Luxury owners are creating leisure spaces inside and outside their homes

Julieann Shanahan wanted to transform a peaceful bit of land tucked into the corner of her Villanova property into a family retreat. Surrounded by mature woods alongside a babbling brook, she envisioned a treehouse-like pavilion, similar to one she saw at Blackberry Farm in Tennessee.

Shanahan had already built two other pavilions on the property, one as a pool house to hide a retaining wall and the other as a space for quiet activities on the other side of the pool. With just 740 square feet available because of easement restrictions, she needed to be thoughtful about the latest design.

Beginning in September 2021, with the help of Peter Zimmerman Architects in Berwyn, she spent about a year and a half creating a 1½-story stone structure where she could entertain guests and her family could take in the natural surroundings.

The hip-roof timber frame structure has a vaulted ceiling with tongue-and-groove decking and custom putty-gray exposed heavy timber roof trusses.

The focal point is the large stone floor-to-ceiling fireplace that sits on a Pennsylvania bluestone floor. In front of the fireplace, a dining table can accommodate the family of five, or as many as 16 guests. Behind the fireplace are the wet bar with bleached white oak cabinetry and a bathroom. The basement level features a catering kitchen, storage space, and a dog shower.

Above the main floor is a small loft, accessible through a ship’s ladder. It offers the perfect spot for meditating or taking in the surrounding scenery, including mature ash, beech, oak, and poplar trees.

“We like to go up in the loft to get a break from daily life, to look out at the stream and woodlands,” Shanahan said.

Though designed to be open on all four sides to best enjoy the surroundings, the structure can be closed with glass accordion doors. Ceiling heaters supplement the warmth from the fireplace, allowing the family to enjoy the space in colder months. In the summer, cool breezes keep the pavilion comfortable for entertaining.

Dedicated leisure spaces, both inside and outside homes, are gaining popularity, according to the 2024 Houzz U.S. Emerging Summer Trends Report. Searches for reading rooms, listening rooms, indoor and outdoor recreational spaces, and kid zones all saw double-digit increases compared to the same period in 2023.

For the musically inclined, terms like listening room jumped more than 100%, while spaces dedicated to reading and relaxing also grew in prominence. Searches for dark academia, an internet subculture and aesthetic devoted to higher education, jumped more than 200%.

Leisure spaces can also bring people together through recreational activities. Searches for the terms bocce court and bowling alley are up 23% and 18%, respectively.

“We’re seeing an increasing willingness to invest in particular interests that have a social component,” said Richard Buchanan, partner at West Chester-based Archer & Buchanan Architecture. “COVID made people realize that in a turbulent world, your home is your castle.”

Georgia Jacobs and Steve Hoffman had a vision for the old icehouse, adjacent to their 1846 stone home in West Chester, that descends 19 feet into the ground — turning it into a wine cellar. They began the project in 2020 and spent about a year realizing their dream.

“We had this beautiful serpentine outbuilding that just looked derelict doing nothing, and I thought it would be great to turn it into something useful,” Jacobs recalled. “It lent itself to a natural wine cellar.”

With the help of Archer & Buchanan, the couple created a wine cellar using many materials found on the property. A staircase leads from the home’s kitchen into the wine cellar entrance, an archway cut into the adjoining stone wall. A gangplank runs from the steps to a mezzanine that has a custom pewter and mahogany bar backed by a custom wall of leaded mercury glass. The floor and gangplank are made of oak from an old Gettysburg barn of the same era as the house.

Down an iron spiral staircase is the lower story, complete with mahogany wine racks and a herringbone-patterned brick floor made from a chimney circa 1880. The lighting is made from old well pulleys. The original outhouse shaft within the icehouse was converted into a dumbwaiter to easily move cases of wine. An old whiskey barrel serves as a standing wine table.

Working painstakingly to make the wine cellar true to the home’s history, Jacobs found an antique folding table traditionally used in French caves for the mezzanine, where she hosts wine tastings and cocktail hour.

The pandemic forced people to find ways to enjoy downtime in their homes, a concept that took hold.

“They are putting more of a priority on leisure, and niche type spaces are popping up in people’s creative minds,” said Tyson Chamberlain, principal/owner at Peter Zimmerman Architects. “We all have a little DIY in us.”

The Houzz report found a desire to create spaces for children to express their personality and feel ownership within the home. Searches for race car bed, teen lounge, and kids gaming bedroom have all increased.

Treehouses and swing sets have always been popular and lend themselves to DIY configurations, especially with help from TV shows like Animal Planet’s Treehouse Masters.

Other kids’ activity spaces, including sports courts, rock climbing walls, and kid-sized doll houses, are popping up in backyards.

Shanahan doesn’t see the backyard entertaining trend going away any time soon. In fact, unable to find much written about the trend, she decided to write a book herself.

“My intent was to create a handbook on outdoor living spaces,” said Shanahan, whose book is titled Pavilion Living: Architecture, Patronage, and Well-Being. “It’s incredibly liberating when you get to entertain in this separate building. You don’t wake up the next day with the mess and chaos in your home. You can close the door and walk outside to your own dinner party and leave your everyday life behind.”