There’s no accounting for taste – or lack thereof.
B&T columnist Scott Van Voorhis reports this week that mid-century modern is making a comeback at the high end of the market. No one wants granite or marble or crown molding; no, today’s buyers instead seek grout-less bathrooms, dark wood flooring and a streamlined aesthetic.
Good luck with that. This is New England, and more, it’s Greater Boston – our single-family housing stock doesn’t run to clean lines and dark wood, unless it’s on the walls. Those buyers would be better served in the sleek and shiny condo towers of the Seaport; the bones of those buildings at least come closer to mid-century than do those of the homes built in the past decade or two.
As tastes shift, the value of the “new” 10-year-old McMansions is taking a tumble, a karmic slap-back that has some parts of the population gleefully chortling into their lattes. Turns out tearing down starter homes built in the 1950s to install hideous, soulless boxes too large for their lots was shortsighted.
Truth be told granite countertops are hideous and shouldn’t have enjoyed the longevity they did. Too many of the Bay State’s houses look the same on the inside and if today’s high-end buyers are looking to instill some personality into their homes, more power to them.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Just as classic brick facades were clad in plastic and lovely hardwood floors were smothered by hideous shag carpeting, so too will some beautiful old homes be ruined by an attempt to emulate styles popular nearly 70 years ago.
And why mid-century modern? Is it some kind of unconscious longing to return to a simpler time – a time none of these buyers actually lived through? Let’s hope not, since that was a time when cocktails and cigarettes were consumed without regard to long-term effects on humans and homes alike. It doesn’t matter how streamlined your couch is if it smells like an ashtray.
Maybe today’s buyers have watched too much HGTV, which has leaned into the ’50s with fervor. What’s so appealing about that particular decade? What’s so great about an all-white kitchen with aqua backsplashes? Don’t these people know how hard it is to keep an all-white kitchen clean?!
Also difficult to keep clean: dark wood flooring. Every dog hair, every speck of dust, every footprint shows clearly against that background. Although if you’re dropping $3 million on a house, probably someone else is cleaning your floors, kitchen and those four full baths (minimum).
The sudden hatred of grout is frankly baffling. Of all the things a buyer wants in a home, it’s going to be grout – a completely normal part of tiling – that causes them to turn up their noses? That’s the justification for gutting a bathroom? What a waste of money. At least it’ll keep the tile guys employed.
To everything there is a season; perhaps someday nostalgia for the styles of the early aughts will return and those time-capsule McMansions will be worth a fortune. Probably none of us will be around to see it, though – thank God.
