Real Estate Goes to the Dogs

As dog owners spend more than ever on their furry friends, doghouses evolve into designer artwork and luxurious mini-mansions

by Douglas MacMillan

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These days, being treated like a dog is pretty darn sweet. Greenwich (Conn.)-based nonprofit The American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn. estimates that pet owners will spend $38.4 billion on their animals in 2006, up nearly $10 billion from 2001. With pet pampering reaching lavish new heights, it's no longer enough to give your dog a bone—what he really wants is a custom-built designer home (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/10/05, "Pet Spending Purring Along").

Designers and architects have taken the pet industry's growth as a cue to transform the traditional A-frame doghouse into imaginative new real estate projects. Ranging in price from $900 to upwards of $100,000, designer doghouses are typically created with two things in mind: catering to the habits and personality of the dog, and complementing the beauty of the owner's house.

While it isn't always easy to get a sense of a dog's taste in homes, designers take into account how active they are, how much time they spend with their owners, and whether they prefer the indoors or outdoors.

GOING MOBILE

John Holey of Holey Associates in San Francisco, took the customization process a bit further by spending time "interviewing" Zipper, a large Vizsla (a Hungarian pointing dog), for his new home. "It's not unlike interviewing a human being, except they can't talk back in words," says Holey, who observed that Zipper liked to frequently change his base of operation in the house.

Holey designed "Budapet," a doghouse atop a wheeled cart with a ribbed glass front door, louvered back, and gangplank-style entrance. Much to Zipper's delight, his owners could wheel his home wherever he wanted it, indoors or out.

Michelle Pollak, who designs elaborate doghouses for La Petite Maison, sometimes receives strange requests from dog owners who fuss over every detail for the comfort of their furry friend. "One client had us send paint samples to let the dog choose [the color]. She put down three paint chips and saw which one the dog went to first," Pollack says. Ignoring the fact that dogs are colorblind, Pollak and builder Allan Mowrer went on to create an exquisite miniature house which suited the dog's picky tastes and fit into the overall look of the rest of the property.

WORKS OF ARF

La Petite Maison specializes in creating doghouses which are detailed replicas of the client's home, down to the unique color of each brick. Pollack says that a majority of the cost of her doghouses—running between $6,000 and $25,000—comes from this labor-intensive construction. The gorgeous mini-mansions which result, though, sometimes satisfy the people more than the dogs: "Some [clients] don't care if their dog ever goes in or not. It's all about aesthetic. It adds value to their property and makes their homes more unique," Pollak says.

This stress on aesthetic value has prompted many top-name designers and architects to tinker with ultramodern pet homes. Italian designer Marco Morosini is offering two dog homes, the Nomad ($5,000), a mini-sized camper, and the Good Life ($7,000), a small Italian leather chair inside a glass case, in the Neiman Marcus 2006 Christmas Book. Hand-signed and numbered, the pieces give considerably more thought to artistic form than actual function.

A new company called Doggie Mansions builds custom doghouses that people can enjoy, too. A recent $10,500 project, dubbed "Key West Cottage," is a six-by-eight foot luxury dog retreat complete with air conditioning, a brushed suede couch, ceramic tile floors, art work, a flat-screen TV with DVD collection, and designer toys by Hot Diggity Dog and Chewy Vuitton. Though it's clearly the dog's territory, the owners always feel comfortable dropping by to kick back and watch a canine classic such as Benji or The Incredible Journey.

Though Palm Beach-based Doggie Mansions just got started, they're already designing a doghouse for NFL quarterback Carson Palmer and have received a request for a $100,000 doghouse.

Click here to see some designer doghouses that will get your favorite pooch's tail wagging.

MacMillan is a reporter at BusinessWeek.com in New York.