Getting physical at the in-home gym

At the end of the day, many of those who wish to get their minds and bodies in shape are faced with a choice—dig deep and head to the gym or succumb to weariness, call it a day and head straight to the comfort of home.

But what if there was a way to do both?

Over the past 10 years, rooms devoted to health and fitness have emerged as must-haves in luxury homes throughout the East End, according to real estate expert Enzo Morabito, an executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman. In fact, in-home gyms and workout spaces have become increasingly common necessities in homes with higher price points.

“It’s almost impossible to sell a big house if it doesn’t have the capacity for a gym,” Mr. Morabito said during a recent interview.

Most of the multimillion-dollar homes his firm has on the market right now, including ones in Water Mill, Bridgehampton, Montauk and Westhampton Beach, have rooms designated as workout spaces. Buyers usually look for home gyms that are accessible from the rest of the house and easily available to guests, said Mr. Morabito.

“People are coming out here to enjoy the good life, and I think that’s part of the whole package that people buy into, that when they’re out here they’re not going to join a gym,” he said.

But it’s not just the super wealthy who are interested in finding ways to parlay parts of their homes into fitness studios.

Donna Pierro, a personal trainer who lives on a cul-de-sac in Flanders, transformed a section of the basement of her two-story home into a mini workout center a few years ago. She trains clients there a few days a week when she’s not teaching classes at Aerial Fitness in Riverhead.

Ms. Pierro’s gym takes up a fairly small amount of space and is housed in a separate room that takes up less than half of her modest-sized basement. The space between the mirrored green-blue walls and black rubber floor is mostly empty as Ms. Pierro said she prefers small equipment that utilizes the user’s own body weight.

Her workouts are centered around dumbbells, medicine balls, a Pilates chair and Bosu balls. She said her favorite toys are a pair of TRX suspension training straps that hang from a beam above the drop ceiling. They’re used to hang and pull on from various positions, activating different parts of the body.

“I love it because you use all your muscles,” Ms. Pierro said. “Anyone can use this.”

The whole TRX unit goes for $190, and a door attachment is available for those who don’t have access to a beam. Ms. Pierro said she isn’t sure exactly how much it cost her to transform the room and collect all of the equipment that’s kept stacked in a corner near the back wall, but she estimates it’s in the thousands.

Candice Montemarano, the spa director at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk, transformed part of her basement into a home gym about a year ago. It’s more efficient and less distracting for her to work out at home rather than use the gym equipment at her job, she said.

“For me, it’s easier to get up and do my workout before I go to work,” Ms. Montemarano said. “Once here, at my position, everybody always bothers me.”

Ms. Montemarano worked as a personal trainer in Westchester County, where she sometimes helped clients set up gyms in their homes, before she moved into her Montauk home. Last year, she hired East Meadow-based Alure Home Improvements to finish her basement—a project that cost around $60,000, she said.

Part of that renovation included the creation of a combination gym/recreation room. Half of the room features a couch and a flat-screen television, and the rest is used for working out and yoga.

The company installed drop ceilings, wall panels with light gray upholstery and wood floors. The floor and the mirror-adorned wall panels are removable in case of flooding, which is a danger in parts of Montauk.

“I wanted to make sure that once I decorated it I didn’t have any damage,” Ms. Montemarano said of her decision to flood-proof the area.

It took until last September to get all of her workout equipment together, according to Ms. Montemarano. She estimated that she spent about $2,000 on a commercial-grade treadmill, adding that even though it was pricier than smaller models, it would save her money in the long run.

“They’re not worth the money because they eventually break down,” she said.

Ms. Montemarano said she spent another $1,500 on additional equipment—weights ranging from 5 to 35 pounds, a bench, weighted bars, balance equipment, yoga mats, medicine balls and stability balls—for a total of about $3,500, including the treadmill. She also has space left for stretching and yoga in her gym, which she said is about the size of a large bedroom.

The price of the gym equipment wasn’t a big deal, according to Ms. Montemarano, because she had some of it in storage already, she said, adding that the gym was part of a larger home renovation.

“I mean, I was going to decorate my basement anyway,” she said. “You can really finance your gym and have it not be a major expense.”

For other people looking to add in-home workout areas, Ms. Montemarano recommends getting a large universal piece of resistance equipment that can be used for multiple exercises, though she said she lacks one in her home gym because she doesn’t have the space for it. But, due to her job, Ms. Montemarano can always use the weighted equipment at work.

“I’m very lucky that I’m able to have both situations,” she said. “So I have the best of both worlds.”