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These four-legged friends have taken over the big house, with designs that work for both owners and pets.
By Bettijane Levine, Times Staff Writer
February 23, 2006
LATE news in barkitecture: doghouses, even the classiest ones, may soon be passé. About 70% of America's dogs now spend more than half their time indoors, in the Big House — the family home, which increasingly tends to feature dog-friendly walls, floors, upholstery and perhaps a "Blue Boy"-style oil painting of none other than the family hound himself.
We're not talking about mere cutesy, decorative nods to the adorableness of dogs, but about substantial human commitment — and dollars — to safer, more comfortable environments. Such art and design celebrates the species that is at home with 43.5 million American families.
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Kari Whitman, an L.A. interior designer and founder of the dog rescue group Ace of Hearts, says young people starting out now seem eager for dogs in their lives. "I meet many who get their first dog as soon as they get their first apartment," she says, adding that previous generations waited until they were more settled.
As a designer, Whitman sees dogs that live the Hollywood high life. At the Malibu home of a well-known actor and actress, whose names she declines to divulge, Whitman says she recently installed "a huge outdoor tub with hot and cold running water, decorated with beautiful Mexican tiles. These people have two big dogs and want to bathe them outdoors in warm water on sunny days."
Dog portraiture is booming business in this new era of pets. The Internet and dog magazines such as Bark, the New York Dog and Hollywood Dog are awash in ads for portraitists who claim to capture the essence of an animal in oils or photos. Prices charged by top talent range from a few hundred dollars (for a photographic sitting) to the high, five figures for an oil. And sometimes the portrait of a pet is as priceless to its owner as an old master.
Tigerlily and Harvey Rosen, for example, have a Chagall and a pet portrait by Beau Bradford in their L.A. home. The portrait, which dominates the Rosens' entry, depicts their two now-deceased English bulldogs, painted in the manner of Frida Kahlo. For fees from $2,500 to $15,000, Bradford will copy your favorite painting by a great artist — Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Warhol — and insert a likeness of your pets into its midst.
Noralisa and John Trott of Venice say they're totally dog-oriented when it comes to décor.
"Actually, the dogs and the dog art are the décor," says Noralisa, a doctor. "We're not much into furniture," says her husband, a lawyer. The couple rambles through art fairs to find dog art, has commissioned paintings and photo portraits of their own dogs and owns three silkscreens of Blue Dog, the imaginary canine repetitively painted by Louisiana artist George Rodrigue.
Actor and director Eric Stoltz displays art of his (and other) dogs throughout his New Mexico house. These days he's awaiting a portrait of his late Labrador retriever, Nestor, which he commissioned from the dog portraitist Roger Henry. "Roger visited us and got to know and spend time with Nestor before he died," Stoltz says. "That's an important part of the process of portraiture. And, of course, we have thousands of photos."
Why not just enjoy the photos and skip the fine art? "The idea is to permanently commemorate Nestor's life and all the joy he brought to everybody he came in contact with," Stoltz says.