But a lot of people are building these cookie-cutter houses.

"There are no cookie-cutter houses here," said Barbara Neal, the Branford assessor.

From the station, we walked through a tightly packed development of tiny cookie-cutter houses pressed up against the street.

One technique is modular housing: pre-fabs, as they were called, associated with military installations and low-cost, questionably built cookie-cutter houses.

"They don't want a cookie-cutter house," he said.

Is this the solution to American suburban cookie-cutter houses?

The sprawling new subdivisions that sprouted on Long Island's potato and corn fields featured winding lanes, cookie-cutter houses and a family car in every driveway.

They wanted a cozy house, not a cookie-cutter house, something that would make them feel joyful, in an enveloping neighborhood.

Indeed, the homes in the Wynnewood community have a sufficient diversity of styles and layouts not to appear like "cookie-cutter" houses.

Beyond tattoo parlors, car dealerships and rows of cookie-cutter houses along Hylan Boulevard, the old building sneaks into view when the road ends.