This NC native was zinged by Zillow for her ‘McMansion Hell’ blog. But she fought back – and won

Kate Wagner never intended to wage war with a popular real estate website when she launched the darkly humorous McMansion Hell blog last year. But just days after being stung by a cease and desist letter Monday from Zillow, the petite native of Whispering Pines, N.C., stands as tall as David, successfully forcing her Goliath to back off while gaining national attention for digital fair-use rights.

Zillow claimed that Wagner’s annotated lampoon of interior and exterior images of McMansions – huge, nouveaux riche homes that typically include a mishmash of design styles and over-the-top opulence – was a violation of copyright and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It ordered her to remove all Zillow images from her website, from which the 23-year-old graduate student draws a modest income that she depends on for school costs and living expenses.

Wagner temporarily shut down her Tumblr page and began archiving its contents. But with help from Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that defends digital privacy, she turned the tables on Thursday, threatening a countersuit.

“McMansion Hell has become part of the national dialogue about contemporary design,” wrote her attorney, Daniel K. Nazer, who argued that Zillow sought to “interfere with protected speech.” Nazer went on to dismantle Zillow’s claims, including the fact that it doesn’t even own the relevant copyrights, and as such cannot assert the right to limit their use.

Wagner did, however, voluntarily agree to not use Zillow content in future posts.

A few hours later, Zillow officially dropped its dispute and McMansionHell.com went back online. It will continue to feature both humorous pokes at pretentious homes and informative essays about architectural concepts, urban planning and environmentalism.

“When I first received the notice, I was terrified,” Wagner recalls during a call from Baltimore, where she is working toward a master’s degree in acoustics from Johns Hopkins University. “It was like, ‘You’re a criminal and you’re going to jail.’ And, by the way, you can’t make a living anymore. My first thought was, wow, how am I going to pay rent? It’s a huge undertaking that has been a source of pride and income.”

Wagner has been heartened by the viral response to her predicament, which included offers of pro bono help from more than 200 lawyers. Her phone buzzed continually during the conversation, signalling incoming texts and tweets from fans. “I’ve been dazed about how huge the reaction has been,” she says. “I’m very thankful for everybody’s love and support.”

An interest in architecture

Wagner’s interest in architecture, and especially the suburban blight of McMansions, began around age 11, when the sylvan woods around her family home were cleared to make way for one such residence. Her parents, Karen and Richard Wagner, still reside in Whispering Pines, located just down the road from Southern Pines.

After graduating from Pinecrest High School, Wagner studied musical composition at UNC-Greensboro. Her growing passion for architecture prompted her to seek a way to combine it with music, leading to her acoustic training at Johns Hopkins. Her goal is to design concert halls and other performance spaces.

Until then, Wagner – who lives with four roommates in a no-frills, one bathroom apartment in Baltimore – will continue posting to McMansion Hell. Her goal is to not only convert her frustrations with ostentatious design into laughter but also inform readers about different types of architecture and their social impacts.

An entertaining overview to the field’s lesser achievements, written while unable to return to school from North Carolina following Hurricane Matthew last October, can be found in the Dante-inspired The 10 Circles of McMansion Hell.

Will Cary make the list?

Fans frequently tip Wagner to the best of the worst McMansions in their communities. Some of her favorites are featured on the Certified Dank list. To date, Wagner has not posted about any McMansions in North Carolina, but she is intrigued by some she’s spotted in Cary.

In an attempt to protect the innocent, or perhaps the tasteless, Wagner never includes people in photos and blurs identifying details.

“I’m not going to go after people saying their house is ugly,” she says, adding that these mega-homes often are professionally staged for sale and don’t even reflect the owner’s style. “I know what it’s like to be bullied on the internet, and in real life, and I don’t want that. Houses are inanimate and they don’t have feelings, but I know very well that people do.”

In her website store, Wagner offers items with the slogan “Judge Houses, Not People.” She’s relieved that the Zillow judgment directed at her personally has ceased and that she can resume working on her blog and completing her degree.

“I’m grateful for all the support, but I’d really like to just move on from this,” she says. “I’m kind of a bashful person, and being in the spotlight has felt like a full-time job. I look forward to getting back to minding my own business.”

This story was originally published June 30, 2017 at 6:15 PM with the headline "This NC native was zinged by Zillow for her ‘McMansion Hell’ blog. But she fought back – and won."