A Piece of Work

From the third-floor office in his new Huntington Harbour home, Fred Lerner answers e-mail and analyzes spreadsheets while outside the window sailboats bob in the harbor.

Should the mood strike him, Lerner might work out on his treadmill. Or take a break and sink into his leather sofa. Or play chess at a nearby game table. It’s an office with options, an unharried hideaway warmed by cherrywood walls, heavy drapes and woolen carpet.

Both functional and inviting, Lerner’s work space illustrates some of the many ways business men and women have begun redefining home offices. No longer content to simply shove aside a bed to make room for a desk, many home workers now want offices that are larger, heavily equipped and smartly decorated.

Newport Beach architect Brion Jeannette, who designed Lerner’s house, said at least 75% of his clients now request an office when they build or remodel a home. Some couples want two offices--his and hers--while others need space for a secretary. One client, a celebrity from Bel-Air, has a “safe room” office hidden behind a wall of books, Jeannette said.

“They just wanted to be able to escape from everybody,” he said. “We see these kinds of things happening where security is a big issue too.”

Raymond Boggs, research director for a New York firm that monitors home offices, said he realized that times were changing when he saw an advertisement for a mansion that described the home office as one of the amenities.

Even in tract houses, the home office is becoming commonplace, builders say. And buyers want custom features, such as separate courtyards and entries.

“There’s no question it’s a trend,” said Paul Edwards, a Santa Monica-based home office expert who with his wife, Sarah, has written eight books on the subject. “They’re driving the architects and builders to change the way they build houses, particularly upscale housing.”

Technological advances set the trend in motion and have helped it gain momentum. Plugged into the Internet and empowered by multiple telephone lines, home workers now employ a mountain of machinery--from laser printers to paper shredders--to conduct business.

This year alone, Pacific Bell has hired more than 2,500 new workers to meet the exploding demand for multiple residential telephone lines, an increase directly tied to the proliferation of home offices, spokesman Steve Getzug said. In addition, 20,000 customers statewide have ordered souped-up wiring for their homes that quadruples the speed at which they can transmit data, he said.

“It used to be, people wanted a second line for their kids,” Getzug said. “Now the new kids are the computers and the faxes . . . all the bells and whistles of doing business.”

Nationwide, the number of home offices has ballooned by 117% since 1987. Nearly 35 million households now have them.

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Generally, home workers fall into two major categories--people who run their own businesses at home, and those who work elsewhere most of the time but toil part time from their houses, said IDC/LINK, a New York-based firm that monitors home offices.

This year, “corporate home workers” outnumber home-based entrepreneurs for the first time, the firm said. Since 1995, home-based businesses have increased less than 4% to 43.3 million from 41.7 million, while the number of corporate home workers has nearly doubled to 59.8 million from 30.2 million.

Family pressure and corporate downsizing are among the reasons that people are increasingly bringing “the grunt work” home with them, Boggs said.

“You’ve got an awful lot of people doing the work of two or three people, of necessity,” he said. “Instead of holing up till 8 or 9 at night, you can go home, have dinner with the kids and then head upstairs and do your homework.”

Fred Lerner, 53, is among those in the fastest-growing category. The corporate executive spends each weekday at his company, which he declined to identify, but works during off-hours from his plush home office. The hideaway includes a full bathroom. A storage room is hidden behind a bookcase.

“When I have work to do at night or on the weekend, it becomes a very comfortable place,” Lerner said. “While I’m sitting at my computer, I’m able to see boats drifting by the window in Huntington Harbour. In the afternoon, it gets magnificent sunsets, as one of the windows faces the west.”

Indeed, these top-dollar work spaces tend to satisfy a deeper yearning as well as meeting business needs. Mixed in with the basics of business are hints of hobbies. And nature, very often, is just a glance away.

Floor-to-ceiling windows allow author and entrepreneur Jan Melnik to track the seasons from her Durham, Conn., home office, which is surrounded by woods. Melnik, 41, who has written four books on starting home-based businesses, is inspired by nature’s ever-changing kaleidoscope. This time of year, it is a blanket of snow; by springtime it will be irises, tulips and daffodils.

