ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, August 23, 2007

Preserving a sense of place in the age of McMansions
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

My grandparents have not lived there for years, but I still make the pilgrimage
every time I'm in town. Nestled amid towering trees in a National Historic
District in Green Bay, Wisc., their old home is not as large as I remember it.
But it is the seat of family history on my mother's side.

Looking at the classic lines of that brown stucco house, I can still smell the
bratwurst cooking on my grandfather's grill, hear the squeals of my cousins
sledding down the front hill and see my grandmother fussing over the plants
that spilled out of her sunroom and onto her front stoop.

My grandfather died nearly 20 years ago, and my grandmother now lives in a
nursing home. The children who scamper in that driveway and climb those knobby
trees today are strangers to me. But passing through their grand old
neighborhood, I feel reassured to know that this little corner of the world
retains its peculiar charms.

Such neighborhoods are becoming rarer. As I travel America, I am unsettled by
the sameness I see. In addition to the Wal-Mart-McDonald's-Starbucks
configuration that dominates suburban landscapes from West Virginia to Wyoming,
there are miles of ever newer, ever larger houses without a full-grown tree in
sight. The housing styles vary from bland to daring, but they rarely exhibit
regional influences. Aside from the occasional mountain view or mound of snow,
you would never know if you were on the outskirts of Denver or Dallas, Cheyenne
or Chicago.

An aversion to the bland rootlessness of many modern neighborhoods has drawn me
to communities in St. Louis known for their well-aged distinctiveness —
University City, St. Louis Hills, the Central West End. When my husband and I
sought to live closer to his job in West County, we were thrilled to discover
Kirkwood. As we toured its bustling town square and witnessed its graceful
blend of majestic turn-of-the-century homes with modest ranches, we knew we had
found something special. I recognized Kirkwood's charms as the same ones that
marked my grandparents' neighborhood: a unique mix of beauty, history and
community that took well over a century to evolve.

Lately, though, Kirkwood has been changing. Cranes and cement trucks have
overtaken quiet streets. McMansions bulge from lots that once held houses half
their size. Oversized, street-facing garages are replacing front porches.
Property values are rising, but the proportion of affordable smaller homes is
shrinking. New houses blend in nicely on some blocks, but on others, their
disparate styles produce geographical vertigo. One looks like an import from
Nantucket, another from Key West, another from the Mediterranean. None seems to
belong in the Midwest or amid the older bungalows and Victorian homes lining
the rest of the street.

A backlash is brewing on streets such as East Argonne, where an 83-year-old
Tudor cottage is to be replaced by a 4,000-square-foot house with a three-car
garage. Neighbors who oppose the demolition have begun posting birthdates of
their homes next to signs that plead, "No More Tear Downs" and "Preserve Our
National Historic District."

Given that the average size of an American house has ballooned by about 140
percent since 1950, a grassroots campaign against garage Majals and Hummer
houses may seem like a lost cause. But the proliferation of protest signs in
Kirkwood suggests that its residents already sense what some communities have
learned too late: The distinctive character of a neighborhood that has aged
gracefully is a precious commodity in our mass-produced, homogenized age. And
more impressive than scores of anonymous McMansions is a handful of modest
houses with the well-worn feel of home.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television host and St. Louis-based
fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.