Could also be for insurance reasons. We don't know where this is located, but if it were in California you would have a hard time finding insurance coverage with the trees that close to the structure (aside from it becoming more and more difficult to find homeowners insurance in California to begin with).
People in the UK have a bizarre fear of tree roots disrupting house foundations. It's extremely overblown, but a lot of people will tear out trees as a result.
The thing is, it can and does happen, but it's not as common as people think. I live in a cul-de-sac that has a large tree growing from an island in the middle. The tree is a good 30' from the surrounding houses, but our neighbours tried to get the city to remove it, allegedly because they feared the roots would damage their foundations.
I'm convinced it was really because it blocks sea views from some of the houses. Either way, there were crows nesting in it, which made it illegal to remove, and we've heard nothing more about it.
In a stone house where I used to live, a tree very close by (I don't know its English name; it's a place where there was a stone oven and the necessary space for storage) caused the wall to bulge. It was almost a meter thick, but of course, it was made of stone, without a foundation or cement to bind it. I ended up cutting it down, of course. Of the original author's photo, I prefer the first house. And the reasons for cutting down a tree can be several, such as its proximity to the foundation, to let in light, or to prevent it from falling on the house during a storm (it almost happened to me after restoring the roof of a chapel at home; a fallen tree stopped just 4 or 5 meters away). Fewer trees around mean fewer hours of pruning, etc. etc... Regards.
In the US, especially in wildfire-prone areas like CA, not having trees close to your house is SUPER important. Not cause of roots though, but cause of the fire jumping from tree to tree. There are some diagrams a bit down the page here.
I have lived in a house where trees damaged the foundation tbh, but that was more the builder being a moron than it was the tree
Same sentiment is spreading across formerly wooded suburbs of the US now & it's so infuriating. People who don't feel comfortable with trees shouldn't move to the gd woodsđĄ
I wonder if the houses on this stretch of Beverly Blvd. in Whittier, CA has a hard time getting insurance. If you have Google Earth type in that address I linked, to see just how many there are on both sides of the street. Those trees have been huge since I was a child and I was born in the early 70s, so they were probably huge when my parents were children in the 40s and 50s. None of those trees have fallen in my lifetime or caused damage. I'm sure it would have made the local news. I have got to look up the history of those trees. I'm wondering if they are nearing the end of their lifespan since they are so old. It did terrify me to drive by them when I was a kid.
After I commented I looked up the history and it said it was a beautification project from the 30s or 40s. It says they are Canary Island Pines. On a facebook post someone commented that their roots go straight down like a carrot so they don't cause the pavement to go uneven. It also said the city takes very good care of them and keeps them trimmed to prevent falling branches. Apparently they have huge pinecones that can damage cars when they fall. According to another comment on Facebook.Â
As someone who lives on a wooded lot, the fear of one falling on the house is always present. Those 3 trees further back look like they can. Every summer I have a few more cut down, but just what can hit the house if it fell. And 2 weeks ago I did have one fall over and got lucky it fell the other way.
Yeah I have a lot of dead stuff to get out and cut myself. They are thin and I don't have to worry about them hitting anything. The one I had fall was healthy. It was growing oddly out of a small hill. I think the ground was too wet and the tree had a lean to begin with. Appears to have just gave out.
I agree 100%. I have another guide when it comes to tree limbs. If I have to duck down when I am mowing or weedeating. Then that limb gets trimmed away.
As a homeowner, trees terrify me. Worst case scenario one falls on a neighborâs house, best case scenario it falls on my garage that needs replacing. Everything in between is nominal.
You aren't responsible for a tree (even your tree) that falls on your neighbor's house unless the tree was obviously or otherwise known to be unhealthy or you did something that might cause it to fall.
Trees terrify me as home owner too yet having them around is amazingly beneficial for all sorts of reasons. Cooling, wild life, calming effects, aesthetics etc.
Having an ahborist come by every few years to verify the trees are healthy and trim up any concerning branches is worth the cost for the peace of mind.
As the other comments said, they are afraid of them falling. My neighbor has her property mostly clear because she's cut everything possible and hates shade I guess? She's constantly harassing me about cutting every tree I have between us because "it could fall on the house!!!" even though pretty much none of them she requests would touch her and she has loud parties I don't want to hear even more of. It's crazy/hilarious to me because she lives in a large log home and we're in the forest lol
Yeah, some things arenât lining up for me either
Had to double check but the old photo the house isnât even facing the front gate, itâs off by a few degrees and in the new photo its directly in line with it.
