My Hometown (Sorta)

Wow, where do I start? While I've traveled the country looking for architectural disasters and oddities, if you've lived anywhere around the Virginia or Maryland suburbs, you'll know why I can always trust the Mid-Atlantic for a wide variety of wtf-inducing designs. Over the past winter break, I toured one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country, Potomac, Maryland. Expecting to see tasteful estates of the mega-rich (albeit I know there have to be some), I instead stumbled upon some of the most questionable-looking McMansions I've ever seen.
















I'm pretty sure what they were going for here, a classic Euro-Turret masterpiece, complete with requisite over-sized cheap windows to show off the chandelier, Corinthian columns, brick veneer, and a very awkward faux-dormer. This desire to escape the perceived dullness of modern American life through the emulation of European design has been around awhile, although with rising material costs, egos, and housing sizes, it's become a parody.


















This is truly a mess. From the Mediterranean tiled roof, to the universally despised fairytale-pink brick veneer, I'm not sure they could've fit anything else into --but yes, they have accomplished a feat many never attain: sandwiching a sole stone turret miraculously between three chimneys and an over-sized entrance. While this is pretty awful, the next one pushes all limits of copy and paste Neo-Eclectic Architecture.


















...Wow... I'll have to admit, this home certainly has it going on in the dormer department...I wasn't able to get a photo, but the guest home has enough to bring the grand dormer total to seven, along with two turrets on the back. Otherwise, let's see. Two chunky balconies placed awkwardly on the ends of the home, the popular and unexplainable Mediterranean tile roof/pink brick combo, windows of all shapes and sizes coexisting on the same facade, a rarely seen dutch dormer, snout-like porte-cochere, and finally, an elevated victorian gazebo in the backyard.


There were many, many more like this, in fact, an entire neighboorhood, but there were many just as architecturally confused as this...Here's a link to a live maps of the area if you can handle that many turrets in one sitting...

Palatine