How two primary bedrooms became a luxury necessity for better sleep for couples

More people are learning how to happily spend the rest of their lives with one person: by sleeping in separate rooms.

Couples are rethinking where they rest their heads, prioritising – when they can – having two primary bedrooms in their homes. They have plenty of reasons to ask architects and designers for separate sleeping quarters: to accommodate different schedules, snoring, menopause symptoms, jet lag and competing climate preferences, among them.

A lot of this push by wealthy home owners is driven by anxiety induced by the rise of wearable health trackers that generate data on how well a person slept, customers and designers say.

Christina Desser had high-end architecture firm Butler Armsden create a second primary bedroom for her and her husband’s home in Marin County, California. Connected through the primary bathroom, the adjoining bedroom allows one partner to quietly slip away at night to sleep without crossing the house. She nicknamed it “the snore room”.

Desser doesn’t always sleep apart from her husband, but she likes having the option, especially when he starts snoring, or his sleep tracker suggests his sleep has been suboptimal.

“As much as we love to be in bed together (with our two dogs), we seem to sleep better and more deeply in separate rooms. It’s always nice to know we can sleep in our own beds without compromising on our sleep environment,” she wrote in an e-mail.

This arrangement often isn’t driven by marital strain, say architects, designers and home owners.

“Once people experience sleeping properly, it becomes very difficult to romanticise exhaustion,” says Romanos Brihi, a London-based interior designer and co-founder of Studio Vero.

Brihi worked on a project for a couple in the upscale Chelsea neighbourhood that transformed a study next to the primary bedroom into a secondary sleeping room. He views this as similar to other individual spaces in modern homes, such as separate work areas or bathrooms.

“It feels increasingly outdated that sleep is still treated as something entirely uniform,” he says.

Roughly 31 per cent of adults in the US have opted for a “sleep divorce”, according to a 2025 survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, up from 29 per cent in 2024.

In New York, Brian Benko, owner of luxury mattress showroom Vispring NYC, says he’s seen an 18 per cent increase in couples buying multiple sleep systems for their own use in separate bedrooms over the past six years, based on what couples have told sales consultants.

London-based architect Robert Douge says his studio, Arya Douge, has received a marked increase in demand for separate sleeping quarters in the past 18 months.

Becky Fatemi, executive partner at UK Sotheby’s International Realty, has also noticed an uptick in demand in recent years.

“Uninterrupted sleep has become one of the ultimate luxuries,” she says. Among her clients are international couples navigating multiple time zones for work who often struggle to maintain compatible sleep schedules.

In London, Fatemi says she’s seen former reception rooms in period homes converted into expansive, distinct sleeping quarters with separate dressing rooms and bathrooms.

“I have genuinely had clients tell me separate suites are the reason their marriage has survived,” Fatemi says.

Xanet Pailet is an Asheville, North Carolina-based certified trauma practitioner and intimacy coach who sleeps in a bedroom separate from her partner. “We’ve been socialised that to be in a happy marriage, you have to be sleeping in the same bed,” she says. “I don’t think that’s actually true for many couples, especially as we get older.”

She converted a guest room in her house into a second bedroom for her partner after differences in sleep habits began affecting them both. He prefers a softer mattress and falling asleep to the television, and Pailet wants a firm bed and quiet. They upgraded the guest room with new furniture, a TV and decor tailored specifically to his preferences.

“It really made a difference in our relationship,” she says, adding that intimacy didn’t suffer at all as a result.

The idea of separate sleeping quarters may feel distinctly modern, but real estate experts note it was once the standard among wealthy householders.

“In Britain’s grand country houses, it was completely normal for husbands and wives to have their own suites of rooms,” says Lindsay Cuthill, co-founder of real estate agency Blue Book. He points out that Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip famously maintained separate bedrooms.

Developers creating luxury apartments in historic properties say their layouts feel unexpectedly contemporary. The latest project for Russell Smithers, co-founder of REDD Real Estate in London, is One Palace Green in Kensington. Built to be the city residence for 19th-century aristocrat George Howard, now it’s set to be split into six residences.

“One Palace Green was originally designed with separate sleeping quarters to create privacy and separation,” Smithers says. The newly designed apartments have guest suites that can easily double as second primary bedrooms.

Some couples do hesitate before coming out and asking for a full second primary bedroom.

Duan Tran, architect and partner at Los Angeles-based KAA Design Group, says requests for adjoining but distinct sleeping spaces reach him in subtle ways, often disguised as guest suites, prayer rooms or overflow bedrooms.

“Most folks are a bit sensitive to others judging their relationship habits,” Tran says. BLOOMBERG