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The ultimate shower can simulate rainfall or a waterfall, bathe you in steam or massage you with a water barrage.

You don’t need an exotic shower with lots of hydro-toys. A garden hose draped over a tree branch would probably do the job.

And you could live in a one-room cabin, sleep on a straw mattress and cook over an open fire. But we’ve kind of gotten away from all that, haven’t we?

It’s the same with showers: Americans today want to bathe luxuriously – in a roomy space finished with high-quality materials and equipped with high-end plumbing fixtures. And they’re also looking for good design, something not previously done even by the ultra-rich.

"Look at the best old Main Line mansions and you’ll find, even there, that bathrooms were small and functional," said Andrew Stein, president, Design Manifest, a Bala Cynwyd design/build firm. "Many older showers had no lights and it was popular to lower the ceiling." The result: A dark, dank "cave" that tended to mildew because it got no air circulation. And that was in a luxury home!

Strangely, people preferred those shorts of showers. "It was part of the Victorian ethic," said Stein, that one shouldn’t spend much time or devote much space to activities that involved getting naked.

(According to Stein, the prudery of the Greatest Generation – and those before it – also gave us frosted shower doors. Those born since, and especially the Boomers, have fewer inhibitions about their spouses seeing them in the shower. So, today, nearly all shower doors are clear.)

What’s changed? Mainly, houses got larger. Since the 1950s, the average new house has increased in size more than 100 percent – from about 1,100 to 2,340 square feet in 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. At the same time, bathrooms have become both more numerous and larger. In 1975, 20 percent of new single-family houses had 2.5 or more bathrooms; by 2002, that figure had increased to 55 percent.

The average bathroom is now 136 square feet, according to the National Kitchen & Bath Association (NKBA). But "average" also includes the kids’ and guest baths. Master baths are often larger.

Additional space opened a new realm of possibilities. Instead of a single sink, homeowners specified double vanities. (No more waiting to spit out your toothpaste while the wife washes her hands.) Increasingly, homeowners requested a separate space for the toilet. (No more waiting to shower while hubby reads the sports section.) Suddenly, the whirlpool didn’t have to spend the winter under a tarp on the patio.

Showers grew, too. Among Stein’s clients, they’ve jumped from perhaps 36-by-42 inches to four-by-six feet, big enough to allow some couples to shower together. In other cases, homeowners have built complete his-and-her baths – each with its own sink/vanity, toilet and shower.

It’s about luxury. But it’s not just about luxury, says Susan Ward, a King of Prussia-based vice president for Ferguson, a fixture dealer with more than a thousand U.S. outlets.

"It’s about two working people trying to get ready simultaneously," she said. "It’s about less time, more togetherness and a ticking clock." How convenient: You can justify your personal spa as a work necessity. Puritanism lives!

So, what – besides the water – is hot in the shower? According to a 2003 survey of designers and remodelers by Plumbing & Mechanical magazine, the top request is a shower that doubles as a steam room – cited by 60 percent as the leading request of homeowners.

Ward, for one, loves the Kohler Steam Generator in her own home shower. The units come in four sizes to suit a space up to 650 cubic feet. A typical steam system requires one steam generator, steam head and control panel. Generators can be installed up to 25 feet away from the shower in the floor, wall or a closet.

"They’re very small, so they’re easy to install," said Ward. "All you need is a steel door and you’ve got a steam unit."

Shower steam rooms require sealing to keep the steam from escaping. Escaping steam both defeats the purpose of the steam bath and, when it condenses, can damage an unprotected structure.

"The moisture of steam is pervasive, so you need to take greater precautions" than with a regular shower, said Stein. "It will blister the paint in the bathroom and, if tile is not installed correctly, can get behind it and cause it to fail." Ideally, shower ceilings should slope a half inch per foot to prevent condensation and drips, he said.

Other shower trends cited by remodelers include decorative hardware and multiple showerheads. Shower fixtures today are sleek and ergonomically designed. Bathers can get sprayed from any direction they demand.

"There are wonderful shower heads out there," said Stein, who favors the sort that slide up and down on a bar to serve anyone between four feet and 6-foot, six-inches tall. Grohe’s version is the Movario, and New Hope designer Jayne Rosen, ASID, has seen homeowners buy two, install them on opposite walls and then stand between them.

"People love the flexibility," said Rosen, president, J.R. Designs. "They can move it around, wash between their toes. It’s very nice to be able to hit all the spots you want to hit."

Grohe’s Freehander has two heads with distinct spray patterns – one an invigorating massage, the other a soft pattern that feels like summer rain. The company also offers four body sprays that can be installed anywhere, but are usually wall-mounted to hit the bather about mid-chest. Kohler sells several versions of its WaterTile fixture, a square plate with up to 54 nozzles that can be mounted high like a showerhead or at chest level. It is available in chrome, brass, nickel, bronze and gold finishes.

"Consumers are concerned not just about performance, but aesthetics, so we wanted to create a low-profile design ... since other body sprays usually resemble shower heads," said Michael Wandschneider, product manager for performance showering at Kohler.

For a YMCA-like experience, German manufacturer Dornbracht makes a floor-mounted "shower tower" with adjustable and hand-held nozzles. If the space is large enough, shower partners can stand on opposite sides, passing the hand-held back and forth as they soap and rinse.

