Snout Houses

[Doady]

All photos taken on June 26, 2019.

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[xzmattzx]

I've been seeing more and more of these snout houses here in Delaware on infill lots in postwar subdivisions.

I don't mind the suburbs at all; in fact, I own a postwar ranch house. I don't need a lot of land and I don't need a lot of interior space. I don't have a garage, but if for some reason I wanted to build on, I could attach one to the side of the house, or build a free-standing one in the back yard, like has been done in countless other postwar neighborhoods.

But these houses seem way too strange to me. Is someone's need for garage space so high that they are willing to sacrifice windows that look out onto the street? Doesn't anyone want rooms with windows? (This goes into another peeve of mine, which is people who keep curtains closed or blinds down during the day, and then turn on lights. You have free lighting already, and you're blocking it out!)

Then look at these houses and how their side walls are so bare. There are almost no windows at all. Why not just build townhouses then?

I would much prefer what I have: a small house on a small lot with natural light in every room, and a small, but usable front yard and back yard. I could expand my ranch house upward, if I ever wanted to, and I could build a one-car garage on the property if I wanted to as well.

[Nouvellecosse]

These are beyond ugly. Why do people even need to keep their car in the damn house? I mean, yes it might save some time brushing snow off it a few days a year, but is that really worth the extra money in building materials to add that additional area and in the process make your house hideous? Of course for a lot of the people (at least in my region) a car (or sufficient space for one) is one of the least common things in a garage so people do find uses for them. General assorted storage is probably the most common use, and workshops would be the second. Basically a glorified shed which can be done in a much more attractive way.

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

These are beyond ugly. Why do people even need to keep their car in the damn house? I mean, yes it might save some time brushing snow off it a few days a year, but is that really worth the extra money in building materials to add that additional area and in the process make your house hideous? Of course for a lot of the people (at least in my region) a car (or sufficient space for one) is one of the least common things in a garage so people do find uses for them. General assorted storage is probably the most common use, and workshops would be the second. Basically a glorified shed which can be done in a much more attractive way.

i like having a garage personally - own a townhouse with an alley behind, and rear facing garage - the only right way to do things IMO. not common at all for atlanta, but definitely so in other places like chicago and dallas. some of my neighbors with families treat theirs as extra outdoor living space, one even went as far as putting a nifty pebble coating on the concrete - they park their cars on the street during the day and only bring them in before going to bed.

[Murphy de la Sucre]

Hello, am I the only weirdo here? I am really loving it.

[jdcamb]

I own a snout house. The rent pays for my loft downtown.

[Steely Dan]

Welcome to our lovely garage.

We live upstairs in its attic.

[geomorph]

Originally Posted by Doady

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These two are friendlier to the visitor with the welcoming covered walkways on the side to signal an entrance.

[MolsonExport]

I hate snout houses. Uglification of suburbia personified.

[harryc]

Thank you for making even our worst suburbs look better than something.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Doady

All photos taken on June 26, 2019.

Toronto suburb?

[MolsonExport]

^half of Canadian suburbs look like that.

[Doady]

Sorry, I try to show a faceless suburb, so maybe labelling the place would get in the way of that, right? But I probably should have said that this is my neighbourhood in Mississauga, Ontario, beside Toronto, just walking around 10-15 minutes from my home.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Doady

Sorry, I try to show a faceless suburb, so maybe labelling the place would get in the way of that, right? But I probably should have said that this is my neighbourhood in Mississauga, Ontario, beside Toronto, just walking around 10-15 minutes from my home.

Toronto suburbs actually look worse now than they did 50 years ago.

[Doady]

These houses actually probably 20-30 years old now. 50 year old neighbourhoods like Milliken and Mississauga Valleys aren't so great either. Just looking at residential streets, I think newer neighbourhoods like Cornell and Uptown Core do look better.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Doady

These houses actually probably 20-30 years old now. 50 year old neighbourhoods like Milliken and Mississauga Valleys aren't so great either. Just looking at residential streets, I think newer neighbourhoods like Cornell and Uptown Core do look better.

Milliken is more like 40 years old though. This aerial was taken in 1983 and shows construction wrapping up in the street you linked on streetview.



I would say that 1970s-1980s represent an important transition period for Toronto suburbia. During this period, female workforce participation rates increased dramatically, which meant most households required at least two cars.

You also saw Toronto starting to run into some growth limits.

During the 40s-50s the widespread adoption of the automobile greatly increased the amount of land that was accessible to commuters, faster than the population could grow, resulting in rather low density development. However, by the 70s-80s, most of that newly accessible land had been built up and construction of new highways slowed, so you once again had development pressure to reduce lot sizes to build more houses on the smaller amount of remaining land within a reasonable commuting distance. Related to this, you also began to see much more suburban office parks being built.

