The seduction is completed in the luxury bath of the master bedroom. Red votive candles ring the rim of the whirlpool tub, interrupted only by a bottle of Don Perignon and two fancy flutes. The wicks are charred, the candles molten, the bottle and flutes empty. On the floor near the tub is a single towel ….
Wondering who has been seduced?
It`s you.
You`re standing in a lavish master bedroom suite in an upscale model home. And you have been vamped visually by a builder whose models are chock full of sensory stimulation designed to whet the interest and imagination of potential buyers.
Traditionally, builders have relied on their models as showpieces for the development. But as competition among builders stiffens, the showpieces are getting more showy and the reliance is turning more into a science as builders incorporate advanced marketing and psychological principles into the interior designs of their models.
Representing the tip of the iceberg are such ploys as mirrored walls and ceilings to make a small room or space appear larger, and the old champagne-in-the-bathroom trick to suggest that someone really does live here, and in enviable style, are but two of the most obvious examples of sensory stroking. The list goes on and gets more sophisticated:
– Vertical striped wallpaper, especially the thin pin-striped variety, and low-hung pictures make walls appear taller than they are, giving the room a sense of added volume.
– Moldings and fireplaces counteract the expanses of wall created by volume ceilings, which are extremely popular, and break up the vertical space to make walls more manageable visually.
– Light carpeting and walls and lighter wood furniture-pine and oak instead of mahogany and cherry-establish an airy feeling. Generally, every light is turned on, many times even closet and stove lights. Then there are the stubby can lights many designers tuck behind potted plants to create a bit of fake sunshine.
– Often, color schemes are devised so that people are drawn subliminally from one room to the next, the way the builder wants them to see the house.
Is this trickery?
”We are hired to add personality, livability to the home,” said Shelly Barrad, of Shelly Barrad Designs Inc., Chicago, who has won industry awards for her work in models.
”I don`t think this is trickery. We`re letting people feel: `Yes, I can live here.` ”
Barrad maintains that ”the whole gist of design” is to give consumers ideas-and to sell homes.
”Decorated models have been proved to sell better than undecorated models,” Barrad said.
”That`s because not all people can visualize space. We are basically creating a stage, a theatrical setting. We are not trying to camouflage the actual design of the house. But good designers can enhance or improve architecturally weak areas.”
Designers can control the traffic pattern through models by placing furniture far enough apart so that visitors can walk freely along certain routes.
”The use of color also affects how people walk through a house; they tend to walk toward things that are interesting,” she said.
According to Barrad, interior designers do more than interiors and also get into the act early.
”We are given the blueprints before the final approval of a model`s plans. We may give advice on the exterior look, including door and window placement, and the type of siding and roof.
”In a row of four or five models we`re concerned about the total curb appeal. The exterior color scheme must vary from unit to unit. And inside, the last model in the row should create a light, happy tone so visitors leave in an up mood.”
Builders view models from a broad perspective.
”We merchandise our models as opposed to decorate them,” said David Leibson, director of advertising and merchandising for Lexington Homes, the largest builder in the Chicago area.
The distinction is clear. Decoration is surface beauty. Merchandising delves into the psyche of would-be buyers.
Like many builders, Lexington does considerable market research to determine how its models should be merchandised.
According to William Maybrook, Lexington`s executive vice president of sales and marketing, designers are handed a script for each model they are hired to decorate. The script is based on a buyer profile, but the profile goes far beyond a generic label such as ”young married couple with a baby on the way.”
Instead, it gets specific and personal. Imaginary people with actual lives are created to fit the profile and fill the script. They are given names, occupations, incomes, ages, backgrounds and hobbies. It is up to the designer to turn the script into a design plan that would appeal to this buyer.
For instance, for a three-bedroom, split-level model priced at about $115,000, Lexington created a script that included Ron and Kathy. Both are in their late 20s, and they are expecting their first child. Ron is a policeman and enjoys hunting. Kathy is a bookkeeper for a small accounting firm and likes to sew. Their taste in home furnishings is an upbeat country look.
