INTERIORS : Master Bedrooms : Homeowners Are Waking Up to the Possibilities of a House Within a House
Anybody who thinks Mark Twain would have been appalled with the state of human affairs in this part of the world today would do well to remember the author’s writing habits.
Twain loved to write in bed, propped up by soft pillows and encircled in cool sheets, a cigar clamped in his teeth and a sheaf of papers in his lap. He produced large sections of “Huckleberry Finn,” “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” while reclining in the sack.
So he would probably be delighted to know that the room he used for sleeping, eating, drinking, reading, writing, corresponding and kicking back in general--his refuge from the grittier world beyond the door--has today become the unquestioned centerpiece of the modern Southern California home.
In an era when homes are thought of less as shelters than as buffers against the turbulence of daily life, the bedroom has taken on the aura of the sanctum sanctorum, the ultimate refuge, the cocoon within the cocoon.
Builders, designers and architects have capitalized on this apparent need for sanctuary. Today it is common to see new homes in which the master bedroom is by far the dominant room in the house, both in size and number of amenities. And even if a house is 30 years old, many homeowners are choosing to remodel so the master bedroom is expanded to far grander proportions and filled with a long wish list of cushy gimmicks.
“You’ll see houses today where the bedroom suite will be as big as the dining room and kitchen combined,” said Jason Titus, a partner in the Fullerton interior design firm of Johnson and Titus. “It’ll encompass, for instance, a foyer, a bedroom, a sitting area, sometimes an office or library, and of course a bath, which can include huge water closets, his-and-hers bathing facilities and sometimes exercise rooms too.
“In a sense, it’s like a complete enclosure all by itself. It’s self-sufficient.”
So self-sufficient, in fact, that it has become almost like a house within a house for some ambitious clients, said Titus, who with his partner, Sherry Johnson, assembled a mock-up of a modern master bedroom at the recent home design show at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Depending on the amenities the homeowners specify, or add later, they could quite literally hole up in the room--eating, sleeping, cooking, reading, conducting their business--almost indefinitely, with only the periodic need to send out for food.
There are several related ideas at the core of the master bedroom revolution, Titus said, but the principal motivation for most homeowners is a need for a highly personal space to shut out the cares of the day, pamper themselves and relax. It’s cocooning in depth.
“After a day out there,” Titus said, “finally you’ve got some time to yourself, and you’ve got this nice house, but you don’t feel like dealing with the entire house in the evening. So you can go in a single area and change your clothes and take a bath, turn on some music, have a cocktail from the fridge and really relax into an evening mode before you go to bed.
“In a sense, it’s almost like a rejuvenation period before you go to sleep. It makes the transition from night to day much easier.”
So what does the homeowner of the ‘90s require, apart from a bed, to make the crossover from stress to bliss in the master bedroom?
First, space. A 20-by-20-foot master bedroom is not unusual in newer homes, Titus said, but smaller spaces--14 by 16 feet, for instance--can easily be converted into full-service master bedrooms.
The idea, Johnson said, is to convey a sense of intimacy, relaxation and multiple purposes. For instance, in her own master bedroom (which formerly was two smaller bedrooms), Johnson has placed a desk with a nearby bookcase, a sitting area, lounge chairs and a separate alcove fitted with a bookcase, in addition to such common amenities as a bed, nightstand and dresser.
Beyond furniture, however, things can get dazzlingly fancy.
“We just finished (a remodeling job) in the Harbor View area,” said Frank Griffo, the sales manager of California Remodeling, a residential remodeling contractor in Anaheim, “and put in a huge fireplace, cathedral ceilings and an eight-foot-wide opening with a 10-foot ceiling going into the bathroom.
“In the bathroom, there’s 20 feet of countertop, a separate toilet area and a tub the size of a small pool. We added something like 1,200 square feet to the house.”
Wet bars and small refrigerators are common requests, Griffo said, as are built-in TVs and stereos, huge walk-in closets and large decks.
Titus told of a client “who liked to relax by watching four different televisions at the same time. That was always his fantasy, but he never acted on it until remote-control televisions came out. So we built him this elaborate wall system in his bedroom, and he can control it all from his bed.”
Such high-tech gadgets can become almost shamelessly indulgent.
“You can control everything from your nightstand now,” Johnson said. “A computer system can be installed there, and it can let you control the windows, the curtains, the lighting, the music, the heating.”
And there is a remote-controlled gas fireplace on the market, Griffo said, that can be vented sideways out of a pipe rather than with the usual chimney.
“You can put a window above the mantel,” he said, “which is a strange effect if you’re used to a traditional fireplace. But it’s the ultimate: sitting in bed and turning your fireplace on and off.”
As spectacular as some of the goodies in the bedroom can get, the adjoining master bathroom can offer an even more imaginative palette for the gadget lover.
“The tub is the new feature these days,” Titus said. “It can be almost like a pool. And there can be his-and-hers faucets.”
There is also a machine available, he said, that can re-create a rain forest-type mist in a section of the bathroom.
Johnson said there is also “a computer available to time the tub to fill up at a certain time and a certain temperature so that you can pull into your driveway after work and have your bath waiting for you.”
Johnson said a client once characterized the master bathroom “as just a place to catch cold in, because you have to walk 20 feet to get your towel to dry off.” Some of the chill can be mitigated by a double-sided fireplace that opens onto the bedroom and bathroom.
A microwave oven, a toaster, a small refrigerator and other kitchen devices are often installed in the master bedroom, Titus said, but usually nothing fancier than that.
“The last thing a lot of people want to do at the end of the day,” he said, “is get involved in the kitchen.”
Others are not so crazy about dealing with a houseful of children, either, he said, which is another way in which the new master bedroom comes in handy. The frazzled couple craving privacy can simply leave the rest of the house to the kids and keep the bedroom to themselves. Other tenants, increasingly, include parents or adult children, Johnson said.
“More of us are getting into that sandwich generation where we’re caring for older parents,” she said, “and there’s a cost of keeping parents in the home, as well as adult children. It can cause a space problem, but with (the master bedroom), you’re creating a space for yourself that is separate from the others.”
If all that luxury sounds good to you, but you don’t have the money to forage for a new house, a remodeling job can do the trick.
“I’d say 85% of the people we see have been out looking at new homes,” Griffo said, “and the prices shock them. Then they go back and look at their place and see that it’s not so bad.”
Titus and Johnson said they have built large master bedrooms over garages and converted former adjacent children’s rooms into suites once the youngsters have left the nest. With that arrangement, he said, the former master bedroom becomes the second bedroom and the children’s bedrooms combine to become the master bedroom.
What does it cost? The “ballpark figure” is $80 per square foot, Titus said, but “the high end can be endless, depending on the expensive fabrics and the gadgetry and such. It can be as elaborate as people want it to be.”
Which may bring many homeowners a bit closer to owning the sort of home that the American clergyman and author Charles Parkhurst envisioned.
He called such a place “heaven for beginners.”
