Want to Live Like Royalty? Maybe You Already Do!
On a recent trip to Europe, I visited mansions, museums, cathedrals, and palaces. As I walked their halls, I noted that their rich and powerful inhabitants may have lived in fancier surroundings, but their basic needs were like mine. Nowadays, it’s true that for most, home design and decor hinge more on functionality than on making a grand impact. Our ideas of comfort, practicality, and visual appeal are different from the concerns of maharajahs, empresses, or museum curators. But modern technologies, materials, and building codes mean your home’s likely more comfortable and functional than palaces were to nobles of old. Their challenges probably had more in common with your concerns than you imagine. Let’s look at the needs and wants you share with kings and queens. You may find you’re already living like royalty.
Displays of Wealth & Status
Queens and commoners alike want homes that are comfortable, attractive, and functional. Your chief concern may not be showing off wealth and status. But heads of state have traditionally wanted big, imposing, luxurious statement homes. For millennia, so-called nobles have displayed wealth and power—and not just for fun. Intimidating potential usurpers or the disgruntled rabble was important to self-preservation. Grand palaces say to the world, “My power is legitimate and unshakeable.” Scaring enemies into submission with huge, well-fortified homes helps maintain authority and position.
Palaces don’t just house royal families. They also provide spaces for parties, political visits, royal rituals, and displays of art and treasure. Today, our own homes often intimidate potential evil-doers by announcing our power and security. Obvious security system signs and video cameras, attached garages, gated access, and burglar bars say “Invade at your peril.” Security and power signifiers tell others that efforts to enter unbidden will bring punishment. But beyond keeping our homes secure, we modern commoners still like to display our taste, style, and often our wealth. This shows up in how our homes look from the outside (curb appeal), as well as in interior decor.
Year-Round Comfort
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, European palaces were gorgeous and awe-inspiring. They were filled with carved wood paneling, tapestries, elegant woven carpets, gilded furnishings, ceiling frescoes, and velvet brocade draperies. They were also vast and often built out of stone. This meant they were usually drafty, and often freezing in winter.
Living like royalty then meant that attendants cooled you with long, large fans during hot, humid summers. But fans only help so much when you’re dressed in many layers of formal clothing. Aristocrats couldn’t toss on a sundress or shorts and a T-shirt on a hot day. Today’s HVAC systems provide comfortable interior temperatures year-round. Humidifiers and dehumidifiers keep homes from feeling musty, damp, or dry. Nobles of past centuries would have loved the cool breezes and sweet, fresh air we take for granted.
Castles of the past required thick stone walls with small windows to keep invaders out. Living like royalty back then meant spending a lot of time in dark rooms. Today’s building materials let us fill homes with large and plentiful windows and skylights, letting light spill in. We also have screens, so we can open our large windows to create cooling cross-breezes while keeping bugs outside, something medieval kings and queens would have loved.
Ancient inventions rivaled modern conveniences
While we now luxuriate in air-cooled splendor, we’re not the first to find ways to change interior temperatures in ingenious ways. It’s just that the clever inventions of the past were usually reserved for nobility, or even royalty. For example, the designers of India’s Taj Mahal and palace complexes throughout India incorporated water channels to cool the inhabitants.
Nowadays, everyday folk enjoy living like royalty—or better—in their air-conditioned homes. Central AC, mini split units, or window-mounted air conditioners can make steamy summers bearable. Can’t afford those? Buy two $25 box fans. Open two windows in a room, and place one box fan facing inward in the shadier window. Place the other facing outward in the hotter window. This will create cooling cross-breezes that would make a medieval duchess weep in gratitude.
Cool drinks were another way for long-ago royals to beat the heat. The 13th century Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan enjoyed milk with jam and shaved ice, a precursor to ice cream. He loved it so much, he decreed that only the royal family could enjoy this cooling treat. But how could he eat ice-cream-like treats in summer before the invention of refrigerators? Ice cellars stored natural ice for royal enjoyment throughout the year. Ice harvested months earlier was saved in copper and rosewood chests. Then in summer, it was used to cool wine and other drinks.
Home Safety & Security
Few have armed guards surrounding their homes. Even fewer rely on moats or portcullises. Gates and fences watched over by guard dogs keep homes safe against intruders for some. However, most of us rely on locked doors and windows, and often on electronic security systems.
Happily, today we have access to excellent deadbolts, keyless entry systems, glass-break detectors, even wireless alarms. They’re certainly much more affordable than moats, drawbridges, or knights.