Another innovation is the waterfall shower – available both as a fixture and as a custom-built feature. For $150, Cascata offers a contemporary, elongated showerhead that looks something like a toilet paper holder. A slit along the outside of the "roll" produces a continuous sheet of water. For one client, Rosen had a waterfall built of native fieldstone. The plumbing simply ran up behind the stonework and spilled over a ledge onto the bather.

"It was probably the most interesting shower I’d ever done," she said. "With all the natural stone, it seemed like you were outside."

Pan-sized "rainfall" showerheads are widely, though not universally, popular. For some – mostly men, it seems – they bring back memories of outside showers at the cabin or the golf club.

"Men seem to really like the heavy downpour," said Ward. Women, however, tend to wash selectively: If pressed for time, they scrub from the neck down and leave shampooing for later. That’s harder with a ceiling-mounted shower head. Some women worry that the rain-like deluge is too soft to fully rinse off soap and shampoo, said Ward.

Fortunately, diverter valves allow homeowners to install more than one type of fixture, then decide which to use when they step into the shower.

A precaution: These things require a lot of water.

"If you’re going to run all these shower heads and body sprays at once, you’re going to have to run a three-quarter-inch pipe directly from the main to the bathroom," said Stein. "If you don’t, you might as well not spend the money putting in these fixtures, because they’re not going to work."

In most homes, half-inch copper pipe is standard, he explained. But that was a standard developed for old-fashioned showers.

A Ferguson customer ignored this advice, said Ward. Leaving the half-inch pipes in place, she plowed ahead with a $20,000 bathroom makeover, of which about 20 percent was for shower valves that could never be used.

Another problem: Tile installation. Instead of cement backer-board, some builders still use cheaper gypsum board rated for "damp" areas, said Stein. But it isn’t up to the pounding that multiple horizontally mounted heads can impose.

"The homeowners, of course, have no idea that this is a problem" until the tile falls off, said Stein. As an extra step, he installs a plastic barrier behind the cement board.

Ferguson offers free classes to plumbers, carpenters, drywall and tile installers about the requirements of new shower technology. "It’s a process you don’t take lightly," said Ward.

Technology has also addressed that final chilly reach for a towel. Jacuzzi’s "Summer Rain Ambient Air Body Dry System" includes a center shower column with 12 heated warm-air jets for head-to-toe drying. The system’s 30-amp motor can warm air to 140 degrees.

Designers are split. Are frameless, clear-glass shower doors the result of homeowners’ desire to show off their luxe fixtures and masonry? Or are the shower toys a consequence of the fact that the doors now make shower interiors more visible?

Ward thinks the former: "People are putting pretty tile in the bathroom and want those doors to show it off," she said. "Before, they didn’t think about it."

Whatever the reason, shower stalls increasingly have frameless glass panels on at least two of their four sides – one of which is often a buttress (half) wall. The result is a more "open" bathroom in which every element is visible and, indeed, celebrated.

Frameless enclosures are so pervasive that designers have begun to go one step further – to leaving off the door altogether. If this "walk-through" shower is large enough, the spray can’t reach beyond the waterproof area.

With everything visible, many homeowners are minimizing transitions. Rather than switch to wallboard outside of the shower, they choose to continue tile work throughout the bathroom.

"I love to choose one luxurious material and saturate the entire area – the walls and the ceilings – with it," said designer Ashli Mizell of Philadelphia. "It’s easier on the eye and more fluid looking." According to Mizell, homeowners are looking beyond function for a serene, spa-like environment. They’re choosing materials for maximum visual impact.

In the context of a full bathroom remodeling, said Mizell, tiling an entire bath doesn’t cost much more. After the basics – toilet, sinks, shower – "it’s just the amount of tile you’re using and the time it retakes to install it."

Rosen sees a lot of Carrera marble – polished on the walls and tumbled for safety reasons on the floor. Stein sees the marble, too, and limestone as well. But he suggests that clients consider granite or porcelain tile.

"(Marble and limestone) are very soft and very absorbent," he said, "and they’re going to look beat after the housekeepers have been going at them with cleanser for 10 or 20 years."

Design Manifest is also doing lots of glass tile, usually in eye-level borders that run through the shower and beyond. "It ties things together and gives the whole room some pizzazz," said Stein.

The next trend in glass is likely to be doors and panels of colored glass – teal, aquamarine and light green. "It hasn’t hit America yet," said Ward. "One client saw it when she stayed at the Ritz in London, but we weren’t able to duplicate it." (Soon though.)

What’s coming?

Everything has consequences, of course, and the newer, better showers have at least two. One is the decline of the bathtub. The second – bathroom entertainment systems.

Whirlpool and soaking tubs are still quite popular. What is disappearing, though, is the shower-tub combination. Adults who have experienced upscale showers in hotels and resorts are no longer content standing on a tub’s sloping sides.

"Spec builders still put in five-foot tubs, but adults don’t use them," said Ward. "When homeowners have input, they often leave them out."

And with all that clear glass, people need something to look at, right? Of course, right. So, look for more bathroom entertainment systems, complete with speakers wired into the ceiling. A British company, Aquavision, is even marketing a TV set for the shower wall.

Rosen discovered the trend on a recent trip to England.

"My husband apparently switched on the television just after I popped into the shower," she said. "All of a sudden, there was a strange man's voice in the shower with me, and I nearly hit the ceiling."

We never had such problems with the garden hose.

Home & Design / October 2005

Mark E. Dixon