Big, Bigger, Biggest: The Supersize Suburb . . .
By BLAINE HARDEN
Published: June 20, 2002
POTOMAC, Md.— TAKE a peek inside the master bedroom of Bob and Wendy Banner.
Occupying about a third of the second floor of their 8,500-square-foot home here in the Washington suburbs, the master suite begins with a spacious room containing a king-size bed. Beyond that is a sitting room with a fireplace, wet bar, refrigerator and television. Beyond that is a bathroom with a sunken bathtub, fireplace and a television hidden behind a mirror. Beyond that is Mrs. Banner's walk-in closet, 165 square feet, the size of an average bedroom. Finally, there is Mr. Banner's walk-in closet, the size of a small bedroom. When friends from New York visit, Mrs. Banner said, they always exclaim, ''I could fit my whole apartment in your bedroom.''
What is most remarkable about this bedroom suite, though, is its normality. By the bigger-than-big standards of houses in the suburbs of Washington, the Banners are not living all that large, although their house does have six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, two home offices, a wine cellar, a media room and four 21-foot-high ''Gone With the Wind'' columns on the veranda. All for two adults and two children.
The American house has been swelling for decades. It has swollen even though it stands on a smaller lot. It has swollen even though a smaller family lives in it. Even the hulking and ostentatious suburban McMansion is bulking up, as mega-houses like Bob and Wendy Banner's pop up across the United States. (...)
''For me, it was really a necessity,'' said Mrs. Banner, who now has two employees who work with her on the third floor of the house. She and her husband have two daughters, ages 8 and 6.
Mrs. Banner, 37, is a real estate broker, specializing in Potomac. Mr. Banner, 47, is a custom builder who works mainly in the same area. Their household income is more than $500,000 a year.
The combined income, Mrs. Banner said, also explains their big house.
''We can afford it, so why not?'' she said. ''If it doesn't make you house poor and if it gives you an oasis to come home to, why not?''
The Banner children, Erica and Danielle, have their own bedrooms and private baths. Mrs. Banner has noticed, though, that the girls usually sleep together in Erica's double bed.
''When I was growing up, I always wanted my own room,'' Mrs. Banner said. ''Anyway, space is now a nonissue. If they don't want to be together, they don't have to.''
