By MultiGen Living Group · 6 min read · Florida · Buyer’s Guide

What Is a Casita?

Q: Does a casita have a kitchen?

Usually not. Most casitas include a wet bar at most: a sink, a counter, and sometimes a bar fridge, but no oven or cooktop. Without a place to cook, a casita functions as a guest room rather than an independent living space.

Quick answer: A casita is a detached or semi-detached guest room — usually a bedroom, a private bath, and a walk-in closet, often opening onto a courtyard or pool. In Florida new construction, “casita” and “cabana” are used interchangeably. What a casita almost never includes is a kitchen — and that single detail is the difference between a guest room and a space where a parent can actually run their own household.

The Spanish word on the brochure tells you nothing reliable about whether anyone can truly live there independently.

If you have toured Florida new construction, you have almost certainly seen the word “casita” on a brochure or a model-home sign. It sounds like a small house — a place where a parent or adult child could live with some independence. Sometimes that is true. Often it is not.

The trouble is that “casita” is a marketing word, not a building specification. Two homes can both advertise a casita and offer completely different things. One might be a true guest house; the other, a bedroom with a fancy name. The label tells you almost nothing about whether someone can actually live there.

This post explains what a casita usually is, why the wet bar that often comes with it is not a kitchen, and what three real Florida floor plans reveal — including one exception that genuinely could work for a multigenerational family.

Read the floor plan, not the label. The deciding detail is whether there is a place to cook — not what the brochure calls the room.

The term

“Casita” and “cabana” usually mean the same thing

Both are marketing words for a detached or semi-detached guest room — typically a bedroom, a private bath, and a walk-in closet, often positioned off a courtyard or pool. Some include a sitting area, so they technically have a “living space.”

On most Florida new-construction floor plans, the casita is an option you select inside the interactive floor-plan tool, which is why you won’t always spot it on the printed brochure. That also means two buyers of the “same” model can end up with very different homes depending on which options they chose.

The setting

Why luxury builders put the casita by the pool

On most luxury Florida new-construction plans, the casita isn’t tucked away as a private apartment — it’s positioned off the courtyard or pool as a polished guest retreat. That placement tells you who it’s really designed for: visitors who stay a weekend, not a parent settling in for good. It’s a beautiful spot to put up out-of-town family or friends for a few nights, with its own bath and a private entrance that lets everyone keep their own schedule.

Where it falls short is year-round, independent living. A poolside cabana-casita is built around comfort and privacy for a short stay, not the kitchen, storage, and laundry someone needs to actually run their own household over the long term. For many multigenerational families touring these homes, that’s the gap worth catching early — the casita they fell for at the model is a wonderful guest space, just not the self-contained suite a live-in parent will need.

The catch

The wet bar is not a kitchen

You’ll frequently see a wet bar instead of a kitchen — a sink and a counter, maybe a bar fridge — which photographs like a kitchenette but isn’t one.

A space with a bath, a sitting room, and a wet bar but nowhere to cook is a lovely spot for a weekend guest. It is not a setup where a parent can run their own household. If independent living matters to your family, look for the oven and cooktop, not the label.

Three Florida examples

What a casita actually looks like

Medallion Home Santa Maria 2 casita floor plan, Sarasota

Sarasota · Medallion Home

Santa Maria 2 — Hampton Lakes

A luxury single-story where the casita is an interactive floor-plan option: a private suite with its own bath, set apart from the main living space. Like most casitas, it’s built for a guest — not for someone cooking their own meals.

Toll Brothers Cape casita floor plan, Boca Raton

South Florida · Toll Brothers

Cape — Meravita at Boca Raton

Add the casita option and you get a first-floor suite with a private bath — a polished, self-contained retreat for visitors. There’s a place to sleep and bathe, but no place to cook, which keeps it firmly in guest-room territory.

John Cannon Homes Bellara casita and media room floor plan, Lakewood Ranch

Lakewood Ranch · John Cannon Homes · The Exception

The Bellara — casita + bonus room

This builder labels it a casita too — but here the casita opens onto an attached bonus room that could serve as a living room, and the home’s main kitchen sits right next to it. That layout could genuinely work for many families, as long as sharing the main kitchen is no concern. It’s the exception that proves the rule: read the floor plan, not the label.

The bottom line

How to read a casita on a floor plan

Ignore the Spanish name and look at the appliances. A wet bar is not a kitchen. A true independent suite — the kind where a parent can run their own household — needs a place to cook. Finding the homes where the casita actually works that way is exactly what we do.

A note from the brokerage

Why the label trips families up

We specialize in multigenerational homes, which means we tour these floor plans constantly. The most common disappointment we see is a family who fell in love with a “casita” online, only to discover on the walkthrough that there is nowhere for their parent to cook.

When we help a family search, we read the floor plan for what it actually offers — not what the brochure calls it — so the home matches how everyone will really live.