No Thanks, No Mansion For Me

LANSING, Mich. -- Available: five-bedroom, four-bath ranch-style home. Working wind turbine and rooftop solar panels. Original, midcentury bar hidden behind motorized living-room wall. No rent required.

Michigan Gov.-elect Rick Snyder isn't interested.

The Republican venture capitalist elected on a platform to shake up state government recently announced that he wouldn't move into the governor's official 8,700-square-foot residence on four acres overlooking the Grand River. Instead, he'll stay in his own, 10,600-square-foot manse complete with indoor pool, movie theater and wine cellar.

It's 70 miles away in Ann Arbor, but near his teenage daughter's school. As an added bonus, says Mr. Snyder, he won't need a full-time house staff, a potential savings for taxpayers. 'I'm convinced that every dollar counts,' he says.

Gubernatorial candidates spend months, if not years, campaigning to take the reins of state government. But more and more winners are forgoing one of the spoils of victory: living rent-free in the governor's mansion.

Some of them cite a new age of austerity, coupled with the pressure to keep family life intact in their hometowns. Many say they're used to the commuting life and, with the help of cellphones and email, can operate the levers of government from anywhere. Some just don't want to pick up and move.

In Colorado, Gov.-elect John Hickenlooper is weighing whether to leave his home in kid-friendly Park Hill, just outside of downtown Denver, and move his family, including his 8-year-old son, Teddy, into nearby Boettcher Mansion.

'There are 16 kids on our block for our son to play with,' says Mr. Hickenlooper, departing mayor of Denver, in an interview. He says the governor's residence sits in a more commercial district of the city.

He also says that his wife, a journalist and author, may prefer greater separation between the first family's public and private lives. 'And I almost certainly do what my wife wants,' he says. (A spokesman later said the couple intends to make the decision together.)

In Albany, Andrew Cuomo has waxed nostalgic about spending time at New York State's 40-room Queen Anne-style governor's mansion in the 1980s, when his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, once ruled with a domestic staff on a hill overlooking the Hudson River.

But with his girlfriend and children already living near New York City, the younger Mr. Cuomo, who becomes governor in January, plans to keep a home base in suburban Westchester County.

New Jersey's stately Drumthwacket manor in Princeton has served as little more than a crash pad since Gov. Chris Christie came to office this year. He opted to keep his children in a school near his home in Mendham, more than 50 miles away, and uses the mansion, with its Italian gardens and a wood-paneled library, mostly for special dinners and official receptions. Once, the governor and his staff took shelter at Drumthwacket during a snowstorm.

In Idaho, the 7,370-square-foot governor's mansion on 38 acres in Boise donated by frozen-french-fry magnate J.R. Simplot lies unoccupied. Gov. Butch Otter, who was once married to Mr. Simplot's daugher, Gay, has refused to move in since taking office in 2007. A spokesman says the governor's own ranch in the town of Star is close by and better equipped to entertain guests like retired Gen. Colin Powell.

The Boise home's hilltop setting is nonetheless a favorite sledding spot for Idahoans, some of whom now call for selling the all-but-vacant estate.

Forty-five states have an official residence, and most governors still rest their heads there.

They also encounter their share of headaches. In 2005, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his family fled the state's 19th-century Federal-style mansion for about two months because of mold contamination. The family later left its permanent mark on the home with some renovations, including the Jenny Sanford Wedding Garden, a tribute by the former first lady, who divorced the governor after he admitted to having an Argentinean mistress.

In New York, departing Gov. David Paterson was caught red-faced in 2009 by allegations that friends of his daughter were planning a party in a section of the mansion they dubbed, 'FDR's Polio Poolhouse,' while her parents were away. The governor called a posting on Facebook about the event a joke, but lamented how every private activity at the house falls under public scrutiny.

'You're walking around this place and it's hard to settle in,' he said in an interview. 'It's unlike home because you feel like you're on display.'

But going without a mansion has its challenges, too. Jerry Brown sold the governor's residence when he was California's chief executive in the 1980s, leaving the current governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to fly home to Los Angeles many nights on his own private jet. Now Mr. Brown is back in Sacramento as the governor-elect and recently rented a 1,450-square-foot midtown loft close to the Capitol.

In Michigan, the Lansing estate underwent a $2.5 million renovation funded by private donations seven years ago to improve infrastructure and expand the separate family quarters. Taxpayers still pick up maintenance costs, which run about $40,000 annually.

Departing two-term Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her husband raised three children in the mansion, from which she sometimes walked, jogged or biked to work about three miles away.

Mr. Snyder will become the first Michigan governor not to live in the executive residence since it was donated to the state in 1969. The house in Lansing, with rose and herb gardens and a small pond, will continue to be used for official meetings and events, and Mr. Snyder has said he could imagine staying there a night or two during the week if necessary. But his administration does foresee cutting back the house staff, which includes a full-time chef.

'I view it as a family decision that was reasonably straightforward,' Mr. Snyder said in a Bluetooth-enabled telephone interview from his car. 'There is going to be a lot of strain and stress, and we'd like as much of a normal family life as possible.'