Home furnishings of the rich and sometimes famous

Part 3: The American Dream is on steroids
By: Janis Mara: Inman News
Editor's note: Like everything in American culture, houses have blown up to Hummer-sized proportions. Eight-figure prices and 10,000-square-foot homes are becoming the norm in the luxury housing market, which is booming. In this three-part series, we explore the changing nature of the American Dream, what people are looking for in the ideal home and our obsession with all things big. (See Part 1: Lust for status drives luxury real estate market and Part 2: Family values rank high in dream houses.)

What do boxing rings, Australian jara and navy blue gas ranges have in common? They're all highly sought-after, super-trendy components of today's luxury homes.

Though colored appliances give rise to visions of the hideous avocado and harvest gold refrigerators of the 1970s, they're back, and even now decorating – or perhaps desecrating – the homes of the very rich, according to Laurie Moore-Moore, president of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing.

America's luxury housing is on steroids, with 10,000-square-foot homes and eight-figure prices becoming commonplace. In the luxury market, it's not about keeping up with the Joneses, building a two-story ranch and putting up a white picket fence. The stakes are higher and the fences are made of Australian jara. It's more about keeping up with the high-tech moguls next door: the Bill Gateses and the Larry Ellisons.

Along these lines, clients' demands for furnishings and amenities are ramping up as well.

Dual "his and hers" sinks in the master bath, once a staple of luxury living, have morphed into his-and-her bathrooms. Walk-in closets are now also his and hers, with climate-controlled fur storage for the lady and quality paneling for the gent, Moore-Moore said.

In many cases, yesterday's luxuries are becoming today's standards, according to Daniel Levy, president of CityRealty.com.

"Brazilian cherry wood flooring is almost a standard now," said Levy, who operates in the fang-and-claw world of Manhattan real estate. "Over the past five to eight years, the concept of luxury, at least in Manhattan, has been taken to new heights. High-end kitchens with Viking appliances are now very standard."

The one-time Holy Grail of kitchen decoration, the granite countertop, is practically mundane now, Levy said. "One new development has custom sinks made from one 700-pound marble piece," Levy said. (One can only hope the building had a sturdy elevator.)

Along with the unwashed masses, rich folks are retreating to their homes in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, experts say.

Pools, tennis courts, screening rooms, wine cellars, boxing rings, large exercise facilities and "things as bizarre as bowling alleys" make it possible to recreate at home, according to William Hablinski, founding partner of Hablinski + Manion Architecture, a luxury housing firm focusing mostly on the Pacific Northwest.

It goes without saying that today's luxury home has broadband access, and also qualifies as a "smart" house.

"Ten years ago, houses were wired. Now there are intelligent houses that turn on the bath, the heater, the security, the music, the lights. A lot of people go to their computer and look at the cameras in their homes, scan their homes to see if anything is awry. You can do that remotely by computer and cameras," said John Brian Losh, founder and publisher of LuxuryRealEstate.com.

Bathrooms are always hot, and clients are increasingly focused on high-tech, stress-relieving showers, said Richard Taylor of Richard Taylor Architects in Dublin, Ohio.

"The shower will be glass-enclosed, eight feet by eight feet, all tile and marble," Taylor said. Multiple-head steam or rain showers that give body massages and built-in steamers are popular, the architect said.

Exotic hardwoods can now be farmed, so now "we don't have to wreck the rain forest to trim our studies," Taylor said. For that reason, it's now possible to use exotic woods that were previously unavailable, such as Australian jara, and they're in great demand, the architect said.

Traditional architecture, as opposed to modern design, is popular these days, Hablinski said.

"Certain traditional period work, which has not been popular in this country since the 1920s and 1930s, is having a reemergence," Hablinski said. "People are going back to more traditional design work that emanates from traditional European themes, English, French, Italian."

In a cultural shift, Americans are becoming increasingly sensitive to design, according to Levy and Hablinski. This is showing up in their requests for specific types of houses.

"People are becoming sophisticated enough to ask for a Roman palazzo, a Gothic palazzo or a Tuscan farmhouse," Hablinski said, citing three forms of Italianate architecture that are currently popular. English Georgian and Regency style homes are also popular, he said.

Levy said style is gaining importance. "Before, you chose the architect as to who would maximize the square footage. Now if you can get a real name designer in there, someone with style, that's important. It's not just somewhere I'm going to live. I'll have my own style and make sure the apartment reflects it."

Sometimes, clients who spend gargantuan amounts of money on lavish features end up not even using them, according to Taylor.

"A lot of people have to have the home gym, the home theater. They try to create the movie experience at home, Dolby surround sound, they spend $100,000 on a sound system. The one thing they don't get is the experience of going out to the movies. How often can you ask your friends over to watch movies in the basement?" Taylor asked.

"We see people who spend great sums of money on a theater and it falls into disuse," the architect said.

"We started seeing this 10 or 15 years ago with master bathrooms, spas like the Paris Hotel bathroom. We get young couples – the first thing they think of is the huge big bathtub. They get a shy smile, 'We're going to have a lot of fun.' But it's a hassle to fill the tub, it's hard to clean. We go back a year later and they are using it to water the ferns," Taylor said.