Luxury digs for pets really put on the dog

Many of them have carpeting, heating and air conditioning, lighting, and elaborate music and entertainment systems. Some are even eco-friendly, with solar panels or green roofs.

In fact, the only superfluous accessory in the modern doghouse might be the dog.

Take, for instance, the Palladian-style mini-mansion that Glenna and Ed Hall bought at a charity auction three years ago for about $300. With Jeffersonian columns that match the ones on their home in Roanoke, Va., the 2-foot-tall doghouse makes a perfect accent for the garden. No one seems to mind that the garden is off-limits to Maggie May, their 28-pound whippet-borzoi mix — least of all Maggie May.

“We bought the house because it looks a lot like our house,” said Glenna Hall, 66, a retired interior designer. “Maggie’s never been in it. She’s a house dog.”

Traditionally, doghouses were where dogs actually lived, separate from the family. But with dogs being increasingly considered family members, their homes are becoming more like second homes — and some are just ornamental.

As Michelle Pollak, a designer who customizes doghouses under the name La Petite Maison, observed: “Half our clients say, ‘Hey, we’d like a replica of our home for the dog,’ and half say, ‘ This is the dream house we’ve always envisioned but couldn’t afford in real life’ — like a French palace for the French poodle.”

No detail is too small, down to the hand-painted portrait of the resident dog. For model Rachel Hunter’s showpiece doghouse in the Los Angeles area, Pollak supplied hand-painted wallcovering dotted with paw prints and bones, as well as framed pictures of dogs. Her business partner, builder Alan Mowrer, installed wrought-iron light fixtures and terra-cotta flooring.

“Alan had to hand-make every tile of the Mediterranean roof,” Pollak said.

The average price of their doghouses is $5,000 to $6,000, she said, although some people spend more than $25,000. (Hunter’s cost more than $16,000.)

Another client, Guillermo Gonzales, is a 43-year-old entrepreneur who lives near Austin, Texas, in a 5,000-square-foot Victorian- inspired home with four pet pigs. The “boys,” as Gonzales calls them, are 4-year-old Vietnamese potbellied pigs — Augustus (120 pounds) and Vito (95 pounds) — who have fearsome tusks but sweet dispositions, he says. They live in a specially built 300-square-foot addition to the house furnished with hay and blankets.

But the “girls,” Cherry and Abby, are 6-month-old micro-minis that weigh no more than 7 pounds each and sleep in a 6-foot-square replica of Gonzales’ home that sits in the corner of his safari-themed living room.

Such excess can invite criticism, but Pollak offered a quick rebuttal.

“People will come and say, ‘This is such a waste of money. Why would anybody do this?’?” she said. “All I can say is that if you have the money, what’s the difference between spending it on a pet house or on a piece of diamond jewelry?”

Besides, she said, many of her clients build houses for dogs they have either rescued or adopted from shelters. One client, in fact, had a disabled rescue dog for which Pollak and Mowrer created a handicapped-accessible home.

“Alan adjusted all of the windows and the doors to allow the dog to see out the window,” she said, “even if he was lying down.”

Doghouse design tends to be popular with architects and homebuilders, who sometimes refer to it as “barkitecture” and donate their creations to charity auctions that raise money for animal shelters.For dogs that don’t spend even part of the day outdoors, there are still plenty of choices. Forma Italia sells lacquered indoor kennels and pet beds that can be suspended from the ceiling. DenHaus, of Seattle, makes dog crates disguised as household furniture. The TownHaus, a square wooden table, doubles as a holding pen for naughty puppies. The BowHaus, a circular silver cocktail table, can hold drinks and, inside, a dog.

Barbara Dalhouse, president of the Roanoke Valley Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Virginia, keeps her Hobbit-style wooden doghouse inside because it is “too beautiful,” she said, to put outdoors. Carved from a log retrieved from a swamp in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the 50-inch-tall shingled hut is topped with an acorn and “looks like a gnome would live in it,” she said. But the sole resident is a stuffed squirrel.

“The cats look in every now and then,” she said. “And Lucy the beagle walks by. But they say, ‘ Uh-uh, we’re couch people.’?”

Hugo, a white French bulldog in Mill Valley, Calif., has a similar attitude toward his eco-doghouse, a designer structure complete with a green roof.

“It’s hard to get a dog to love the doghouse,” said Eric McFarland, 37, a real-estate agent who owns Hugo with his spouse, Brad Krefman, a 30-year-old interior designer. “He’d rather be in our bed.”

While the market for high-end doghouses is understandably limited, those who sell them say that, despite the recession, business has remained steady.

The Little Cottage Co., in Millersburg, Ohio, makes some of the most picturesque doghouses available online, including the Victorian Cottage Kennel Dog House ($4,400 at Walmart. com) and the Cape Cod Cozy Cottage Kennel Dog House ($4,600 at Walmart; prices can vary). Dan Schlabach, who owns the company, estimates that he sells 10 to 15 a year.

Rockstar Puppy, an online company, advertises custom doghouses for as much as $20,000. Jessica Auria, who runs Rockstar Puppy, says she has sold a couple of them to celebrities, including one with heat and air-conditioning that can be controlled by an iPad.

Auria helped create a doghouse for Jennifer “JWoww” Farley of MTV’s Jersey Shore. For $12,000, it offers matching hot-pink beds and miniature fabric drapes with jeweled pink tie-backs.