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When Salli Squires Cook brought home her first rescue cat, Bubby, she decided he deserved nothing less than a life of luxury. What he needed, was a “pet palace.”
So she reached out to Colorado-based Cat Topia, which had opened a few months earlier, specializing in custom outdoor enclosures for cats.
She told business owner, Lance Harding, in 2019 that she wanted something that would keep her cats safe at night, while allowing them to roam outdoors during the day at her home in Denver.
The cat home — which the builders dub a “palace” for pets, “catio” or “luxury outdoor cat enclosure” — cost $2,000 and was accessible from Cook’s garage. The tall, rectangular enclosure had a path for Bubby to run through, stairs to jump on and took up a chunk of the backyard. There was also a protective fence to stop Bubby from wandering too far. Cook was such a big fan that when she got another cat, she decided to expand to twice the size of her initial one. The price tag? $5,000.
“The second catio had to have ‘special needs’ ramps for our girl, who has a hard time getting up and down,” Cook, who now has four cats — Mariah, 13, Bubby, nine, Lewis, five, and Proxi, one — told The Independent.
“It had to have a bridge up in the trees for them to see all of the wildlife, secure and thick-gauge fencing for safety, a solid roof to keep out the elements, doors for us to get into them easily to clean, weather-proof lumber, and spaces to ‘hide.’”
Since her original catio was installed in 2019, Cook has seen how they’ve offered major improvements to her cats’ lifestyles.
“They can get vitamin D and ‘sun’ themselves,” she explains. “They are enriched by being in the fresh air and watching birds and squirrels that keep their hunting instincts sharp, but without harming any of the wildlife. Additionally, two of our four cats were outside only when we first got them, and this has made their transition to being indoor only so much easier.”
Some 49 million American households have at least one cat, with ownership rising by 23 percent in 2024, the American Pet Products Association’s 2025 Dog & Cat Report found.
The organization also noted that owners are forming deeper bonds with their pets and finding more ways to integrate them into their daily lives.
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Pet ownership overall rose sharply during the pandemic, with more than 23 million Americans getting an animal during that time, according to a survey from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
But caring for a pet is no small feat. From vet visits, medication, food, pet insurance, and more, Rover, a site that connects pet owners with walkers and sitters, found that it costs approximately $34,550 to care for a dog over its average 10-year lifespan, and $32,170 for a cat that lives for 16 years.
While Cook's pet palace has everything her cats could want, it's a drop in the ocean compared to some others, where people are dropping six-figure sums on luxury catios.
At Cat Topia, Harding has helped create wooden, outdoor patios and enclosures, filled with cubbies, scratching posts, and a tunnel.
He recently built a luxury cat catio in Burlington County, New Jersey, featuring a 400 square foot enclosure, painted and with a roof, and a 100-foot tunnel. The asking price for his creation? $125,000, a third of the average house price listing in the area, according to Realtor.com.
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The catio, part of the home’s porch, also has amenities like a built-in couch and hammock for the feline family members.
Not all catios are this expensive, however. Harding has clients with different budgets, and he’s built some outdoor enclosures for $6,000. But with every catio that Cat Topia makes, Harding has the same goal: Giving cats the chance to roam outdoors without the dangers that can come with it.
“People see their pets as family members and want the best for them,” he told The Independent. “ They live a long time if under indoor circumstances, but that doesn’t give them a lot of room for running and exercise. Indoor cats also have a lot of anxiety, so the catio decreases that and allows them to have a world outdoors.”
So far, Cat Topia has created more than 500 catios across all 50 states, and no two are the same.
Harding considers the climate and predators in every state. A catio in New York will be heated due to cold winter weather, while one in the humid state of Florida may feature a heavy-duty bug screen.
“We really look at what it comes down to at a micro level of what cats really need, and we make sure that our catios are ready to support that in every state,” Harding added.
“We have a whole database of what the customer should know when we’re designing stuff.”
And this is a burgeoning business. In 2017, Alan Breslauer launched his “Catio Guy” company to build expansive outdoor enclosures, featuring runs and bridges for cats. Business took off in the pandemic, when families were spending more time at home and wanted to expand their spaces for pets.
Since then, Breslauer and his team in Los Angeles have built more than 500 catios, with prices ranging from $5,000 to up to $94,000.
Breslauer primarily works in California — including Santa Barbara, Orange County, and Palm Springs — where cats (and their owners) experience some of the best weather year-round.
Most of his catios are attached to large homes in Los Angeles, where home prices start at $1 million and go from there, according to Realtor.com.
“We’re essentially making fancy enclosures that keep cats protected but allow them to go outside and bathe in the sunshine, get the stimulation from the birds, squirrels, and bugs,” Breslauer explained to The Independent.
“It’s a cat Disneyland where they run around and play without the danger of getting run over by a car or eaten by a coyote in L.A.”
Just like Harding, Breslauer wants cats to have the chance to be outside without their owners being worried about the risk of losing a pet.
While cats’ lifespans vary - some live up to 20 years - there are risks to letting them roam outdoors alone, like infections and parasites, injury, poisoning, and exposure to predators, says the American Animal Hospital Association.
Catios have helped his clients’ cats during a major life change, Breslauer notes. He had one client who moved from LA to Santa Barbara with her fiancé, and her cat was unhappy about it, resulting in him urinating outside of the litter box for a year straight.
“A year later, they got the catio and the marking stopped completely,” Breslauer explained.
“Then he ended up loving the new guy in his life. There are just remarkable differences between being cats before and after these enclosures. Indoor cats only have so many behavioral risks, and the catio just does so much for their mental well-being.”
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