5 Secrets of Chateau Dubrow Revealed

As viewers, we were taken along on the magic construction ride with Heather Dubrow and her husband, Terry, from the moment they first dreamed up Chateau Dubrow right up until the two stopped filming with The Real Housewives of Orange County — so to say we were left hanging would be an understatement! We saw the mega-mansion in its infancy and, let’s face it, since then we’ve had So. Many. Questions.

Like, how big does it REALLY feel inside? And can they hear each other yelling from the kitchen to a bedroom when the house is a sprawling 22,000 square feet? Oh, and what’s with those bells we saw on the House Tour? Luckily for us, the couple recently chatted with Home & Design, spilling lots of little secrets about their huge house.

1. The Kitchen Is Really Coco’s Gymnasium

 “It’s so big in the kitchen, family, living space that when we’re eating dinner, Coco can get up, take a break and do cartwheels or they do dance routines,” Terry told Home and Design, with Heather adding, “Yeah, Coco’s a black belt in tai kwon do and she’s got this huge target punching bag thing that you can punch and kick, and we put it in there and she just punches and kicks while we eat! There’s a lot of space.” Sounds like it, which leads us to our next question…

2. No Intercoms Here

How on earth do the Dubrow family members find each other when, say, Heather is in her closet and the kids are in the kitchen? Well, not surprisingly, they just rely on their phones. “In our last house we had an intercom system. We don’t even have an intercom here, we just text each other,” said Heather. “Coco will Facetime us if we’re downstairs and she’s in her room, she’ll Facetime us and be like, ‘Where are you guys?!””

3. The House Is So Big … You Can’t Hear Anything

You know what helps diffuse noise? A whole lot of square footage, filled with rooms, furniture, and other sound-absorbing features. According to Terry, he can’t hear anything! “What’s amazing is we had 17 kids over, a bunch of which were teenagers making a lot of noise, and I never once heard them,” he said, adding, “The house is that big!”

4. That Backyard Bell…

The Dubrows have a whole lot going on in their backyard, but the interactive standouts are the bar bell and the gong. What’s the backstory there? According to Heather, friends had told her about a bar they went to where you’d throw chip ice at a bell as a game, and she wanted to recreate that in her backyard (check out the whole family playing in the video above!). What’s cool, though, is that Heather had the bell engraved with the quote, “Everything you want right now.” She explained, “Glen Gellar who’s the former president of CBS and is now a producer, it was a sign on his wall when I first met him years ago and I always loved that, so I had it engraved on the bell!”

5. Inspired the Backyard Gong (As Did Their Religion!)

Because two bells are better than one, right? If you’ve watched the Chateau Dubrow tour then you know Heather and Terry have a humongous gong in their backyard. “And I thought a bell is cool, but you know what’s cooler? I think we need a gong,” Heather told us. “Well, we’re sort of Buddhist,” Terry chimed in. “We’re very Buddhist oriented and the gong is very Buddhist.”