Glamorous Garages and Beautiful Barns: The New Must-Have Amenities

Luxury homes with decked-out family rooms, kitchens, primary bedrooms and bathrooms are standard today and practically a given. The latest mania, however, has owners glamming up their often overlooked garages and barns.

Called “toy barns,” “barndominiums” and “toy garages” in real estate circles and by the amenity-obsessed set, these functional spaces are being repurposed into gleaming showrooms filled with pricey outdoor gear—think ATVs, snowmobiles, electric bikes, boats and more.

Sitting areas, bars and diversions such as pool tables also figure in and turn barns and garages into entertainment venues that become a hub for owners to socialize with family and friends.

Take Jeff Collins, founder of Glennwood Custom Builders in Charlevoix, Michigan, for example. His lakefront home features a 2,500-square-foot barn with a lounging space, sleds, dirt bikes, a card table and a basketball hoop. The back doors open into a yard with a shooting range. “My friends come over a lot, and we hang the whole time in the barn,” Collins said. “We drink beers, play around with the equipment and shoot hoops. I can’t remember the last time we actually went into the house.”

A rendering of a toy barn in the still-in-construction Legacy Ranch in McCall, Idaho.
Courtesy Whitetail Club

Barndominiums like his are the craze in his town, according to Collins.

“They’re what everyone wants,” he said. “I’m building two for homes in my neighborhood and have inquiries for more.”

An Amenity That’s Gaining Popularity

Real estate agents and brokers who focus on upscale homes also report an increasing interest in toy barns and say that a property that offers one can attract more buyers than a listing with typical amenities such as swimming pools and wine cellars.

Timothy Di Prizito, the CEO of The Di Prizito Group & DPG Estates at Christie’s International Real Estate/AKG in Los Angeles, for instance, said that showpiece barns and garages are becoming a more popular feature in luxury homes, particularly in new construction properties.

“Wealthy owners are investing in turning their homes into resorts. It started with building commercial-sized gyms and onsite spa facilities,” he said. “Today, it’s all about having onsite entertainment annexes and auto galleries. They give a property a distinct edge.”

Di Prizito is currently selling a property called Bella Vista in Montecito for $70 million that features an estimated 32-car collection garage. Originally designed as a helicopter hangar, the space has vaulted ceilings, epoxy flooring and a second level with two studio apartments.

Patrick Nesbitt, the CEO and chairman of the real estate development company Windsor Capital Group, owns the estate with his wife, Ursula, and said his family regularly uses the space. “We’ll have friends over for dinner there and loan it to charities to host events. We even had my son’s wedding party in the garage and transformed it into a beautiful reception ballroom,” he said.

The outdoor gear changes with the season at Aspen Valley Ranch.
Courtesy Aspen Valley Ranch

Nesbitt is selling Bella Vista, he said, because his children have moved out, and he wants to downsize.

Another home with a toy space is currently for sale in Honokaa, Hawaii, asking $7.4 million. Its 3,300-square-foot freestanding barn is solar-powered and is where owners Matthew and Susan Russell display their stash of luxury gear such as life-size model airplanes, ATVs and motorcycles.

“We had many happy memories in the barn spending time with our grandchildren and friends,” Matthew said. The couple is selling the home, he said, to settle full-time in Sedona.

A Perk Not Reserved For Houses

Eye-candy barns and garages are also becoming more common in upscale residential developments.

Martis Camp, set on 2,177 acres in Truckee, California, in North Lake Tahoe, has several homes with what Brian Hull, president and broker at Martis Camp Realty, refers to as “activity garages.” They typically house snowmobiles, ATVs, motorcycles, boats and ski equipment. “Our community has access to a 26-mile trail network through national forest land and the mountains, so owners amass a lot of gear,” Hull said.

More developments are highlighting their toy storage areas as an amenity for all residents to enjoy, in the same vein as a fitness centre or clubhouse.

Tributary, a private club community in Teton Valley, Idaho, offers a recreation barn stocked with gear like paddleboards, fishing gear, rafts and snowshoes. And in McCall, Idaho, the still-in-construction Legacy Ranch, set within the existing Whitetail Club, hopes to entice potential buyers by giving them the option and the designs to build homes with toy barns.

“The lots at Whitetail Club are less than two acres, and owners don’t have space on their properties to store all their outdoor equipment, which they are asking for more and more,” said Whitetail Club’s head of development Dan Scott. “Several have told me that they want to upgrade to Legacy Club for the sole purpose of having a toy barn.”

Then there’s Aspen Valley Ranch in Aspen, Colorado, a development with homes starting at $15 million. According to vice president Simon Chen, the 5,000-square-foot two-story toy barn is the heart of the community’s action.

