The New Cocooning and the Home Design It Inspires
By Bill Primavera
The Home Guru
Given the current state of the economy, are you “cocooning” more at home?
By cocoon, I don’t mean the kind brought to earth from outer space in the movie of that name, but rather, homeowners hunkering down at home enjoying more activities there rather than going out.
The trends futurist Faith Popcorn (a name of creative device) first coined the term and its new meaning in the early 1990s. At the time, as a public relations practitioner, I was engaged in a project with her, but personally was very much doubting her projections, at least for myself. What, me? A stay-at-home? Never.
But today most of us, including me, are doing exactly that for a host of reasons, and it is impacting the way our homes look and function.
Popcorn’s forecast was for a home-centered lifestyle to be supported with gadgets, furnishings and accessories to make one’s abode a more welcoming entertainment and work hub. She even projected the advent of shopping at home through technology long before the concept was developed. In fact, the re-emergence of the lifestyles trend, is aided and abetted by 21st century technology.
The trend today might be renamed e-cocooning.
Did the world change or did we ourselves change? It’s probably a combination of both. Sometimes it’s a slow evolution and sometimes it’s a big switch, for instance, when someone leaves a regular job and decides to work from home.
Another factor influencing the resurgence of cocooning is our awareness that we live in a more dangerous world, as evidenced by the invasive security measures now employed at airports. And, especially as the economy is tightening our belts to a wasp waist, there’s literally no place like home to save money instead of going out.
This lifestyles phenomenon has led to the design of official home offices, not just spare bedrooms, and designated entertainment rooms, fashioned as theatres and gaming rooms. We in the real estate business see more flat screen TVs in living rooms, hot tubs in garden rooms, more home gyms and more open kitchens where homeowners can entertain guests and cook at the same time.
We’re also more likely to be community-centric as big city entertainment reaches out to the stay-at-home crowd in the suburbs. Rather than traveling to the city for the kind of entertainment I enjoy, I’m more likely to stay in Westchester and visit the Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford , the Jacob Burns Center in Pleasantville or the Yorktown Stage in my own town.
And, new housing developments will give us more options to stay on our own block, as well as in our own homes. Currently there is a development plan on the boards for a new community to straddle that upper Westchester triangle comprised of Chappaqua, Yorktown and Ossining, specifically designed around this concept. Called Croton Overlook, it is planned as a community of 70 upscale duplex homes for active adults over 55 and features such amenities as a community garden, walking trails and a meditation garden, all designed for passive recreation without having to leave the property.
Further, the homes are planned around the topography so that each can have a walk-out lower level that would suggest a large space there designated for home entertainment.
Andrea and Rich Pike have the greatest entertainment space I’ve ever experienced personally. Last summer I had written about the couple who converted a raised ranch in Yorktown Heights into an enlarged colonial designed to entertain a big family.
“When we get our family together, it numbers 40 people,” Andrea says. “Our plan was to re-configure and enlarge our space to use our home as the gathering place for all of them.”
With a punch-out addition that is 30 feet deep, the Pikes were able to combine their first level’s original living room, dining room and kitchen into one open space for entertainment with an equally large kitchen/dining room in the new addition, ample enough to seat 25.
The couple had created a fantasy sports news site that was later sold to NBC Universal, so it’s only natural that their home entertaining would be focused on sports. On the lower level is a party room that includes two large screen TVs, one at each end of the room “specifically designed for Super Bowl Sunday,” says Andrea, “where everyone in the large space can see the game,” as well as a pool table, octagonal gaming table, darts table, two generous seating areas and a full-service bar. Why leave home to have fun?
In answer to any argument that cocooning and spending less outside the home will stall the economy’s recovery, just consider all the new technology, accessories and furnishings we’ll need to turn our homes into work and social hubs. While writing this column on my new iMac laptop, I’m lounging in my pajamas in a comfortable easy chair in my bedroom, intermittently watching TCM on my large screen TV and, in my left-over brain space, enjoying Bette Midler streaming from Netflix on my iPad, while periodically checking for email and voicemails on my iPhone. Case closed.
Bill Primavera is a licensed Realtor® (PrimaveraHomes.com), affiliated with Coldwell Banker, and a marketing practitioner (PrimaveraPR.com). Anyone considering selling or buying a home can reach him directly at 914-522-2076.