. And if you want to go beyond the limits, your house needs to at least contribute to generating its own energy through solar panels, windmills or some other environmentally harmonious renewable energy process. Actually, I think we should all be doing this and that every new house built in our sunny valley should be required to be equipped with solar panels.

When I win the lottery and get rich, no big house for me. Maybe a couple of small homes in places where I’d like to live — to satisfy my need for year-round nice golf weather. Since I’d only be in them half the year each, they could be even smaller than the “average” house. And I’d do my bit for the environment too.

But these big houses — they REALLY bother me.