It was a new tract home that managers of hedge funds that own PG&E stock salivate over.

The home was built for four-digit energy bills back in the day when typical PG&E customers fumed about $250 monthly bills.

The homes sold new in 2004 for $750,000.

But four years later, they were selling on the foreclosure resale market for as low as $285,000.

They were the behemoth McMansions built by Seeno Homes in the Heritage Ranch neighborhood touching two sides of the Joshua Cowell School campus.

They covered 4,335 square feet.

The main master bedroom suite that ran the length of the second floor above the rear backyard topped out at 1,100 square feet. It was just under the size of an early 1960s era three bedroom, two bathroom tract home in Manteca.

The master bathroom and accompanying walk-in closet that you could drive a Ford F-150 pickup into covered the space on the second floor above two thirds of the three-car garage.

The bedroom itself had the feel of a bowling alley given you could have probably placed three or four lanes in it.

As for the outside, the dearth of architectural gingerbread on the front facade and zero on the other outside walls made the homes look like massive boxes.

Today, the largest base floor plan in a new Manteca subdivision comes in at just over 3,100 square feet.

It is safe to say the days of ever growing McMansion tract home ended when the foreclosure crisis struck.

Per square foot they fetched the lowest price in foreclosure sales.

The monthly energy costs was one of the biggest turnoffs during the mortgage meltdown.

It’s amazing how people think of such details in tight economic times instead of viewing a house as something you buy and immediately flip six months later when the home is completed.

Now some 20 years later, Manteca is about to go small in a big way.

Builders at Lumina at Machado Ranch are prepping ground on their 827-home project on the southwest corner of Airport Way and Woodward Avenue that includes 87 motor court homes.

They are four homes clustered around a common driveway. One of Lumina’s 12 motor court clusters will have only three homes.

That doesn’t mean much until you take into account the average lot size.

It’s 2,746 square feet. That’s less than half the size of the typical tract lot of 6,000 square feet that’s been around Manteca since the late 1960s.

It basically reduces costs by getting more homes per acre.

The cost saving would not be as effective if they were traditional lots facing a street.

That’s because you are “stacking” a home behind the ones either bordering or facing the street.

It allows you to put in 50 percent less linear street footage and other major infrastructure and build 50 percent more houses along a set stretch of a street.

But there is more to it than that.

The yard design is more in tune with lifestyles in 2025 than when everyone was supposed to strive to emulate the Cleaver Family in the 1950s in suburbia or small town USA.

The added bonus is the common driveway becomes a useful space for families.

Similar developments in the Sacramento area and in Orange County have proven popular.

Owners say the street noise level is less than homes aren’t along the street

The common driveway often becomes a de facto area for kids to play.

Often times, they are used for gatherings involving the four households.

It’s kind of like the era when people interacted with neighbors on honest-to-goodness front porches instead of the few stabs at porch lites today.

But it also has the trappings of a big courtyard where families can gather if they so choose.

Builders of some motor court homes take an extra step and offer California rooms.

California rooms are neither fish or fowl and not typically included in square footage.

It’s an outdoor space protected from the elements on two to three sides.

A patio is open and often uncovered. Sunrooms are closed in.

California rooms work in temperate climates.

They tend to be extensively used which leads to more intense use of backyards.

What makes that a big deal is the fact many people who buy homes with larger lots often don’t end up doing much with them. In other words, they ended up with too much yard for their needs.

It’s more of an appetite is bigger than the stomach thing.

But if more and more homes that have more compact yards that are more livable pop up, it will likely take hold reducing the appetite for larger lots.

The main drive is to offer more affordable options.

However, it could be the start of a seismic shift away from a post-World War II trend in the Central Valley regards to free-standing homes of various versions of a tract house built on mostly rectangle lots that chew up an acre of land for five to seven homes.

As such, it is also a quality of life change.

Owners of motor court homes in Lincoln in Placer County like the idea they have privacy that a single family home affords. But they also like the interaction between households it encourages.

They say they are more connected and feel secure.

It is a different take than the 114 duplexes being built on the northeast corner of Airport Way and Center Street in Manteca or the crowded “Grey Poupon” housing in the North Main Commons kitty corner from the Kia dealership. The homes are so close it seems you could pass a jar of mustard from the side window of one side yard to another.

The bottom line is the freestanding motor court homes are not simply smaller versions of tract homes that have dominated Manteca’s housing market since 1952. That’s when Ed Powers sold the first tract home in the original modern subdivision for the Family City between Manteca and what was once Spreckels Sugar.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com