See inside the luxury health and wellness rooms of the superrich
High-income Americans are investing more time and money into their health and longevity.
Architects are getting requests for wellness trends like cold plunges and hyperbaric chambers.
A luxury residential architect shared some of the most lavish projects his team has worked on.
In 2022, Gwyneth Paltrow revealed her extravagant at-home spa in a house tour with Architectural Digest.
"It's a bit of a spa moment happening," Paltrow said as she walked into a fully tiled, high-ceilinged room reminiscent of a Roman bath. Complete with a cold plunge ("excellent for circulation," she said,) hot tub, steam room, and sauna, it looked like something straight out of a luxury hotel.
Although Paltrow, the founder of beauty and wellness brand Goop, might seem like an extreme case, creating a medical spa-come-longevity clinic at home is not as rare as you might think among the health-conscious and rich.
In a 2023 survey by A/B Consulting and Maveron VC, 41% of Americans said they were willing to spend time ensuring they could live as long as possible. And almost half of Americans earning over $250,000 a year said they would spend the majority of their discretionary income on trying to improve health and longevity, compared to 34% of people earning under $50,000.
William Mungall, a partner at Landry Design Group, an LA-based custom residential architecture firm that has worked on houses for Tom Brady, Mark Wahlberg, and Kourtney Kardashian, has noticed this step up in health and wellness requests firsthand.
"Twenty years ago, it was a steam room and a sauna and sometimes a massage room, and that was about it. Now it has an experience shower and a cold plunge and a hot plunge," Mungall told Business Insider. "We've seen pretty much anything people can dream of. We're probably doing it or have done it somewhere."
He's currently working on finding a water filtration system that will remove all microplastics from the water supply for one client. "We're plumbing for it into four different places in the home to make sure that wherever they might want to get a glass of water, that it's clean water," he said.
Another client asked for a flash freezer, which uses cryogenic temperatures to freeze food within minutes, preserving its quality and freshness.
Mungall and his colleagues have sourced everything from sensory deprivation tanks and meditation pods to hyperbaric chambers for clients. The latter are pods filled with 100% oxygen that the FDA has approved to treat wounds, injuries, and infections, but medical spas sometimes claim can be used as antiaging and depression treatments.
Requesting a gym with a connected ballet room or yoga studio is common, as well as a medical suite where clients can get treatments at home, he said.
Landry Design Group shared some of the most elaborate health and wellness projects they have worked on with BI.
A steam room inside a Beverly Hills residence
A resort-like spa with a salon, steam sauna, and massage rooms. It opens to an exterior courtyard with a hot tub and a water wall.
A massage room in the Beverly Hills home of a hospitality industry entrepreneur.
An underground spa room with a steam room, sauna, salon, and massage room.
The underground spa of an Italian-villa-style home. It features a lap pool in the center of the room.
A gym with a weight training room, pilates reformer, band stretching area, massage room, and outdoor yoga terrace inside a Brentwood residence.
A full-size basketball court and golf greens on the grounds of a chateau-style Beverly Hills estate.
The gym inside the Beverly Hills estate.
A gym that overlooks an indoor basketball court. The house also contains an indoor lap pool.
A sports therapy room with a zen terrace. This New England residence also has a yoga studio and isolation pod.
Correction: September 19, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misspelled Gwyneth Paltrow's name.
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