Hygienic Dining & Bathing
In the past, the connection between cleanliness and health was often poorly understood. Today we recognize how important hygiene is, not just for comfort but for avoiding disease. But contrary to common modern myths, people of the past weren’t necessarily filthy or smelly. In the Middle Ages, for example, even peasants often washed with water and cloth. However, they might only bathe fully once per week, since carrying and heating water was time-consuming. Many thought full-body bathing exposed them to chills or illness, and few had perfumes to scent their bodies.
The first commercial antiperspirant wasn’t sold until 1903. Before antiperspirants and deodorants became popular, people were used to natural bodily fragrances. Some even enjoyed them. Indeed, while on a military campaign, Napoleon is said to have written to his beloved Josephine, “Please don’t wash, will arrive in three days.” However, not all imperial leaders shared his appreciation for earthy scents.
Today, “living like royalty” usually means living better—and less stinkily—than kings and queens of old did. We can wash whenever we want with exactly the temperature and amount of water we desire. We don’t even need servants to boil or drag our water.
Spa-like luxuries at home
In ancient times, public bathing spaces were popular places for socializing and diversions. They were also used for both ritual cleansing and everyday bathing. However, their cleansing function was often secondary to their social purposes.
The 12th century Arab Baths in Girona, Spain (which weren’t actually Arabic at all) had sophisticated plumbing, heating, and cooling systems. These provided visitors with hot, tepid, and cold rooms in which to relax, visit, dine, and get clean.
Though some enjoy traveling to get spa treatments, most of us tend toward private cleansing options nowadays. Today’s pools, hot tubs, saunas, and spa-like bathrooms provide amenities more sophisticated and comfortable than aristocrats enjoyed in centuries past.
Assuring Comfortable Sleep
Royalty often slept on feather beds with fine linen sheets surrounded by velvet draperies to keep out the cold. Their beds were likely more comfortable than commoners’ bug-ridden straw-filled mattresses and thin coverlets. But even living like royalty didn’t mean having access to warming electric blankets or cooling mattress pads. Today’s adjustable beds let us alter the incline, temperature, or firmness of our mattresses. Queens and kings required attendants who added lumpy pillows or carried warming pans full of coals to royal bed chambers.
Nobility didn’t have white noise machines, CPAP machines to deal with snoring, foam bed toppers, or weighted blankets. Nor did they have ear buds or smartwatches with customized alarms that don’t affect other nearby sleepers. Royals with hearing loss or deafness (including English queen consort Alexandra of Denmark and India’s Maharaja Kanthirava Narasaraja II) didn’t have alarms that vibrated, shook their beds, or turned on lights to wake them, as even commoners have access to today. Nobles who need complete darkness to help them sleep might have blackout curtains. However, they didn’t have remote control units to open the shades on their skylights to let the morning sun stream in.
Plentiful Storage
Nobles need huge amounts of storage for their extensive wardrobes, crown jewels, vast libraries, art collections, wine cellars, and armories. Sufficient storage is a hugely desirable commodity for modern nobles and commoners alike. Those who can afford them often opt to buy larger homes. These allow for big kitchens, walk-in closets, attached garages, finished basements and attics, and wine cellars.
You may not think of a storage unit as a sign that you’re living like royalty. However, storage companies allow us the luxury of having open space even if we can’t fit everything into one home. Having more space is a valuable commodity, of course. And you can now get even if you can’t afford a vast estate with a huge country house.
Accessibility
In ancient times in places as far from each other as Rome, Alexandria, and Beijing, royals from pharaohs to emperors traveled long distances on litters. Also known as sedan chairs or palanquins, these were vehicles without wheels carried by two or more people—often slaves. Chinese emperors’ litters were sometimes as large as small rooms and took whole teams of strong men.
By the 18th century, horse-drawn coaches were the chic mode of travel. Nobles and royals such as Marie Antoinette were transported in lavishly decorated carriages. Today, we have the luxury of driving our own vehicles whenever we like, hiring others to drive us, or taking public transport. But accessibility and independence within our homes may be the greatest improvement in providing modern people with independence and greater access.
Living like royalty used to mean relying heavily on underlings. But today, people prize independence and self-determination. For many of us, the part of living like royalty that involves heavy reliance on others seems like a disadvantage. Happily, modern building codes require many accessibility features that make modern life safer and easier. These include minimum door widths and heights, standard stair heights and widths, and fire-retardant insulation and other materials.
