Hampton McMansions Herald a Return to Excess

[Torie]

Yes, Wall Street has money again, and with money, comes conspicuous consumption for these nouveaux riches. It's all very infra dig to me. Whatever ever happened to that Yankee virtue of understatement?

[opebo]

Whatever ever happened to that Yankee virtue of understatement?

Maybe they're Jews and whatnot.

[DC Al Fine]

Ha, the Puritan culture that bore understatement is long gone.

[memphis]

The Hamptons have never been about understatement. What fool told you that?

[Torie]

Yes, the NYC orbit is not New England, and not Yankee, and Fitzgerald told us about that lifestyle long ago. It was just a turn of phrase Memphis. The Yankee virtue of understatement never took hold in the NYC orbit.

[Indy Texas]

I often think we would be a better country if, during the post-war era 70-ish years ago when the WASP elites lost and/or abdicated their remaining monopolies on America's institutions of wealth and power, the non-Yankee whites, Jews, Italians and other strivers who took their places had acquired their values along with their corner offices, stock exchange seats and places at Harvard.

The notion of wealth as something requiring stewardship, taste and discretion, as something to be managed and grown not just for one's own benefit but for the benefit of those who haven't even been born yet is gone. The idea that the privileges of power and wealth entail with them responsibility and reciprocity to society is dead. Instead, wealth is now simply money - spent and leveraged indiscriminately to satisfy ego and conspicuous consumption, like small fish thrown into a shark tank only to be torn to shreds and gobbled up.

The people who buy the old houses on Long Island don't want to maintain them and the things they stand for and the history they hold. They only want to tear them down and build a garish edifice to themselves. And an ersatz interpretation of WASP aesthetic can be found in your local department store - Ralph Lauren shirts with cartoonishly large pony logos, Tommy Hilfiger shorts in day-glow colors - that misses the point entirely. It's status without discretion. It's luxury without taste. It's money without responsibility.

[memphis]

Yes, the NYC orbit is not New England, and not Yankee, and Fitzgerald told us about that lifestyle long ago. It was just a turn of phrase Memphis. The Yankee virtue of understatement never took hold in the NYC orbit.

Plenty of flashy stuff in New England too. Going way back. Newport, RI being the most obvious example.

[bedstuy]

I don't buy this Yankee understated heritage point. 

In pure material terms, there were not as many insanely wealthy people in 1900 or 1950.  Plus, the average single family home is more than double what it was back then.  So, the baseline expectation is a much larger home for every person.  The underlying problem is not the attitudes of the "New Money," it's that the gross wealth inequality.

[memphis]

I often think we would be a better country if, during the post-war era 70-ish years ago when the WASP elites lost and/or abdicated their remaining monopolies on America's institutions of wealth and power, the non-Yankee whites, Jews, Italians and other strivers who took their places had acquired their values along with their corner offices, stock exchange seats and places at Harvard.

The notion of wealth as something requiring stewardship, taste and discretion, as something to be managed and grown not just for one's own benefit but for the benefit of those who haven't even been born yet is gone. The idea that the privileges of power and wealth entail with them responsibility and reciprocity to society is dead. Instead, wealth is now simply money - spent and leveraged indiscriminately to satisfy ego and conspicuous consumption, like small fish thrown into a shark tank only to be torn to shreds and gobbled up.

The people who buy the old houses on Long Island don't want to maintain them and the things they stand for and the history they hold. They only want to tear them down and build a garish edifice to themselves. And an ersatz interpretation of WASP aesthetic can be found in your local department store - Ralph Lauren shirts with cartoonishly large pony logos, Tommy Hilfiger shorts in day-glow colors - that misses the point entirely. It's status without discretion. It's luxury without taste. It's money without responsibility.

What on earth are you talking about? People have always been garish and flashy in fashions and with money. There is nothing new under the sun. Do you think the bustle was a tasteful fashion?

How about the Biltmore Estate?

[Indy Texas]

How about the Biltmore Estate?

The Vanderbilts were the nouveau riche at the time that estate was built.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What a load of misguided bollocks. Disgusting, utterly and absolutely disgusting.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Or, rather... rich people as a group have never had much in the way of taste, and have been even less likely to act 'responsibly'. The myth of a great distinction between 'old money' and 'new money' (let's ignore the fact that all American money can be considered as 'new' from certain perspectives) is nothing more than a conservative cultural construct. It exists to sanitise the past, and to damn the present out of hand. Let's take the 18th century, while we often associate it with 'elegance' (at least with regards to the rich: for the proles didst dwell in Gin Lane), one of the most popular styles of the century was the objectively inelegant and laughably ostentatious rococo...

[opebo]

This is the most beautiful thing, architecturally speaking, created in the 18th centure, Al:

[Vosem]

If people want to waste their money on this sort of thing, they can go ahead.

This is the most beautiful thing, architecturally speaking, created in the 18th centure, Al:

Do you like wood as a material, opebo? It seems rather low-tech to me, vulnerable to fires and parasites. Plus it's gone now, and we're discussing the present.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, that's a design classic.

[patrick1]

Didnt these understated gentleman of proper breeding throw up follies all over their estates?

[Indy Texas]

Or, rather... rich people as a group have never had much in the way of taste, and have been even less likely to act 'responsibly'. The myth of a great distinction between 'old money' and 'new money' (let's ignore the fact that all American money can be considered as 'new' from certain perspectives) is nothing more than a conservative cultural construct. It exists to sanitise the past, and to damn the present out of hand. Let's take the 18th century, while we often associate it with 'elegance' (at least with regards to the rich: for the proles didst dwell in Gin Lane), one of the most popular styles of the century was the objectively inelegant and laughably ostentatious rococo...

