Modern Laving

The bathroom--that place of splash and gurgle, electric razor buzz and after-shave fragrance, that small citadel of privacy where one goes to doctor oneself, make faces in the mirror, or commit suicide--is undergoing a renaissance. Even the modest homeowner wants more of them; small houses, which moved up from a single bath to a bath and a half about ten years ago, are now being built with two and 2 1/2 bathrooms, and bigger ones at that. And the rich are asking for and getting bathrooms with pool-type tubs, wall-to-wall carpeting, mirrored ceilings, arched canopies, private patios, and sometimes a picture-window view. In these circles, the bathroom is no longer thought of in its puritan context as strictly (and slightly shamefully) utilitarian, but as a sybaritic place of permitted indolence and luxury.

The result is a new breed of specialists in "customized" bathrooms. In fact, bathrooms are becoming a prestige item on the scales of conspicuous consumption, a place swimming pools used to hold before everybody had one. Luxury Lavatorist Sherle Wagner of Manhattan's 57th Street is selling baroque swans, dolphins, Cupids and sea horses for spouts and faucet handles as fast as he can gold-plate them, at $129.50 to $800 a set. Cut crystal is in, too, and the most sophisticated of all is pewter with gold decoration. "And, of course, marble like mad," says Wagner. "We just finished a lovely bathroom-dressing room for one of our clients. Cost? Oh, about $15,000."

The Little Horse. Expensive apartment houses are concentrating more and more on the bathroom as an index of how luxurious they are. San Francisco's brand-new building at 2555 Leavenworth Street has 24-carat gold-plated faucets and toilet bowls in eight of its apartments. The bathrooms in Fifth Avenue's newest co-op deluxe, 812 Fifth Avenue (apartment prices range from $48,600 to $200,900), have marble floors and walls, and in each of the shower stalls there is a special spout a few inches off the floor for pretesting the water with a tentative toe. Bidets are standard equipment.

Bidets, in fact, are consolidating a small beachhead on U.S. shores. A symbol of sophisticated familiarity with European plumbing, the French "little horse" is now being offered by twelve U.S. manufacturers in three basic models at about $100 each, and jokes about "handsome foot baths" are definitely square.

His & Hers. Two notable U.S. trends are reflected in the modern bathroom. Americans are getting bigger and bigger, and their bathtubs with them. More and more common are 51-ft. tubs with 16-in. sides (instead of 14 in.) and the demand for 6-ft. tubs is further threatening the national water table. The other trend--female emancipation--is making itself felt in a fad for twin installations. Double sinks are sprouting everywhere, enabling tooth-brushing, face splashing and shaving to take place side by side without strain on a marriage; and a design contest in Rome awarded first prize to an arrangement of twin tubs with a shower that swivels between them.

If no one has yet designed a new Baths of Caracalla, the manufacturers are sidling up to it--apparently inspired in part by the glimpses of Roman high laving indulged in by Cleopatra Taylor and Antony Burton in Shakespeare's latest spectacular. The Crane Co. has taken the plunge with a line of sunken tubs, dubbed the Marc Antony (6 ft. long and "rich in majestic beauty"), the Caesar ("once exclusive with emperors"), and the Centurion ("a masterful tribute to the mighty Roman legions").

Plumbing fixtures, like everything else, are increasingly decked in "decorator colors"--the most popular, predictable pink. Second most popular is light brown. Floors may be vinyl or ceramic tile, walls may be the latest Italian mosaic, but the commonest materials for wash basin, toilet and tub are old-fashioned vitreous china and enameled metals. The w.c. of tradition is one of the last holdouts against the Plastic Age.

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