Homes with incredible pet amenities

Cats in this Brooklyn, N.Y., home can exercise with a track and obstacle course. Photo: Forbes.com

Most pet fish spend their lives circling inside a glass bowl. The lucky ones can stretch their fins in a fish tank. Then there are the elite guppies that inhabit the $7 million aquarium installed in a palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At 600,000 gallons, it’s the largest private aquarium in the world, according to Matt Roy, founder of Living Color Enterprises, a custom residential installation company that has built aquatic environments for the likes of Walt Disney World, Sea World, and Boston’s Museum of Science.
“We deal with multi-millionaires and billionaires who have sometimes wanted a dream aquarium all their lives, and now they are ready,” says Living Color’s Roy. “What we put in their home is the aquarium equivalent of a Ferrari.”
In Pictures: Homes with incredible pet amenities But it’s not just extravagant royals clamoring for over-the-top pet amenities. Americans spent more than $50 billion on animal companions in 2011, according to a recent study by the American Pet Products Association. It comes as no surprise then that devoted pet owners have taken to decking out real estate with dog swimming pools, shark tanks, grooming rooms, and kitty playgrounds.
“In San Francisco there are more dogs than children,” says architect John Hood of Hood Thomas Associates, who works on high-end custom residential designs throughout California. Hood most recently built a hidden dog door for a client willing to pay a hefty price for the design.
When John Marcus of Los Angeles built his fantasy aquarium in 2005, it was believed to be the nation’s largest residential aquarium at 10,000 gallons – equivalent to 1,000 typical home tanks. The size of a two-car garage, it cost more than $100,000 to build, plus another $50,000 in fish. Add to that $2,000 per month on maintenance, which includes Marcus suiting up in a wetsuit to clean it.
Back on dry land, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Bill Hilgendorf and Maria Christina Rueda keep their cats entertained with a “Kittyloft” home playground. Founders of an interior design company, the duo put their creative talents to work building a shelf-like track and obstacle course for their feline friends. The structure includes cat-friendly steps that run up and down and along walls, wrapping around the living room space and kitchen, all leading to a rest area of pillows atop kitchen cabinets. When not in use, the bright yellow contraption doubles as a geometric art installation.
Read on for more about this and other lavish pet amenities:
Rachel Hunter's Custom Dog House
Location: California

The supermodel's dogs also get the A-list treatment. Photo: Forbes.com

Le Petit Maison specializes in high-end custom dog houses, running up to $50,000 and often built as miniature versions of clients’ own homes. One such customer was supermodel Rachel Hunter, who spoiled her German Shepherd and Labrador Retriever with a smaller replica of her own California Mexican-style hacienda. The dog mansion comes complete with ornately carved front doors, red clay tiles on each turret, terra cotta floors and even miniature wrought iron window flower baskets. The dog palace is situated in the backyard.

Indoor Cat Playground
Location: Brooklyn, New York

The "Kittyloft" includes stairs that run along the home's walls. Photos: Forbes.com

New York residences are famously short on space, but that did not stop home owners Bill Hilgendorf and Maria Christina Rueda from adding “Kittyloft” to their Brooklyn abode. Founders of interior design and furniture company Uhuru Design, they put their talents to work building a shelf-like track and obstacle course to keep their cats engaged.
The bright yellow structure includes cat-friendly stairs that run up and down and along walls, wrapping around the living room and kitchen, leading to a rest area of pillows atop kitchen cabinets. From there the felines jump to the refrigerator and start the course again, and have been known to repeat it ceaselessly at high speed.

Garage-Aquarium Home
Location: Los Angeles, California

The ultimate fish tank weighs 100 tons and cost $100,000. Photos: monsterfishkeepers.com

Among the “monster tank” niche of fish-loving hobbyists, John Marcus has become famous for his home-built aquarium. Made of steel-reinforced concrete inset with large windows of two-inch-thick glass, this giant is 26.5 by 12.5 feet, the size of a two-car garage. With the 10,000 gallons of water, 15,000 pounds of gravel and 5,000 pounds of driftwood, it weighs a staggering 100 tons.
The enclosure cost Marcus, who built it himself, more than $100,000 not counting the $50,000 in rare fish and turtles, including a pair of Amazonian Arapaima, the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish, which can reach over nine feet. Marcus has to enter the tank in a wetsuit to clean it, and he feeds the inhabitants hand-cut, frozen fish twice daily.

House of Snakes
Location: Lake Forest, Illinois

Fifty tanks house all kinds of exotic snakes. Photo: Forbes.com

Walk into a pet shop, and you will often see entire walls full of built-in fish and reptile tanks. The owner of this Lake Forest home – a fan of Latin American snake species – domesticated the concept when he installed 50 different tanks, each a unique habitat, decorated with rocks and plants. The custom tanks now occupy a third of the residence space and provide comfortable homes for an extensive collection of snakes. The slithery critters live in high style surrounded by natural stone walls and marble floors.

Waddeson Manor's Aviary Complex
Location: Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom

The immense aviary on an English country estate was built in 1889. Photos: Waddeson Manor

A lavish English country estate, Waddeson Manor includes a huge Neo-Renaissance French Châteaux built in the late 19th century for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, and is now bequeathed to the National Trust. Its grounds feature an incredible zoo-quality aviary, home to many rare and critically endangered bird species.
Built in 1889, the structure has a cast iron frame and roof with “open” meshed sides, painted and gilded in the style of a rococo trellis-work pavilion. The conservation-based aviary is used in conjunction with zoos and private collectors to breed and preserve troubled species, and spans several thousand square feet, housing full-grown trees.
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