Sunday, July 27, 2003
Model homes and furniture stores are grabbing hold of the fast-moving trend.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Julia Roberts is doing it. So are Kathy Najimy, Hank Azaria and Mike Myers.
Palm Beach designer Jack Fhillips calls it the "new version of high tea."
And trend forecaster Michelle Lamb sees it as a replacement for gourmet clubs.
Welcome to the games people play in the post-Sept. 11 world of the new nesting. Everyone from stars to plain folks are rediscovering the pleasures of interacting with friends while playing board games like Monopoly, Parcheesi and Trivial Pursuit. They're also finding new interest in card games, mah-jongg and backgammon.
Not only have newspapers and magazines taken notice of the phenomenon, so have designers and manufacturers. The game room is morphing into the new family room. And the game table is becoming the hot home furnishing du jour.
Elegant versions of game tables are showing up in upscale catalogs like Gumps by Mail and Horchow, often harbingers of new trends. Game tables also were ubiquitous at the April International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C. Almost every showroom had a game table or game-related accents, according to Eryn McGary, assistant editor of the trade magazine Accessory Merchandising. McGary wrote a story on the phenomenon for the June issue and the Web site, www.accessorymerchandising.com.
Post-Sept. 11 trend
"I think it is a sort of post-Sept. 11 phenomenon," she says. "All the reports say that Americans are staying at home more, entertaining at home more and looking for ways to entertain at home. You can't spend 24 hours a day looking at television."
Michelle Lamb, trend guru and publisher of The Trend Curve newsletter, says the game table's popularity can be attributed to a few factors -- nesting, the aging of baby boomers and the increased size of houses.
"Maybe the gourmet clubs were too much of a mess to clean up," she says, laughing. "There is also a trend toward less-strenuous leisure activities. Baby boomers went from tennis to golf to chess. People are staying home in droves, and even children are doing more sedentary activities. I view game tables as home theater's cousin. They are both about being entertained while you sit."
Designing game rooms
Nowhere is this new interest in gaming more evident than in designer show houses and model homes.
Palm Beach, Fla., designer Jennifer Garrigues, asked to do a playroom for the Red Cross Designers' Showhouse in April, did a game room instead. The room had no computer and no telephone. The focus was on crossword puzzles, board games, cards, chess and backgammon.
"This is the kind of place to go and have some peace and quiet," Garrigues says. "My whole point was not to have a television so that people could interact with each other, play games with each other, talk to each other, read a book or listen to music.
"If you put a television in a room, people turn it on and that's it. The flow of conversation stops. This is a place to get away from the batter of the news. If they want to play computer games, they can do it someplace else in the house."
Take a tour of model homes, and game tables are everywhere. Designers are using game tables to fill awkward spaces on second-floor landings, or they are dedicating whole rooms to everything from billiards to card playing.
"People are spending more time at home and looking for more options," says Michelle Resch, owner of The Interiors Group. "Many of these homes have so many rooms, and people are looking for ways to use them. It's a way for a family to have fun and share more time together at home."
Post-Sept. 11 surveys are backing up those feelings. Jackie Hirshhault, vice president of the American Furniture Manufacturers Association, says a recent survey concluded that consumers view the world outside their homes as more frightening than inviting. The study, which involved focus groups and at-home interviews with consumers in February and March, was done for AFMA by the Michael Cohen Group of New York.
Game tables started popping up about a year ago at the furniture market, she says, noting that they fit in perfectly with the idea of people spending more time at home.
Big market items
The tables can be found in a variety of prices, from Chris Casson Madden's Monte Carlo table for Bassett ($459 retail) to Burton-Ching's George III-style octagon-shaped mahogany game table with green or brown leather inserts ($7,950).
Madden's game table, introduced at the October 2002 market, is made of selected hardwoods. It has two drawers and a painted game board and cards on top. It comes with a folding side chair ($229) with hand-painted detail in the top chair rail.
Fhillips, who is known for creating the Palm Beach old-money look, describes the Burton-Ching tables as the "Aston Martin of game tables." Burton-Ching, a San Francisco company with a reputation for creating reproductions with the same techniques as the originals, uses a hand-rubbed finish designed to look like the patina had aged naturally for 100 years.
"People come in looking for these game tables," says Bruce Chavannes, showroom manager for Southard Associates in the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach, Fla. "Burton-Ching craftsmen are really exceptional. They are purists, making the furniture in mahogany or walnut, not veneers. People who know take out the drawers and see they are done with dovetail joints, and the bottoms of the drawers are made with good wood, not plywood."
Shoppers can find game tables with reversible chess/backgammon boards or with plain tops and built-in coasters. Some will fold up to the size of a sofa table to save space in small condos.
"Games tables are big," Fhillips says. "My Lord, I never thought I'd live to see the day when mah-jongg became a daily word. It is amazing. Ten years ago, I never would have dreamed of people saying they had to have a game table in the living room."
Let the games begin.