A house, for all of its quirks and eccentricities, is essentially a place within which people undertake the multiple tasks and functions of everyday life. There’s a necessity to designing the spaces within a home, because rooms must serve multiple purposes—kitchens are used for cooking, storing food, and congregating; bedrooms are for sleeping and dressing; and bathrooms are for washing and other personal grooming activities. A pool house, on the other hand, is created for a single, hedonistic reason: the pursuit of pleasure.

“Pool houses have a different connotation than main residences,” explains principal E. B. Min of San Francisco–based architecture firm Min/Day. “They have their own lives and don’t have to be integrated into the flow of the main house.” Rather than including spaces for chores, pool houses provide places for romping and entertainment. Changing rooms, showers, and small kitchens are usually found in these outbuildings, while more licentious designs also have saunas, hot tubs, and bedrooms.

Though undoubtedly an unattainable accessory for many homeowners, in terms of both space and money, it’s easy to see why Min says of pool houses, “They’re luxuries, but very nice ones, if you can afford them.”