Unreal Estate

When I was growing up, if a family in our middle-class neighborhood wanted more space, they'd finish the basement or attic or convert the porch or garage. Voilà: a relatively quick and inexpensive den or family room. Occasionally someone would add a room or two to the back or side of a house, but if they needed more than that they'd just move.

Although the additions gradually got larger and more ambitious, people still used words like charm and character to describe the pre-war homes until recently. But in the past few years, with land values shooting through the roof, new owners have started to feel they should have a house befitting their whopping investment. Hence the teardown.

My poor mother is surrounded by three such projects in various stages of completion. Two are spec houses, one of which hit the market last weekend. Six bedrooms, five and a half baths, $2.3 million. I'm out of touch, I know, but that seems like an awful lot of money for one of the smallest and least desirable lots on the block: a third of an acre, with a steep dropoff. In fact, if any land remains behind the massive new house, it must be nearly vertical.

Apparently there's some cachet left to an old house, because the listing notes that it was built in 1939. Never mind that the only original features are two or three walls and a fireplace.

If even that is too cramped for you, take heart. The house next door will have seven bedrooms when it's finished in a few months. Price undetermined.