McMansions...would you like fries with that?

The Redland area of Miami is a great place for real estate.  It's intermingled with single family residences and nurseries growing and selling all kinds of beautiful plants.  Most homes are on at least one acre.  Considering that most new construction in other areas of Miami is being built on lots of about 6,000 SF, an acre, at 43,560 Square Feet, provides plenty of elbow room.  But said elbow room doesn't come cheap in Miami.  I've seen one acre homesites for sale at $289K in the area, while 5 acres are listed at about $700K.  Land only.

I've noticed some interesting construction going up in the Redland area.  These homes are interesting because they're HUGE!  There are two in particular that have always caught my eye.  They've been under construction for about 2 years now.  The first one is situated on just a little less than 5 acres.  I can only guess that the main house is about 9,000 square feet.  That's a lot of dusting!  I can barely keep up with my 3 bedrooms, 2 baths.  Behind the main home is a guest house.  I would venture a guess that the guest house is as big as my home, if not bigger.  Here's a picture of the front of the main house.  You can get a pretty good feel for the size of the house itself fom the many windows.

The second home is being constructed on over 14 acres.  Hooo-weeee, that's a lot of land!  The main home is being built in the back part of the parcel.  Imagine having to drive through 7 acres to get to your doorstep.  The front gate and entrance are reminiscent of a luxurious hotel/spa.  When I first drove past the construction site 2 years ago, I thought that's what they were building for sure.   I now think it's just a lavish family residence.  Here's a picture of the work in progress.  This is a picture of the front gate.  Notice the long drive with a traffic circle and interesting architecture in the middle of the driveway.  I can only venture a guess that the main home will end up being gorgeous.  I wasn't about to venture past the gates and risk being arrested for trespassing.  Ines, with your architecture training, I would love your input as to the style of this one.  From what I can see, there are rooms in the front gate/structure! 

I really wasn't serious about the McMansions label for these homes.  Locally, we (real estate agents and consumers alike) have been referring to homes that are about 4000SF+ (2 stories) and sitting on postage stamp size lots as McMansions.  The 2 homes highlighted here definitely do not fall into that category.  These are truly mansions!  I can't wait 'til they're finished.  The fact that they've pulled out all the stops in the construction tells me their landscaping will probably be breathtaking.  It's interesting to note, however, that most of the surrounding homes are modest, single family residences.  A small percentage of them are higher end homes.  It makes me wonder what these homes will do to property values in the area.  Hmmm....stay tuned for updates.