Irvin Schultz had a vision of the future after three friends told him their married children moved back to the parental house to live with their spouses.
”They couldn`t make it out there, even with two people working, paying rent and trying to save enough money to buy a home,” said Schultz.
So when Schultz, a landscape contractor, had a new $650,000 home built in the Windhill subdivision in Palatine, he decided to put a self-contained suite, including two bedrooms, a bathroom and even a kitchen, in the home`s ample walkout basement.
Even though his two boys are only 10 and 14, he knows he can accommodate them if they need to return some day as married men. And the suite can serve other purposes as well.
”My thinking is that if the day ever came when one of our parents were left alone and needed help, it would be convenient,” he said. ”And if we have company, they have a little wing to themselves.”
The walkout basement is still being finished inside, and right now the Schultzes` niece is making use of the completed area, a bed and connecting bath. ”She works and goes to school,” said Schultz`s wife, Sheila. ”We don`t even know she`s home sometimes.”
Builders across the country are increasingly being asked to include space for separate, self-contained quarters in new homes as home buyers try to prepare for a variety of life situations that may confront their families.
Census figures from 1989 indicated more than half of all young adults 18 to 24 years old were living with their parents. More than 11 percent in the 25-34 age group lived with parents, including about 15 percent of the men.
At the other end of the spectrum, more than 13 percent of elderly 65 and over lived with other relatives.
A recent National Association of Home Builders survey of builders, architects and others on ”The House of the Future” reported many believed that two master bedrooms, each on a different level, will become common in medium- to upper-priced homes.
”Baby Boomers, when their guests or elderly relatives come to stay, want them to have a space as good as their own bedrooms,” said Gopal Ahluwalia, an assistant staff vice president of the builders` group who conducted the study. John Bloodgood, president of Des Moines-based Bloodgood-Sharp Architects and Planners and one of those consulted in the survey, said the increased demand for multiple suites is due to ”families becoming extended families at different times” during their occupancy of the home.
”Maybe an adult child returns to live for a while, maybe a senior in-law, maybe children who aren`t full-time residents in the home of a divorced parent,” said Bloodgood, whose company is one of the country`s leading residential architectural firms and does work for some of the Chicago area`s biggest builders.
”You have so many more situations in society that suggest privacy for a bedroom suite,” he added. ”Rather than an all-togetherness that the typical three- or four-bedroom two-story provides, where everyone is close together and young children are easily supervised, the need is more for privacy and separation.”
The suite also can be used for a live-in child care provider, can house a friend who moves in temporarily to help with expenses or can be turned into an office, Bloodgood said.
”Houses in the `80s were intended to grow a big family,” he added.
”Now we see the family made in many different formulations. Society is going to the extended family concept, and there is generally a desire to accommodate the diversity of the family.”
With the house being seen less as a quick-turnover investment because of sagging appreciation, Bloodgood said he sees a trend toward homes being bought for a longer stay.
”They anticipate various functions might take place at different times in the same family,” he said. He conceded he had no figures to back up his contention about longer stays but said his view came from what builders are saying about a changing approach to home buying.
Charles Romeo, executive vice president of the Custom Source, a far west suburban firm that builds from 20 to 40 custom homes a year, said he is starting to see the same phenomenon.
”There`s more of a long-term commitment to housing,” he said. ”So there`s more consideration of multiple-generation living. That will be an important factor in the near future.”
Bloodgood said guest suites in newly built homes are often on the first floor if the master suite is on the second floor, but they may also be upstairs in homes that have the master suite downstairs.
They may also be over the garage, or at the top of the back stairway in a home with two stairways. In some homes, they are provided with a separate outside stairway. In others, where the suite is in the basement, they can be accessible through a separate door.
Bloodgood pointed out that such homes are not likely to be sought by first-time buyers, who generally have neither the money nor the need for extended-family quarters. ”Instead of wanting to see the family fragmented, they are happy to have the opportunity to pull together,” he said.
Although the price range of extended-family homes tends to be high, they also can be found at relatively moderate cost. Lansing-based Raymond Development Corp., for instance, offers one home that could accommodate a separate apartment starting at $150,000, lot included.
The 2,000-square-foot model, shown at last spring`s Preview of Homes in Richton Park sponsored by the South Suburban Residential Contractors Association, is a split-level with a family room on the lower floor that could easily become a self-contained suite with its own lounge, kitchenette and bath.
About a third of the buyers voice an interest in that option, said company president James Raymond, who added that people are getting more specific about their extended-family needs.
”Ten years ago, it was attractive, just having a room near a bath,” he said. ”Now they need a room for Grandma, or an aunt, or a daughter from a previous marriage because the other three kids are too small to be around her. ”The demographics of society are changing. Oldsters are living longer, and the moveup buyer we have now is faced with that responsibility and accepts it.
”Then there`s spread-out families. It`s amazing to me, when I look at the demographics of buyer prospects, how one or both of them has two families. They have two older children, and then they have the other ones. That`s where our society has gone. All of these people who have divorced in the last 20 years have gotten married again and brought along the kids.”
Raymond said the wise builder has to take account of these changes.
”That`s what it`s all about in the `90s,” he said. ”People are sophisticated, and they have different needs. It`s not just four-bedroom, two- bath, it`s a matter of what people want.”
Gene Kripak, planning and marketing director for the Arlington Heights-based Mitroff Companies, builder of the Windhill project in Palatine where the Schultzes bought their house, said he happened on the extended-family idea almost by accident.
The rolling terrain of the 46-acre site provided the opportunity for walkout basements in many of the 99 homes there, and those spaces lent themselves naturally to uses separated from the rest of the house.
”We didn`t intend it that way, but the natural phenomenon forced us into a situation, and we decided to capitalize on it by providing higher ceilings, make the space more livable and not treat it as a basement,” said Kripak, a former architect.
The optional walkout basement in the maintenance-free clubhome ranch models, whose prices start at $324,500, can be converted into a guest suite with two bedrooms, wet bar or kitchenette and family room with fireplace.
”Some of the people are using the lower level for a mother-in-law or office situation,” Kripak said.
The Schultzes` walkout basement, which Sheila Schultz said was as big as the entire house they occupied until they moved into their custom-built Windhill home about a year ago, will include a game room and great room as well as bedrooms and kitchenette when it is finished.
That should make the basement appealing guests quarters for their relatives, which Sheila Schultz said are numerous. It may even be too appealing for their sons, she joked.
”I`d just as soon when they left, they didn`t come back, but my husband is softer. He wants them to have a place to stay if they need it,” she said.