Average house sizes for new ground oriented dwellings have also been increasing steadily since WWII.

Due to trying to fit bigger homes with garages that can fit more cars on smaller lots, development pressures created a transition from single storey homes being the norm in the 60s to 2 storey homes being the norm in the 80s. And because the lots had to be quite narrow and accommodate 2 car garages, this often took the form of a snout house, whereas in the 50-60s something like this would have been more typical.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7252...7i16384!8i8192

[Doady]

Originally Posted by memph

Milliken is more like 40 years old though. This aerial was taken in 1983 and shows construction wrapping up in the street you linked on streetview.



I would say that 1970s-1980s represent an important transition period for Toronto suburbia. During this period, female workforce participation rates increased dramatically, which meant most households required at least two cars.

You also saw Toronto starting to run into some growth limits.

During the 40s-50s the widespread adoption of the automobile greatly increased the amount of land that was accessible to commuters, faster than the population could grow, resulting in rather low density development. However, by the 70s-80s, most of that newly accessible land had been built up and construction of new highways slowed, so you once again had development pressure to reduce lot sizes to build more houses on the smaller amount of remaining land within a reasonable commuting distance. Related to this, you also began to see much more suburban office parks being built.

Average house sizes for new ground oriented dwellings have also been increasing steadily since WWII.

Due to trying to fit bigger homes with garages that can fit more cars on smaller lots, development pressures created a transition from single storey homes being the norm in the 60s to 2 storey homes being the norm in the 80s. And because the lots had to be quite narrow and accommodate 2 car garages, this often took the form of a snout house, whereas in the 50-60s something like this would have been more typical.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7252...7i16384!8i8192

One thing that might have changed new neighbourhoods in the 70s was rent control. With less high density zones, fewer new apartment buildings, the houses became more packed together, subdivisions more homogenized.

Look at a place like Brampton, almost pure low-rise, almost all houses and no apartments. Very rapid growth without much variation, and so without much thought, throughout 80s, 90s, 00s. That's why I don't like how easily people often dismiss more recent efforts of suburbs to be even a little bit thoughtful, to be even a little bit ambitious, to be even a little bit different, to pay even a little bit of attention to the aesthetics of the street, to achieve even a little bit of character and identity in new subdivisions or build new suburban downtowns. But then again, there are also people who ask why try at all to increase the vibrancy or reduce parking lots in historic downtowns even a little bit also, which I just find mind-boggling.

Personally, I think any small effort to improve our urban environments is worth it, and reducing the prominence of garages in the streetscape is just one example.

[MolsonExport]

My first house (that I bought) was a snout house. The house was basically a tunnel with most of the windows on the back (and one in the front). So were all the other houses on the street. With about 6 feet between each house, on 40 ft wide lots. It was hideous then and now. And it is true that most people just fill up their garages with crap so they cannot fit their car inside. Especially since most of the people on the street drove fugly hulking pickup trucks (never seem to be hauling anything, mind you). Some families owned two or three pickup trucks. There may be nothing uglier (or soul-sucking) in the universe than three pickup trucks parked side-by-side on a driveway built for two cars, in front of a snouthouse, on a cold dark winter's day.

I am glad to have moved out of snouthouseville. The street that I live on currently is infinitely nicer. Alas still too many people drive fugly hulking pickup trucks.


Along with the ubiquity of the snouthouse, the extreme popularity of huge hulking pickup trucks is a symbol that the end is nigh.

[Doady]

I think these pictures along with my other series on Corner Lots highlights how even a little thought and effort can make a big difference for not only each individual house but also the streets at the same time. Even some of these houses have more prominent "snouts" than the others, with no windows visible at all. Some houses, even if the garage dominates, you can at least see the windows. I think it is not wrong to expect a little more from the designs, a suburb can still be a suburb, but even suggestions for minor changes to suburbs are often met with huge backlash and controversy here. Half-hearted TOD measures all over the suburbs like in the GTA can still make a huge difference on suburbanite's ability to use transit. Even alleyways and rear parking in Uptown Core, Churchill Meadows, Mount Pleasant, Cornell, it really doesn't interfere with the suburban lifestyle. Churchill Meadows and Mount Pleasant are not as ambitious as Uptown Core and Cornell, and Cornell and Uptown Core not ambitious as Seaside, Florida, but when it comes autocentricity and aesthetics, every little tiny step counts, but I think people completely dismiss these steps way too easily. With just minor changes, the suburbs can be much better than this. Just because they remain suburban doesn't mean they are failures. When it comes to urbanity, not everything has to be black and white.

[bilbao58]

I just think it’s kind of funny that I haven’t lived there since 1973, haven’t even visited since the early 90s, and yet those houses looked familiar enough for me to guess they were in a Toronto suburb.