Un-Neighborly McMansions

He is not the only homeowner who has bought adjoining properties to create a buffer zone. In Medina, Wash., Bill Gates has purchased several lots around his $135 million home. In New York wealthy apartment owners routinely buy adjoining units and tear down walls to gain precious square footage. Of course, not everyone can find a spare hundred thousand or two to keep a McMansion from rising above theirs—and, admittedly, it's a lot easier to swing these deals in Omaha than in a place like Wellesley, where even a tear-down often costs more than half a million dollars.

Milton is hardly the only architect who's against the bigger-is-better mentality when it comes to houses. For nearly a decade architect Sarah Susanka has been trying to educate people that all the focus on square footage is misguided. "More rooms, bigger spaces and vaulted ceilings do not necessarily give us what we need in a home," Susanka wrote in her 1998 manifesto, "The Not So Big House." Instead Susanka argues that Americans are better off building smaller, more thoughtfully designed homes utilizing higher-quality interiors, alcoves and bookshelves, natural materials and trim.

But when that kind of moral suasion doesn't work, Milton maintains that for concerned homeowners with the financial wherewithal, buying the house next door can make sense. "Given the right opportunity, if it's the right house and the right neighborhood, this is a great way to go," he says. "It solved our concerns, and it has really been a win-win … It's going to wind up making us money."

With his children in high school, Milton says he may be ready to sell his own house in a few years. When he does, he has no illusions about what will happen next. "When we sell both lots, somebody can build a really big house," he says, predicting the buyer will level both homes. "I hate to say that, but inevitably that's what's going to happen." Until then, his family has the pleasure of having made a good investment—and of looking out their window and not having the sky blotted out by the house next door.

Daniel McGinn is a national correspondent for NEWSWEEK and the author of "House Lust: America's Obsession With Our Homes," to be published by Doubleday this January. To learn more about the book, click here .

© 2007