A View With No Room -- Products
For Taking the Bedroom Outdoors

For his new bedroom, Miami real-estate developer Jason Adams has picked out a bed frame and matching nightstand -- plus bamboo shades and citronella candles to ward off the bugs. That's because his sleeping quarters are going to be outdoors. "It's manicured camping," says Mr. Adams, who plans to set up his bed on the terrace of the vacation home he's building in the Bahamas. "What was the sleeping bag is now a very expensive and very comfortable lounger."

Having persuaded consumers to spend billions on outdoor "rooms," moving everything from living-room entertainment centers to full-blown kitchens into their backyards, some companies are betting Americans will go even further. This spring, they're pushing mattresses, daybeds and even night stands for outside slumber -- or, at the very least, a nap.

Home Depot has its first outdoor daybed -- a $900 aluminum platform with a mosquito net and woven PVC that promises to repel water and mildew -- on the cover of its spring Outdoor Living catalog. Lowe's has a $99 swing that folds out into a bed. Tuuci, primarily an umbrella manufacturer, just rolled out a canopied daybed with a retractable sunroof and "Roman drawn privacy panels" (read: fancy curtains). And Janus et Cie's Daydream line of beds has optional headboards and even windchimes to help you drift off to sleep.

But while outdoor kitchens appeal to people who want to entertain friends, getting people to sleep outdoors is a tougher sell. There's nature to contend with: rain, wind, critters. And since they're designed for harsher conditions than your boudoir, many of these beds sacrifice some comfort for durability. Nappers on Armani/Casa's Oceano daybed, for example, lie on a single layer of waterproof woven nylon straps, not unlike the plastic strips on folding chairs. And then there's security: "If you fall asleep outside, you might wake up with your wallet gone," says Lyle Ecoff, who owns Berks, a high-end outdoor retailer in Santa Monica, Calif.

Designers and retailers say homeowners who have seen these settings at trendy nightclubs or luxurious resorts want to recreate them at home. Aaron Trembley, a commercial real-estate broker who recently spent $60,000 redoing his backyard in Plainview, N.Y., says he and his wife considered including a large outdoor bed. "I saw them in the Dominican Republic when I was on vacation and thought it just looks really cool," he says. Nina Trembley says she liked the idea, too; she thought it would be fun for their young sons to use for sleepovers, "comfortably, without dealing with rocks and bugs." But the couple didn't realize they could buy an outdoor bed ready-made, so they filled their yard with tables, reclining armchairs and an outdoor kitchen.

These beds aren't necessarily intended for overnighting. Tuuci, for example, markets its Mercury lounger as a place for inviting visitors to "gather around and lounge."

Laura Ciccone, a designer with Home of Fine Decorators in Hallandale Beach, Fla., recently created an outdoor bedroom with a king-size bed on a 38th-floor terrace in Miami Beach. She says the owners use it to lounge around and sip wine. "You get a lot of wind here in the evenings so you might not want to go outside to sleep," she says, "but they wanted to be able to cuddle up outside."

The daybed push follows years of huge growth in spending on outdoor living spaces. In 2003, consumers bought $4.6 billion of outdoor tables, seating and umbrellas, up 130% from $2 billion in 1994, according to the American Home Furnishings Alliance. Last year, wholesale shipments of domestically manufactured outdoor furniture to retailers hit $2.5 billion.

These beds can cost several times more than traditional outdoor seating. At Berks, daybeds cost between $3,000 and $8,000; chaises range from $249 and $2,499. The extras can add up, too: Those windchimes from Janus et Cie cost $193.

But designers say they're seeing little price resistance from clients keen to invest in pieces with a "wow" factor. Fern Santini, a designer in Austin, Texas, recently put a Janus et Cie daybed in a yard overlooking a lake. Kim Granger, the investment manager who owns the home, says it's great for entertaining but she mostly enjoys using it for a little quiet time. "We have a lot of people constantly coming and going in our home and I have three dogs," she says. "That's where I end up when I want to escape and hide. I have my Perrier and I just lay out there and nap."

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