Pretentious Houses of Northern Virginia

My house

This idea was sparked by a post on facebook about an architect who was making fun of ugly pretentious houses.  She got her photos off of Zillow.  Zillow threatened to sue her so she had to take down her blog.  I posted an admittedly flippant comment about how I wanted to boycott Zillow and I got schooled by another commenter, who was lecturing other Christian women about how they shouldn't like the mocking of other peoples' homes.  This is what this nice Christian lady said to me in her defending the homes of the rich and vulgar:

So don't live in one, don't live next to one and don't drive through the neighborhoods where they exist. If it offends you that much you can move. Problem solved. I don't understand why OTHER people have to tell private property owners what to build.

And I agree about mockery not being the best way to deal with stuff that bothers you.   It often backfires.  And I agree we can't tell others what to build.  But I think it is more complex than that.  I've lived in Northern Virginia for 53 out of my 57 years here on the planet.  I've seen it go from small towns and quiet suburbs to overdeveloped, pretentious, non-commuter or community friendly, and sold to the highest bidder in terms of development. Money wins.  Every green space is being built on.  All the old neighborhoods are slowly being changed.  This place is very rich.  So you regularly see a smaller older home which once had a family of several kids in it, torn down and a huge home put up for a single person, a couple, or maybe a couple with one or two kids.  These new houses are gargantuan.  I don't care how many energy saving appliances you put in them (and you know they are gonna be stocked full of them) this is not a sustainable way to live.   So my objections are not only that this way of living is unsustainable and unfriendly, it also exhibits how skewed our values are.  It makes me unhappy to live here.  I dream of retiring out in the country.  I don't like to look at how materialistic and selfish and ostentatious my fellow citizens are.

When I looked into getting backyard chickens in my county, I found out I couldn't.  But then years passed and a new zoning law was passed!  Hooray!  I thought, now's my chance. But it turns out I still can't have chickens because in my backyard there is a dry gulch that sometimes fills with rainwater after a heavy storm and that is part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, so no go on my chickens.  I am happy to keep the Bay healthy!  But right on the other side of this gulch, they have been building these huge McMansions for the last 13 years, devastating the orchard that had been there when we moved in.  Don't tell me that these folks aren't also hurting the Bay.  Why do they get a pass?  Well, I think it is probably money.  If you put up 40 or so houses that cost over 1 million, you get more tax revenue.

So I thought I would just post now and again about the pretentious houses of Northern Virginia.  I'll take my own photos and not steal them from Zillow.  And I'll make sure you can't see the address.

I live in a beautiful home.  We bought it at the top of our price range 16 years ago.  The couple was desperately trying to avoid bankruptcy and had to sell.  They were a mess.  So we wound up being the one step before foreclosure which I guess saved their credit.  Anyway, we've put a lot into this house.  I am lucky and blessed to have such a nice place to live.  I know I can be a bit of a snob about stuff.  But I do think beauty matters.  I do think making things community friendly matter.  Taste can vary.  So if I post a photo and deem the house ugly, feel free to disagree with me!  De gustibus non est disputandem is true to a certain extent.  But then there are some things that are just ugly.

Two houses I regularly see when driving about town going on daily errands:

To me this is hideous but maybe not to you, dear reader?  It was an empty field.  I like the lighter colored house next to it better (tho still way over the top in terms of dormers and such).  On the other side there are older 1970s split level homes.  There's no sidewalk or anything and it is a narrow road.  This house is for sale and they are asking over 1 million.

This house is in the middle of a development probably build in the 1980s maybe?  Mostly brick homes.  There was a smaller home on the property that got knocked down to make way for this.  This is the front.

This is what it looks like as you approach from the side road.  It's huge!  The funny thing is, it looks exactly like the same architectural style they are using to build the town's new community center.  The roof line is the same.  

To be continued . . .