Posted on: October 12, 2011

Functional Luxury

The most luxurious homes aren't just packed with high-end materials and designer pieces. Nowadays, luxury means safer, more comfortable and enjoyable living

By Courtenay Edelhart
CTW Features

There are many who believe that luxurious homes are lovely but inherently impractical. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no reason why a home with style and sophistication can't also be useful and livable.

"There's no point having a beautiful room you can't use," says interior designer Francine Gardner, owner of the New York home store Interieurs. "Every room should be alive, and every object should be selected with care and love.

"Often, combining function and form is best. What I also like to do is add a simple luxury when needed," Gardner says.

High-Tech Class

Technology presents a particular challenge to designing a beautiful home: Everybody likes the idea of the latest cutting-edge electronics, but nobody wants their living room to look like the inside of a retail showroom.

That's where clever disguises can be useful.

Some electronics companies like Samsung, for instance, offer LED mirror televisions that look like a normal mirror (available in a wide range of customizable frames) when not in use. With a touch of a remote button, the mirror becomes a flat-screen television. Sizes range from 22 inches to 65 inches, including the latest 3-D models. The larger ones allow users to also access apps like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix and Pandora.

If you don't want your TV on the wall, Samsung also makes one you can hide in a chrome table with a built-in mirror tabletop. Again, hit your remote and the mirror converts to a 55-inch LED television. That will set you back about $10,000.

And of course, there are a host of audio manufacturers who masquerade weatherproof stereo speakers as everything from landscape rocks to planters. That way you can enjoy music the next time you're grilling or going for a swim without sacrificing the feel of an outdoor environment.

The Great Indoors

Bringing the outdoors in, and vice versa, has been a hot trend in home design for many years now.

Luxury home builder Mike McDonald of San Francisco-based Ryan Associates has built several houses that incorporate removable glass walls. He uses NanaWalls, which can open like French doors, slide out of the way on a track or fold over in sections. When the weather is nice, the interior and exterior are seamless. On cold or rainy days, simply put the wall back and enjoy the view.

"I use them in almost every project, especially out here in California where we have good weather pretty much year-round," McDonald says. "Our clients often want a certain size home, but we can convince them to go with a slightly smaller great room or living room so they can have this wonderful indoor/outdoor living opportunity."

If you're trying to go green, though, this might not be the right choice. "A house [with glass walls] is more expensive to maintain and heat and cool," he says.

On the other hand, heated floors are eco-friendly. If you aren't fortunate enough to live in an area with a mild climate, radiant heating in the floors is a feature that not only will make you more comfortable but can help reduce heating bills, too, says Mishell Kneeland, a Realtor with Moxie Realty Group in Austin, Texas.

Radiant heat needn't be limited to the indoors, by the way. In regions with snowfall, some builders put it in driveways, patios and sidewalks.

"Imagine not having to shovel snow or ice," Kneeland says.

Kid-Friendly Style

For a house with kids, function and safety are a must. The problem is, kid-proof furnishings aren't always the classiest.

To solve the problem of childproofing homes with rambunctious youngsters, Interieur's Gardner suggests sturdy industrial furniture, which is usually made of metal, stain-resistant fabric and other durable materials, but still runs the gamut from rustic antiques to sleek and modern.

Consider "rounder, softer" pieces, Gardner says. "We enjoy Casalis poufs as seating arrangements for informal seating that both kids and adults can enjoy."

Another consideration is keeping kids' noise to a minimum. Gardner says, "A great rug like DOTS from Limited Edition can be used to soundproof walls or as a color accent, and serves as a focal point of any room by adding a certain whimsy that both children and their parents need."

Macro-Manage

The latest in home technology isn't a fancy tech gadget - it's the house itself. Home management systems are becoming more and more inclusive. They allow you to lock and unlock doors, turn lights on and off, monitor video cameras and adjust your thermostat remotely from a computer or mobile phone.

A programmable lock can be especially useful for setting individual passcodes that work at given times.

"You can even receive a text message indicating that a child has returned home from school," says Angela Miller, a spokeswoman for lock company Schlage, which offers an expandable LINK system that supports up to 232 devices for a monthly subscription fee.

No more doubling back if you're not sure you remembered to lock a door or set an alarm, she says. And if you've been gone on vacation, you can change the temperature from the airport to be certain you return to a warm or cool house.

None of these kinds of functional luxuries are cheap, of course. Do your homework before spending money on them if you're hoping to get your investment back, Kneeland says.

"One thing that's important for people to remember is while [these luxuries] absolutely add value to the home, you may not get back what you put into them at resale," she says. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but just be realistic. A house with a pool is worth more than one without. Even if you don't recoup the entire investment, you don't put in a pool for the resale. You add one to have a place to swim."

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