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It’s usually around the third meeting with a new client that Francis Sultana brings up a potentially tricky design decision. “I just throw in a few little grains,” says the London interior designer, “because when the suggestion comes from me, it’s much easier to accept.” Why not redesign the boudoir with two equal-sized bedrooms instead of a single master suite? That way, he suggests, everyone can express their individual taste. And you’ll have somewhere to sleep if one of you has the flu.
Both are, of course, just a fig leaf, because he believes so many couples opt for two bedrooms. “We never call it a snore room, but that’s what it is. We call it a second master bedroom.”
The snore room is an increasingly common feature in homes that have space for such a luxury (though some would say it’s a necessity). According to research by the Sleep Council, one in six couples in the UK sleep separately, and half of those sleep in separate bedrooms. Celebrity names have extolled the snore room’s appeal – actress Cameron Diaz, for example, and TV presenter Carson Daly, who told US viewers he was “served my divorce papers a couple of years ago” after his wife became pregnant with their youngest child.
These bonus rooms also increase a home’s value, according to data from Realtor.com. Homes with two master bedrooms were 13.6 percent more expensive per square foot than the national average in the U.S. in June of this year. And when accounting for differences in home size, the median asking price for homes with two master bedrooms was $250 per square foot, $30 more than the national average.
Of course, snore rooms are much easier to design and furnish for wealthy owners with free space at home. Sultana says he started fielding requests for snore room designs 15 years ago. “Today, it’s the norm. And the ones I’ve done? All of those marriages are still together. I’d call it the ‘happy marriage bedroom,’ not the snore room.”
He usually adapts the design for heterosexual couples, making one bedroom and bathroom softer and more feminine, and the second with darker marble and masculine accents. If there is a size difference, the default is always to give the larger room to the woman (“she always has more stuff”).
Kolter Homes is a Florida-based developer that builds custom homes in several states, including Georgia, the Carolinas and Florida. When the company last updated the templates for those properties in 2021, it added an option for a snore room in response to customer feedback, says Marc Friedman, senior vice president of sales. Opting for the snore room configuration instead of the standard den option adds about $1,200 to a floor plan, Friedman says. “If anything, it gets people thinking and makes them curious — (especially if they) have spouses who ‘snore like crazy.'”
Kolter’s target audience is what the company euphemistically calls “active adults,” typically people over 55 who may be planning to downsize or move to a new home in retirement. They’ve also been married for a long time, so they’re more likely to be willing to look for a two-bedroom apartment without worrying about the impact on their relationship. But Kolter is by no means limited to that demographic.
In fact, experts say that so-called sleep divorce does not have to have the negative effects that many fear. Wendy Troxel, author of Sharing the blanket together: The guide for couples to better sleepsays she prefers to call it a “sleep alliance” to reduce the stigma. “It’s about being more respectful and honest and forging an alliance that does what’s best for them to promote healthy sleep.”
She has conducted extensive research into the effects of sleeping next to a partner after noticing that much of the existing data comes from human studies that may have been conducted in a lab, creating an artificial solo experience compared to the typical bedroom situation. “This is not what sleep looks like in the wild, and it allows socially prescribed norms and beliefs to drive and dictate behavior.”
Troxel says that about 30 percent of a person’s sleep depends on who they share a bed with; sleeping separately from a snoring partner can significantly improve the quality of nighttime rest. “And there’s really no data to suggest that sleeping separately means the end of your sex life. In fact, good sleep is important for good sex: It has a profound effect on sex hormones like testosterone.”
Troxel also points out that sharing a bed with a partner is a relatively new habit. Think of the TV series I love Lucyshe notes, where the couple were shown in twin beds next to each other. “There was a backlash against this in the 1960s, as such habits were perceived as prudish behaviour from previous generations – if you didn’t do one, you didn’t get the other. But there is no conclusive data at all.”
Francis Sultana certainly thinks so – he has long had two master bedrooms in the house he shares with his husband, the gallery owner David Gill (though he demurely refuses to comment on whether either of them snores). “I’m a proponent of it. It’s not like exile,” he says. “You can take whatever is missing from the master bedroom and give it to yourself – the bed you wanted, or the paint you didn’t want. But the secret is to be the one who goes, the one who makes concessions. Then you can close the deal.”
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