NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- This month, a home d?cor title and a premium cable channel make for the unlikeliest of bedfellows this side of Times Square and a trailer-cum-restaurant as the two shack up in Manhattan's Gramercy Park for a unique marketing partnership.
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Dining With 'Dexter' and Bedding Down With the 'L Word'
Showtime Teams With Metropolitan Home to Redo N.Y. Mansion
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An artist's rendering for a 'Dexter'-inspired dining room.
Metropolitan Home magazine and Showtime Networks are collaborating to create a "showhome" featuring the network's programs as interpreted by some of the country's top interior designers and brands. Each designer is using Showtime's slate of original prime-time programming -- including "Dexter," "Californication" and "The L-Word" -- as inspiration to redesign telecom mogul Michael Hirtenstein's Gramercy Park home. (Think an "L-Word" boudoir or white latex walls with blood-red splatter for a "Dexter"-inspired dining room.)
Greek revival meets 'Dexter'
The $20 million, 8,800-square-foot Greek revival town house will be transformed into a mash-up of high design and cable TV by seven designers, including Vicente Wolf, Jamie Drake, White Webb (Matthew White and Frank Webb) and Amy Lau. Each designer will work with a single room and use a different Showtime series for inspiration.
"Metropolitan Home's consistent focus on smart, high-end, modern design and a desire to break out of the ordinary has allowed us to partner with a great company like Showtime Networks and take the 'showhome' concept to a whole new level," said Metropolitan Home VP-Publisher Deborah Burns. "Metropolitan Home's Showtime House is a unique multimedia integration that we've never seen before, and we are very excited about the unique cross-promotional opportunities available to both Metropolitan Home and Showtime."
The $20 million, 8,800-square-foot Greek revival townhouse will be transformed into a mash-up of high design and cable TV.
"It just makes a lot of sense," said Showtime's Len Fogge, exec VP-creative marketing and digital media, of the teaming, which began in February. Metropolitan Home's readers, he said, "are the kind of audience we're going after. It's a perfect connection of readership and viewership."
Benefit for children's charity
The house will be open to the public for tours from Sept. 13 to Oct. 26. Proceeds from the $25 entrance fee will benefit Happy Hearts Fund, a nonprofit children's charity founded by model Petra Nemcova.
A Sept. 9 opening event will feature the magazine's editors, showhome designers and celebrities. The house will serve as a showcase for more than two dozen sponsors, including Time Warner Cable, Benjamin Moore and LG.