Many of us need additional accommodations for safety and comfort. Accessible upgrades like low, roll-under sinks and counters, ramps, and no-threshold entryways, doorways, and showers make feel more luxurious to people in wheelchairs than having a staircase that can’t be maneuvered without help. Single-floor living spaces without stairs allow people with mobility aids access to their entire homes. This can feel like real luxury if you’re used to living with inaccessible rooms, basements, or garages. To be able to move safely and smoothly wherever you want to—for many, that feels like living like royalty.
Spaces for Worship or Meditation
Many grand homes and palaces have their own chapels or shrines, or private gardens for meditation and reflection. Today’s homes often dedicate space for meditative activities as well. However, they’re more often used for yoga, exercise, or meditation than for worship.
Workout rooms, spa-like bathrooms, jetted tubs, and saunas focus on bodily health and comfort. Often these home-based retreats let us relax our bodies, focus our minds, and realign priorities. Dedicated outdoor spaces meant for meditation and contemplation also provide significant mental and physical benefits.
Housing & Caring for Pets
Living like royalty used to mean having horse stables and arenas for riding. But today many of us have smaller pets with whom we share smaller, more affordable luxuries. Enclosed pet beds with cushy bedding and even curtains are one form of luxury. Elevated pet bowls that keep arthritic older pets from having to bend down uncomfortably are another. Pet-washing stations are another popular upgrade to high-end homes. But are these worth the cost and space?
Perhaps you only wash your pets once or twice a month. If so, such a station takes a lot of floorspace for something you only use a few hours per year. By using an existing bathtub or shower, you have more room for other things, like storage, which may feel more luxurious to you.
If you’re outdoorsy, live in a muddy location, or have a short-legged pup, a dedicated washing station right in the mudroom may be worth it. Even short walks can leave dogs’ feet constantly caked with mud. A dog-washing station just inside your door could be a godsend.
An outdoor dog-washing station can be handy in homes in mild or tropical climates. But is your climate warm enough to keep your dog comfortable outside all year? A wet dog shouldn’t be in a space below about 70 degrees for more than a few minutes. Getting too cold stresses dogs, especially older or fragile ones. A dog who shivers during a bath or shower is too cold. A shivering pup should be dried off and taken indoors to warm up promptly.
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If you have pets, check out our articles Best Upholstery and Flooring for Homes with Pets and When Pets Scratch Furniture and Floors for pet-related decorating and home care tips.
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Accessible, Attractive Entertainment & Info Display
In past centuries, religious leaders, heads of state, and royal personages lavished fortunes on personal libraries. They spent millions on rare books and manuscripts, and built splendid rooms for them. The grandest featured lavishly carved wood cabinetry, intricate ceiling frescoes, inlaid floors, and marble columns. For example, the huge barrel-vaulted ceiling of the grand library at Spain’s El Escorial is entirely covered in grand murals. These feature great figures of history, from philosophers to mathematicians to poets.
New York’s Morgan Library features spectacular rooms with gilded, carved wood paneling and glass-fronted cabinets. Medieval tapestries hang on the walls. And, of course, cabinets are filled with a vast and splendid collection of rare and wonderful books. Few people actually get to read them, but plenty pay to view the remarkable rooms that hold them.
Today, some billionaires like Bill Gates still spend millions on rare books and manuscripts. But setting aside space for a large library isn’t the widely coveted luxury as it once was. Today we have access to millions of books and manuscripts on our laptops, tablets, and phones. Kindles take the place of physical libraries. We have access to more knowledge and imagery of all sorts than even the wealthiest Renaissance dukes could hope for. In our access to information, instruction, and insights, anyone with a smartphone is wealthy beyond the imagining of our great-grandparents.
Virtual Riches
Barons and baronesses of the past invited poets, novelists, actors, and musicians to their mansions to entertain them and their guests. But today we have access to impossibly large collections of music, games, books, films, even live sports, all from home, or on our phones. But instead of collecting actual media, we now just stream it online. While kings hired storytellers, and queens patronized playwrights, we snuggle up at home and watch TV series or feature films, read, or play games. This convenient access by millions to vast arrays of talent, history, knowledge, and instruction has no equal in history.
Few dedicate whole rooms to housing their libraries anymore. Instead we seek room to hang our huge television screens. We install charging stations for the many electronic devices that let us communicate, learn, play games, or entertain ourselves. Libraries were once an excuse to show off one’s erudition, taste, and wealth. Today, we celebrate functionality, comfort, and freedom of access to all that entices, entertains, or elevates us. And that’s real luxury.
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The Roman Pool at Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California | For Wikimedia Commons by Nishithdesai (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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