No. There is a considerable difference that I notice when I'm in River Oaks or Tanglewood driving past the homes of the Bushes and the Hobbys and the Bakers - the old, sedate brick houses that signal nothing to the outsider but offer craftsmanship and history to those privileged enough to step inside - and when I'm driving through an outer-ring McMansion development with faux-Mediterranean nightmares that can barely fit on the lots they were built on and that are plastered with every kind of ornament the tract home developer could think of. There's a difference between the matron driving to the Junior League luncheon in her old but perfectly well-kept Mercedes E-Class and the bleach-blonde financial advisor's wife wearing massive designer sunglasses and careening across lanes of traffic in a G-Class with the dealer tags still on it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, that all sounds like tasteless conspicuous consumption.

[Mechaman]

Wow another thread proving IndyTX's bigotry.

Why am I not shocked?

[opebo]

No. There is a considerable difference that I notice when I'm in River Oaks or Tanglewood driving past the homes of the Bushes and the Hobbys and the Bakers - the old, sedate brick houses that signal nothing to the outsider but offer craftsmanship and history to those privileged enough to step inside - and when I'm driving through an outer-ring McMansion development with faux-Mediterranean nightmares that can barely fit on the lots they were built on and that are plastered with every kind of ornament the tract home developer could think of. There's a difference between the matron driving to the Junior League luncheon in her old but perfectly well-kept Mercedes E-Class and the bleach-blonde financial advisor's wife wearing massive designer sunglasses and careening across lanes of traffic in a G-Class with the dealer tags still on it.

Perhaps it is a slight difference in tone, but the distinction should not be enough to spare either from their just desert - the guillotine.

[Vosem]

No. There is a considerable difference that I notice when I'm in River Oaks or Tanglewood driving past the homes of the Bushes and the Hobbys and the Bakers - the old, sedate brick houses that signal nothing to the outsider but offer craftsmanship and history to those privileged enough to step inside - and when I'm driving through an outer-ring McMansion development with faux-Mediterranean nightmares that can barely fit on the lots they were built on and that are plastered with every kind of ornament the tract home developer could think of. There's a difference between the matron driving to the Junior League luncheon in her old but perfectly well-kept Mercedes E-Class and the bleach-blonde financial advisor's wife wearing massive designer sunglasses and careening across lanes of traffic in a G-Class with the dealer tags still on it.

Perhaps it is a slight difference in tone, but the distinction should not be enough to spare either from their just desert - the guillotine.

Are you speaking of a desert they are to receive (a large tract of rather arid land they can use for the amusement, presumably), or a dessert (some very tasty dish to satisfy their sweet tooth)? Neither seems like something you would advocate, opebo.

[homelycooking]

Are you speaking of a desert they are to receive (a large tract of rather arid land they can use for the amusement, presumably), or a dessert (some very tasty dish to satisfy their sweet tooth)? Neither seems like something you would advocate, opebo.

He is speaking of a desert (something deserved), Vosem.

[Vosem]

Are you speaking of a desert they are to receive (a large tract of rather arid land they can use for the amusement, presumably), or a dessert (some very tasty dish to satisfy their sweet tooth)? Neither seems like something you would advocate, opebo.

He is speaking of a desert (something deserved), Vosem.

Why do people always spoil puns?

Of course I understand what opebo is referring to, HC, I'm teasing him a bit. English may be my second language, but I've lived in the US long enough (16 years ) to have encountered this expression from people angry at someone who is not present.

[homelycooking]

Are you speaking of a desert they are to receive (a large tract of rather arid land they can use for the amusement, presumably), or a dessert (some very tasty dish to satisfy their sweet tooth)? Neither seems like something you would advocate, opebo.

He is speaking of a desert (something deserved), Vosem.

Why do people always spoil puns?

Of course I understand what opebo is referring to, HC, I'm teasing him a bit. English may be my second language, but I've lived in the US long enough (16 years ) to have encountered this expression from people angry at someone who is not present.

My apologies, then. I didn't think you were making a pun. Should have kept my fingers off the keyboard, as usual.

[bullmoose88]

No. There is a considerable difference that I notice when I'm in River Oaks or Tanglewood driving past the homes of the Bushes and the Hobbys and the Bakers - the old, sedate brick houses that signal nothing to the outsider but offer craftsmanship and history to those privileged enough to step inside - and when I'm driving through an outer-ring McMansion development with faux-Mediterranean nightmares that can barely fit on the lots they were built on and that are plastered with every kind of ornament the tract home developer could think of. There's a difference between the matron driving to the Junior League luncheon in her old but perfectly well-kept Mercedes E-Class and the bleach-blonde financial advisor's wife wearing massive designer sunglasses and careening across lanes of traffic in a G-Class with the dealer tags still on it.

Perhaps it is a slight difference in tone, but the distinction should not be enough to spare either from their just desert - the guillotine.

I'm just wondering, don't you think the guillotine a bit too kind?  I mean.  I don't advocate the execution of the ric...the producers, but since you've often espoused capital punishment of say...a historical...nature (Christians to lions), I've always wondered why you've chosen a comparatively "humane" instrument.  I figured you'd pick the disembowelment or draw and quartering...or some such...certainly would be less efficient, but seems to require more labor, no?