With that script in mind, designer Beverly Trupp, president, Color Design Art, a California-based design firm that does many of the Lexington models, turned the modest model into a fresh country abode.
She chose a rich red and green color scheme, married it with light wood furniture and hung outdoorsy art on the wall. She turned the second bedroom into a nursery, complete with a doll asleep in a crib and a rocking chair holding a stuffed bear. The third bedroom doubles as a sewing room/guest bedroom and includes a versatile daybed that sits by day and sleeps by night. Clearly, it is a custom home decorated for the Ron and Kathys of the marketplace.
Hoffman Homes is another builder that believes in the power of interior design.
”Our job is to make a house a home,” said Norman Hassinger, chairman of the Hassinger Companies, the parent group, about the decoration that goes into them.
For a series of its townhouses, the target market was determined to be single professional people and young married couples. Chicago designer Jane Gault, of Gault Associates, planned upbeat interiors with trendy peach, white and gray color schemes-contemporary colors that typically appeal to this buyer.
But in the same development, for the single-family houses in the targeted to empty-nesters and over-50s buyers, Gault took a different tack.
Reasoning that such a buyer probably has lived in a home with dark colors and heavy wood furniture for years, she lightened and brightened these models to stir excitement. But she kept in mind the reality of the psyche of this buyer, the fact that doubtless they are conservative and attached emotionally to their former homes.
So Gault choose a safe but lighter and brighter off-white color scheme for walls and floors. She then filled in with a mix of traditional dark wood furniture, representing favorite pieces from the family home, and contemporary pieces, perhaps bought specifically for the new home.
In essence, through the interior design, the designer, and hence the builder, showed the target market that these homes indeed are sympathetic to their special needs.
”It`s 90 percent psychology, 10 percent design,” said Anita Zurawski, president of Fox Kennedy, a Chicago-based interior design firm. Having done extensive work in model homes, Zurawski admits that there is nothing haphazard about the design process.
Designers often create a lived-in look in models. Sometimes it is subtle and subliminal: ashes sprinkled in the fireplace, closet doors pinched open, the aroma of cinnamon potpourri that greets consumers when they walk in the door.
Other times it is blatant and obvious: the lone scarlet towel on the bathroom floor, Clorox bleach left on the washer, a shopping list hanging from the refrigerator door. Whatever form it takes, the lived-in look is designed to involve people in the home and make them not only see walls, floors and rooms but also ”feel” the charm of the home.
Besides filling models with personality, designers believe it is their job to show people how rooms and spaces can be put to creative use, thus establishing the versatility of the home.
Creating convertible rooms is a favorite technique, showing an extra bedroom as an office, a sewing room turned into a nursery, loft space made into an open-ended reading nook.
Showing practicality is another technique. Chicago designer Nancy Sublette, of Sublette Design Group, takes the all-important television set seriously and its incorporation into the design plan both practical and essential. She works the electronic must into the design scheme even in homes or apartments that do not have a separate family room.
”We give storage ideas,” Sublette said. ”We show consumers where in a room they can watch TV … and try to prove you can still have a nice looking room” with a television set in it.
Chicago designer Michael Moore was far less concerned about making practical or livable the bedroom he designed for one of the showcase houses at Wynstone, the Jack Nicklaus development in North Barrington.
For that matter, Moore wasn`t concerned whether people even liked it. His goal was simply to startle the consumer and to make the room memorable. Thus, another tactic that designers like to use in models: the shock treatment.
”I did it to get a reaction from the public,” Moore said. ”It was a love/hate thing.” People either loved it or hated it.
Moore named this fantasy bedroom the ”Egyptian Queen`s Retreat.” The room was shaped like a pyramid with 19-foot ceilings and included a bed draped in 76 yards of fabric. The room cost $35,000; the house sold for $2.3 million. Only developers of ultraexpensive homes would show models dripping with such extravagance, but other builders are showing their financial commitment to well-groomed models as well.
According to Maybrook, Lexington spends between $30,000 and $60,000 on the interior design of each models.
For Hoffman Homes, Hassinger estimates the figure at $35,000 to $40,000.
