When your childhood home becomes a teardown

I have managed to navigate most trials in middle age (job changes, children leaving home, deceased pets) with a fair amount of grace. But now I find myself strangely unnerved by an event beyond my control: My childhood home is about to be torn down.

This summer, my parents sold the 2,000-square-foot split-level they bought in a suburb of New York City in the early 1970s. The buyer, a Bronx-based developer of everything from office complexes to strip malls, plans to demolish the house to make way for something bigger and grandera five-bedroom McMansion with stainless-steel appliances, custom millwork, surround sound, and a master suite with a marble bathroom and radiant heat.

For my siblings and me, my parents decision to sell provoked mixed emotions. Its a huge relief to no longer have to worry about anyone tripping on the stairs. But its also hard not to feel depressed at the sight of the old homesteadthe center of our family lifeempty after 43 years.

When a neighbor emailed me recently to say my parents mail was still being delivered there, I was glad for an excuse to drive over and see the house one last time. But with a large piece of excavating equipment sitting in the driveway, it was impossible to ignore whats to come.

I understand why the house is being torn down. The stairs arent up to todays construction codes. The bathrooms and kitchen are small. When someone slams the door in the garage, you can feel the vibrations upstairs in my brothers old bedroom. The plumbing, windows and electric wiring havent been touched in decades. The metallic wallpaper with blue flowers in the bathroom my brother and I once shared says it all: The house is clearly outdated.

Still, I dread its rendezvous with a wrecking ball. When my childhood BFFs century-old house was bulldozed last spring (goodbye high ceilings and ornate mantelpieces), the teardown trend in our old neighborhood suddenly became personal. Was some nefarious forceMcMansion mania? Voldemort?out to destroy my childhood haunts?

Majestic old trees have become irreplaceable commodities in luxury real estate, with architects designing entire homes around them.

Im far from alone. Robert Denk, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders, says about 25% of the single-family homes built nationwide this year will rise from the ashes of teardowns.

Todays buyer doesnt want grandmas house, says Brian Hickey, chief executive of teardowns.com, which helps buyers and sellers of such properties find each other. Buyer preferences have changed, and many older homes are tough to renovate. The ceilings are too low, the basements are dreary, and the wiring is inadequate for todays technology. All of which sounds familiar.

On teardowns.coms list of most active teardown communities nationwide, I wasnt surprised to find my hometown, Rye, N.Y. Its a densely populated suburb where construction pits abound and the median price of single-family homes listed for sale is $2.8 million, according to Gail Feeney, a broker at Julia B. Fee Sothebys International Realty. For that amount of money, I guess I wouldnt tolerate a dreary basement, either.

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When your childhood home becomes a teardown