“In my mind, there is nothing, particularly when you’re facing writer’s block, that beats looking out all this glass at the blue skies,” said Melnik, founder of Absolute Advantage, a home-based company that provides a variety of business-related services.

From the study/office in his vacation home in Aspen, Colo., Albert Nichols sees snow-capped mountains and a forest of aspens. His Laguna Beach home office features a breathtaking view of the Pacific. The neuroendocrinologist, who founded Nichols Institute in San Juan Capistrano, prefers blending the interior work space with the great outdoors, which is forever tugging at him.

“I’m kind of restless, I like to move around,” said Nichols, 63, who is officially retired but continues his work in brain research. “These rooms allow me to move easily from inside to outside during any working day.”

Nichols’ Laguna Beach office is immaculate. His equipment--a copier, fax machine, cell phone and refrigerator--is tucked discretely behind cabinetry, since he prefers an uncluttered work space. Against one wall is a computerized flight simulator that Nichols can use to hone pilot skills. “I can practice landing at any airport in the world with this thing,” he said.

An element of fantasy can add to the fun.

When one of his clients requested a work space that was both secluded and close to home, Laguna Beach builder and landscape architect Jeff Powers suggested installing an office in the branches of the man’s backyard sycamore trees.

Fanciful and functional, the treehouse suite is laden with amenities--a computer, conference area, kitchenette, bathroom and gas fireplace. It is linked to the outside world by a motorized stairway that drops at the press of a button to receive visitors.

“It sort of creates this secret office idea,” said Powers, who designed the whimsical work space in San Juan Capistrano more than 10 years ago, before the trend toward grander home offices took root. The treehouse office cost about $130,000, according to Powers.

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High rollers, however, are not the only ones bounding onto the home office bandwagon. Builders say tract homes are increasingly being designed with designated work spaces.

“I’d say in the majority of homes we build, a home office is included as standard,” said Joan Marcus-Colvin, design department manager for Laguna Hills-based Taylor Woodrow Homes Inc.

Many home workers want their offices somehow set apart from the rest of the house, said Ron Nelson, vice president of MLS Marketing Group, an Irvine firm that helps Southern California builders market home developments.

“When they have a home office, they really don’t want the public or delivery services or clients to walk through their home to get to the office,” he said.

Melnik’s new office in Connecticut, for example, has a private entrance, bathroom and waiting area for clients.

“My clients . . . schlepped through my dining room, hallway and down the bedroom wing of the house and jumped a baby gate to get into my office,” said Melnik, who has three children, including twin boys. “Usually, the twins were in hot pursuit.”

Even apartment dwellers are joining the home office trend.

In an effort to lure renters who work from home, Bay Apartment Communities Inc., a San Jose-based real estate investment trust, recently installed fiber-optic lines normally used only by businesses in apartments they were building in Silicon Valley. For an additional $75 per month, residents can tap into a line that transmits data about 50 times faster than a typical telephone wire.

So far, 20% to 25% of the tenants have signed on, said Richard Mehrer, director of information services for the building owner.

Irvine Apartment Communities Inc., which owns almost 15,000 rental units, most of them in Orange County, began installing high-speed lines in their complexes several years ago, said Rick Lamprecht, senior vice president.

“I think . . . [home offices are] going to become more elaborate, and much more emphasis will be placed on them in the coming years,” said Lisa Slayman, the Laguna Beach interior designer who helped create offices for Nichols, the neuroendocrinologist.

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Working at Home

The number of households nationwide with a home office is projected to increase 16% by 1999, to more than 40 million. Telecommuters will be the fastest-growing segment of the market during the next two years. Home offices, in millions:

1995: 27.3%

1997: 34.7%

1999: 40.2%

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Office category 1997 1999* increase After-hours home office 24.3 26.1 7.4 Run own business from home 13.2 15.5 17.4 Part-time self-employed 9.4 10.7 13.8 Telecommuter 9.1 10.7 17.6

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Note: Some households included in more than one category

Projection

Source: IDC/Link’s 1997 Home Office Overview