Interior designer Erin Cantu is hard at work designing a dream home for her long-time clients. The project is a sprawling, 15,000-sq-ft new build in Delray Beach, Florida that the future homeowners say will be their last residence. “Everything went into it,” she says. One of the biggest priorities? “These clients have four dogs, so a dog room is a big thing for them.”
The room in question is a canine grooming station and sanctuary, and will have the same high-end materials and finishes used elsewhere in the home. Cantu is working with the fabricators Amuneal to realize the millwork and the metal details, so the space looks less like a doggie day care and more like an elevated personal spa. “The owner wanted it to feel like a real room, so everything should have the same level of quality,” she adds. The dogs will have a walk-in shower with a pull-out ramp that lets the smaller pooches trot right up to the bathing area. Rather than big unsightly cages, the kennels here are recessed beneath stone counters and made with an elegant metal mesh screen.
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It might sound excessive to some, but four-legged friends are now a much bigger priority when buying, renovating, or redesigning a home. Some take it a bit farther than others, of course. In Pound Ridge, New York, one couple picked out a new home with their dog in mind, even naming the new digs after him – the midcentury modern home was henceforth known as Buster’s Retreat. “I found them the house, and they said to me, ‘Well, we can’t put in a bid until we see if Buster will get on the plane,’” says listing agent Sally Slater of Douglas Elliman. The couple relocated from Florida in part because the husband didn’t like how hot it was. Buster wasn’t overly fond of the weather either.
The couple spent $2m renovating their new home to accommodate their dog. They added a sun shelf to the pool so that he could perch in the water without fully submerging, as well as a pergola with electric shades for afternoon lounging. “They’re car people, so they have really nice cars,” says Slater. “They got rid of their SUVs because Buster had a hard time getting into them – so now they just have sports cars that are really low to the ground.”
Dogs aren’t the only ones that get special treatment. You can just as easily add custom spaces and amenities for your cats, too – keeping these animals entertained is perhaps even more important, as they’re very likely to scratch up your beloved furniture otherwise. One possible solution is working a cat tree into the architecture of your home, like interior designer Regan Baker did for a project in Menlo Park, just outside of San Francisco. Her clients had two cats, a black feline named Apollo and a tabby named Zack, and a pre-existing cat tree that “frankly, wasn’t doing them any favors aesthetically,” she says.
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Instead, Baker integrated a cat tree into the living room millwork. The new climbing and lounging system has ledges and cubbies, as well as built-in scratch pads near the fireplace. It made the space into a cat room of sorts, albeit one that could also be enjoyed by humans as their four-legged friends climbed overhead. It’s a solution that was only possible because the clients and Baker envisioned it from the very start of their renovation process. “The earlier you address a pet’s needs in the design, the more seamlessly it fits into the home,” she says. “Instead of adding furniture that clutters the room or eats up space, you build the solution into the architecture itself.”
If you’d rather not go through the trouble of creating a custom space or renovating a pre-existing one, then you can simply seek out a high-rise with its own pet-related spaces. Bentley is currently working on its first residential tower in Sunny Isles, Florida – included in the amenity package is a dedicated pet spa for residents. It will include washing stations, drying areas, and towels and other pet-friendly products, and the surfaces will have non-slip textures – a must for any dog room in order to avoid canine injury. The design will incorporate the brand’s signature Bentley diamond motif, and it makes sense for the brand in more ways than one, as one in three Bently customers reportedly travel with their pets. “It reflects a growing expectation among luxury buyers that luxury residential experiences should cater to every member of the household,” says Ben Saltmer, manager of the Bentley lifestyle design team.
Before you take the plunge and dedicate more real estate to your cats and dogs, you can first try adding a few high-end pet products to the home. Interior designer Ken Fulk has a line of wicker dog beds that look almost like furniture – Fulk himself is a dog person, and has five canines. He also advocates for a dedicated dog room, like the one in his Provincetown home. “It was apparent the pups needed a space of their own, and suddenly our favorite room in the house became the spot. As they grew, they remained attached to the space,” he says. “”Dogs are part of our family – so why shouldn’t they have their own quarters?”
