A Luxury Dog House With A Mortgage

Darla, Chelsea and Coco Puff share a quaint Victorian-style home.
Their dwelling has a cedar-shake roof, vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors, heating and air conditioning, moldings and casement windows, drapery with valances and fanciful wallpapers.
At this time of year, Christmas music from the RCA Victor radio carries outside to a grassy yard surrounded by a white picket fence.

A sign on the porch reads: "Three spoiled dogs live here."
For Yorkshire terriers Chelsea and Coco Puff and Pomeranian Darla, Mom is Tammy Kassis, 45, a former insurance agent who lives in the Riverside County community of Winchester, east of Los Angeles. To call her an animal lover is an understatement.

"I'm beyond that," she says, later adding with conviction, "My dogs are my life."

Surfing the Internet, she happened upon Alan Mowrer's La Petite Maison, a builder of deluxe custom doghouses.

"I can do any style," says Mowrer, whose repertoire includes French châteaux, Tudor mansions, Swiss chalets and brick Colonial dog houses.

Kassis requested a replica of her own Victorian home. 8 foot by 11 foot.

Kassis guesstimates she has invested nearly $20,000 in construction, transport and equipment if she includes the painting, landscaping, screened doors and windows, mini-blinds and ceiling fans, as well as a yard with artificial turf.

For the holidays, Kassis plans to string white lights around the house and install an artificial tree. Large faux lollipops are staked in the flower bed around the doghouse.

Also, she confides, Santa is planning a big surprise for "the kids."
She has her eye on a small plasma-screen TV.

"They love to watch Animal Planet," Kassis says. "It's their favorite."

From the Los Angeles Times