Real estate listings as a matter of course spotlight how many bedrooms and baths a home has. But there may come a day in Los Angeles’ high-end residential market where the number of kitchens is prominently listed as well.
“On more than 50 percent of our projects, our clients are demanding two kitchens,” says Mauricio Oberfeld of high-end SoCal builder Dugally Oberfeld of a trend that has taken off in recent years and has only accelerated during the pandemic: “There’s been a very strong push for two kitchens.”
Homeowners usually use one kitchen as a showpiece and family-friendly area and the other serves as a prep kitchen. David Kelmemson of Compass, currently has a listing for an 11,600-square-foot, seven-bedroom and, yes, two-kitchen home in Pacific Palisades. On the market for $11.995M, it includes a family kitchen — “your everyday place to make cereal or toast,” says Kelmenson — and a prep kitchen located down a short hallway. “It’s the work-horse, if [the owners] are cooking Thanksgiving or they have a private chef or caterer come in.”
“The prep kitchen is really more geared toward entertaining, so if they were having another family over, somebody could be cooking there and it could be completely separate from the main kitchen of the house,” continues Kelmenson. “There’s also people who have live-in help or they have someone who comes in a certain number of days a week to cook for their families and they can cook in the prep kitchen. The family is hanging out in the family area and they want a little separation. You can leave the prep kitchen kind of a mess and be in the family room and not see it. If you are doing that in your main kitchen you are walking by the pots and pans.”