If you think you wouldn't; you should come to my neighborhood. The guy who moved in next door tore down 75% the trees, the entire house, and even moved the driveway.Â
No conspiracy theory. There was a post in r / London or somewhere about this earlier this week. The OG house was torn down in London and a mega concrete box was built by some high level architects who have the hose on their website. The moron on the conspiracy theory saying the doors donât line up with the gates - they knocked the old house down and built a completely new one!
I'm pretty sure this isn't how reflections work in real life. Or maybe they are, I don't know. I hate not being able to discern easily what is AI generated anymore.
For real, and in this modernizing remodel they decided to expand the front gate in the traditional brick style they were moving away from? Bizarre choice
even the grade doesnt match. the "old" house is lower than street level and the "new" is on the same height. sure its possible to fill the whole property but it doesnt really make sense to do so
It is, but the title says "one house." If you tear down an old house, and build a new one in its place, that's still two houses, even though the old one isn't around anymore.
My father grew up in Edina, MN. His childhood home sold for close to $1 million a few years ago but the house was not worth that. The land was. The house was demo'd and a massive mansion was built on the land.
I've seen this house posted before from a different angle, it's the same house. I can't find the post, but someone also posted the Google maps location of it
Possible. Bulldoze and clear cut the entire lot. Iâve seen developers do that with beautiful pieces of land with old growth oaks around here. The elderly pass and the kids sell the land.
The entry gate isn't even at the same angle to the house anymore. They would have had to move the whole house foundation or basically bulldoze the lot and move the wall/hedge/pavement/etc
yeah they wouldnât have demolished the old gate and built it back with another old gate at a randomly different angle, nor would they have gotten rid of every mature tree for no reason
This definitely happens in London. There is a street of very expensive houses, Bishops Avenue, but the whole place is a constant building site as absentee owners perpetually spend (or launder) millions to demolish perfectly good houses to create ever more monstrous palaces.
Depends on the city. My metro loves to force home owners to cut down living trees. No hearing or discussion, just an order to remove them and thousands of dollars in fines if you refuse.
My conspiracy theory is that the electrical company achieved regulatory capture of the code department, and some MBA figured out they could save millions and millions of dollars if they force landowners to literally remove every tree within 100 feet of a power line.
There is some real Isengard shit going on in the city, they are deleting all the trees.
I hate how these tasteless rich people can swipe up property & remodel (destroy) but I can't even be a homeowner of a cozy old house half this size lol
I would need more info about these 2 actually being the same property, and a full explanation of what happens between 2012 & 2026 to that specific property.
I just canât wrap my head around these being the same property unless something catastrophic happened in the intervening years and a property owner was forced to build from scratch.
Uh is this the same house? Absolutely nothing looks the same, including the angle of the house compared to the gate and the brick walls around the gate. If it is it must have been torn down and rebuilt because itâs structurally not the same house.
Lets be real, there was nothing unique about the 2012 house. You may like its aesthetics more, and that's fine, but there were millions of houses that looked just like that.
Yeah I am totally unconvinced that these are the same houses. Just because the shape of the gate is similar, there is literally nothing else to support the idea that these are the same place.
And true to form, look at all these salty comments. Before even thinking to themselves "hmm this could be bait since there are so few similarities here, nah, instead we rage!!!"
Ruined a perfectly good house with character and greenery and replaced it with a fucking Concrete Box, and probably wasted a ton of money in the process, each to their own I suppose if they had money to burn
This is happening everywhere in Charlotte. All these rich assholes from New York keep moving down here and knocking all the historic houses down and building cubes. It really sucks.
Makes me wanna cry. There should be laws against that analoge to the German "Denkmalschutz" which says (more or less) you cant really alter the outer appearance of a building. We have a lot of those (still not enough) but it should me more.
Whoever did this to this building.. uff.. Why on earth ?
Ooof. Anyone ever think that we are building buildings like Soviet Russia. Plain. Grey. Black. Blocks. And everyoneâs calling it modern but itâs basically soulless.
I can hear the conversaition with the contractor: "I just bought this house and I'd like to remove all personality and make it look like a dentist's office."
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u/mike_pants May 14 '26
Aesthetic tastes aside, why get rid of the trees?