The equipment in the building changes seasonally. During warmer months, that means top-of-the-line dirt bikes, four-wheelers and a fleet of regular and e-mountain bikes. Come winter, the barn is stocked with six snowmobiles, four-wheelers with tracks to navigate through snow, snowshoes and sleds.

A rendering of a toy barn in the still-in-construction Legacy Ranch.
Courtesy Whitetail Club

Residents can also avail of the barn’s second floor, featuring a games area with ping-pong and pool tables and classic arcade games such as Pac-Man and Skee-Ball. The adjoining bar, lined with premium wine, and spirits such as Macallan 18-year scotch and Clase Azul Ultra tequila, retailing for close to $2,000 a bottle, is a big attraction for residents, Chen said. “Our owners are welcome to enjoy the alcohol for no charge,” he said. “Our development has a gorgeous swimming pool and spa and a massive gym, but the barn is where they most want to be.”

This article originally appeared on Mansion Global.

Manhattan’s office-vacancy rate climbed to more than 15% this year, a record high. About 80 miles away in Philadelphia, occupancy also is at historically low levels. But a 24-storey office tower located between the two cities has more than doubled its occupancy over the past five years.

Developer American Equity Partners bought the New Jersey office tower, known as 1 Tower Center, for $38 million in 2019. At the time, the 40-year-old building felt dated. It had no gym, tenant lounge or car-charging stations. The low price enabled the firm to spend more than $20 million overhauling and luring tenants to the 435,000-square-foot property.

Now, the suburban building is nearly fully leased at competitive rents, mopping up tenants from other buildings after the owner added a new lobby, movie theatre, golf simulator, fitness centre and a tenant lounge featuring arcade games and ping-pong tables.

“Our tenants told us what they needed in order to fill up their offices,” said David Elkouby , a co-founder of American Equity, which owns about 4 million square feet of New Jersey office space.

The new owner also liked the location at the 14-acre hotel and conference-centre complex, off the New Jersey Turnpike’s Exit 9 in East Brunswick. The site is a relatively short commute for millions of workers in central New Jersey and is passed by 160,000 vehicles daily.

The property’s turnaround shows how office buildings can thrive even during dismal times for most of the U.S. office market, where vacancies remain much higher than pre pandemic.

Success often requires an ideal location—one that shortens the commute time of employees used to working at home—and the sort of upgrades and amenities companies say are necessary to lure employees back to the workspace.

One Vanderbilt, a deluxe office tower with a Michelin-star chef’s restaurant and plenty of outdoor space in Midtown Manhattan, is fully leased while charging some of the highest rents in the country.

The 11-story Entrada office building, in Culver City, Calif., is making the same formula work on the other coast. It opened two years ago with a sky deck, concierge services and recessed balconies. A restaurant is in the works. The owner said this month that it has signed three of the largest leases in the Los Angeles area this year.

1 Tower Center shows how the strategy can be effective even in less glamorous suburban locations. The tower is prospering while neighbouring buildings that are harder to reach with outdated facilities and poor food options struggle to fill desks even at reduced rents.

The recent interest-rate cut and reports that some big companies such as Amazon .com are re-instituting a five-day office workweek have raised hopes that the office market might be getting closer to turning.

But with more than 900 million square feet of vacant space nationwide and remote work still weighing on office demand, more creditors are seizing properties that are in default on debt payments.

Rates are still much higher than they were when tens of billions of dollars of office loans were made, and much of that debt is now maturing. The recent interest-rate cut doesn’t mean “office-sector woes are now over,” said Ermengarde Jabir, director of economic research for Moody’s commercial real-estate division.

Lenders are dumping distressed properties at steep discounts to what the buildings were worth before the pandemic. Some buyers are trying to compete simply by cutting their rents.

“Most owners don’t have the wherewithal to do what is required,” said Jamie Drummond, the Newmark senior managing director who is 1 Tower Center’s leasing agent. “Owners positioned to highly amenitise their buildings are the ones who are successful.”

HCLTech, a global technology company, illustrates the appeal. It greatly expanded its presence in New Jersey by moving this year to a 40,000-square-foot space designed for its East Coast headquarters at 1 Tower Center.

The India-based company said it was drawn to the building’s amenities and design. That made possible a variety of workspaces for employees, from quiet nooks to an artificial-intelligence lab. “You can’t just open an office and expect [employees] to be there,” said Meenakshi Benjwal , HCLTech’s head of Americas marketing.

HCLTech also liked the location near the homes of its employees and clients in the pharmaceutical, financial-services and other businesses.

Finally, it didn’t hurt that the building is a short drive from nearby MetLife Stadium. The company has a 75-person suite on the 50 yard line where it entertains clients at concerts and National Football League games.

“All of our clients love to fly from distant locations to experience the suite and stadium,” Benjwal said.

Glamorous Garages and Beautiful Barns: The New Must-Have Amenities

New amenities, from a gym to a movie theatre, and a good commuter location filled this suburban office tower