- Alan Breslauer launched Custom Catios in 2017 after building his first cat enclosure in the early 2000s.
- Most catios cost Breslauer's clients between $5,000 and $15,000, but a few cost over $70,000.
Ever heard of a catio? Don't be purr-plexed. It's a patio for your feline friend, and it might just become the next cool amenity for your home.
As of now, there's only about 50 builders in the world who specialize in the indoor-outdoor enclosures. Alan Breslauer, owner of Southern California-based Custom Catios, is one of them.
The 53 year old got his unofficial start in the biz about 17 years ago, when his two bickering kittens couldn't share space in his Los Angeles high-rise apartment. Looking for a solution, he found an article about catios, installed one in his home, and finally had some peace.
Today, Breslauer has three cats — they're named Santos Six Toes, Herbie the Love Bug, and Trey — and is the go-to guy on the West Coast for custom cat enclosures. It's an identity he has leaned into whole-heartedly, with the handle @CatioGuy on Instagram, where he's snapped up 158,000 devoted followers. Since launching in 2017, Breslauer's company has built about 400 enclosures, with most clients paying between $5,000 and $15,000, but some doling out as much as $70,000 or more, he said.
And why wouldn't a spendy, doting cat owner pay up?
"It's like keeping a sports car in the garage," Breslauer told Business Insider. "Cats have all this amazing equipment, and we don't let them use it."
Custom Catios is the cat's meow in terms of quality and pricing, Breslauer noted. There are more budget-friendly options out there, like DIY pamphlets or prefab catios that you can buy off of Amazon or Wayfair — but those are essentially fancy cages, he said.
When catios have all the bells and whistles, Breslauer calls it 'Cat Disneyland'
Breslauer estimates that 75% of his clientele fall in that $5,000 to $15,000 range for each build.
For the builds upwards of $15,000, the catio is more intricate and requires some creativity from Breslauer, but he loves the challenge.
"When we put everything in there, like climbing poles, hiding boxes, cat ladders, cat steps, spiral staircases, floating steps, loft ladders, we call that 'Cat Disneyland,'" he said. "We're custom and we really do anything that's different or unique — we jump at that opportunity. We want to do fun things." The more extravagant the catio, the more likes it gets on social media, Breslauer added.
Some clients try to push the envelope as much as they can. A Las Vegas client asked Breslauer to build a catio from their house down a 120-foot run in the backyard, with an enclosed walkway behind the pool and against the grotto so the owners could enjoy their cat's company while in the hot tub.
"It got too hard and we ended up doing it a little bit short of the grotto," Breslauer said. "That was probably the craziest request."
Breslauer doesn't often work with homebuilders to add catios directly into the blueprints, but he said there's value in them once your home hits the markets.
"I can't speak to every house in every situation, but I have a lot of clients where they sold their house and moved into a new house in LA and so we built them another catio," he said. "Uniformly, they all say that their winning bid for their previous house were cat owners and they got higher bids because they loved the catio."