As chief operating officer of Scherer Brothers Lumber Company in Brooklyn Park, Mark Scherer sees many concepts take hold in the residential market. Some Scherer has even adopted himself. “The trend in homebuilding is to focus on amenities within the home, creating a vacation retreat in your home,” he says. “It’s the Sport Court surfaces, giant theaters, the spas, and swimming pools—doing all this so you don’t feel so compelled to travel.”
To that end, Scherer built a 1,000-square-foot gymnasium underneath his garage. His four children were the reason for the remodel, which features a synthetic floor commonly used in school and professional basketball courts, a basketball hoop, a music system, and a large net for catching slapped hockey pucks, kicked soccer balls, and teed-off golf balls. “Aside from the athletic and social value it brings, it certainly is a talking point,” Scherer says. “When our kids get older, we want our house to be the one where they and their friends hang out.”
As people spend more time at home with their children, entertaining guests, or simply taking time for themselves, they want spaces that move beyond a family or media room. One of the most popular alternatives is creating elaborate sports and recreation spaces. These can include wet bars with plasma televisions, sports-memorabilia rooms, exercise rooms with steam showers and saunas, game rooms above the garage, and underground gymnasiums, such as Scherer’s.
Lavish Lower Levels
The home’s lower level has long been the bastion of home entertainment, but in the past several years, homeowners have been asking builders and remodelers to create more recreation-themed niches downstairs. “In almost all the new homes we build, we’re finishing the lower level with large-screen TVs and a bar,” says Roy Lecy, president of Lecy Brothers Homes in Minnetonka. “That’s where the entertainment takes place.”
These recreation spaces come in all shapes, sizes, and with all sorts of amenities. Tom Budzynski, owner of TJB Homes in Blaine, built a custom home with an elaborate entertainment area in The Lakes development in Blaine. On the lower level, four plasma televisions surround a wet bar, which features an ice maker, drawer dishwasher, and hidden refrigerator. Nearby is a table for Texas Hold ’em poker, a stone fireplace, a “grotto” with hot tub, a safe room with bank-style safe door designed to hold valuables, and an exercise room with sauna, TV, wet bar, and shower facilities modeled after a health club.
The key in any good design—including that of a recreation room—is to make sure that all the elements relate to one an-other. “You can throw all these things in, but they might not really work,” Budzynski says. “A lot of people say, ‘This looks cool. I’ll just buy four cheap TVs and call this the sports bar.’ You have to bring in the architectural details to tie it all together. It’s the depth, the color, the built-ins that create architectural appeal and excitement.”
Attention to detail was paramount in the lower-level remodel of a Lake Minnetonka home by Plymouth-based MS&I Building Company. A theater room with fiber-optic ceiling lighting opens into a wet bar with burled-walnut cabinetry, stone countertops, stainless-steel tile, and a round window three feet in diameter. An arch-top fireplace, billiards area, and wine cellar complete the space.
One big advantage to full-fledged, lower-level entertaining spaces such as these is that they move parties out of the main living spaces. “So much of entertaining revolves around the kitchen area, and I think people are tired of it,” says Tim Purcell, Jr., president of Purcell, Inc., a remodeling firm in White Bear Lake. “A lot of these projects are bringing kitchen conveniences into them. You can have a pizza party with a convection oven. It’s something different.”
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