These Big-Budget Playrooms Will Make You Wish You Were a Kid Again
livemint.comWhen Shellie and Perry Pardoe moved from northern Utah to Salt Lake City, they quickly realized that as empty-nesters, they didn’t need all five bedrooms in their house. But they did look forward to visits from their seven grandchildren and other young members of the family. So they spent about $30,000 to turn one of the bedrooms into a “fantasy reading forest" playroom for the grandkids, complete with treehouses, a climbing wall and a hideaway with two swinging hammocks.
“It transports you into this other, fantasy world," said Shellie Pardoe, 56. “It’s hard to take it all in when you first walk in the door." Wealthy homeowners are spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on elaborate playrooms for their children. Some parents hope these creative spaces will help promote healthy development and learning, said Karri Bowen-Poole of New York-based Smart Playrooms.
Others decided to improve their playrooms after seeing them underused during pandemic lockdowns. Many of these playground-like spaces are just as much fun for the adults as they are for the children, parents said. During the pandemic lockdowns, “the playroom and the children and the toys were driving the grown-ups bananas," said Anne Gillyard of Washington, D.C.,-based grOH! Playrooms.
“We saw this shift where grown-ups needed not only someone to help contain the clutter and to make the space feel better, but also to create a space where children are learning." That was the case for North Carolina resident Ashley George, 37. She and her husband, 42-year-old private-equity executive Alan George, delayed breaking ground on a roughly $2 million home near Charlotte when early pandemic lockdowns began. In the ensuing months, they decided to change the plans
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