Real-estate fever has captivated more than buyers, sellers, builders and brokers. Some titles within the sprawling “shelter” magazine category – publications that revolve around homes and what to put inside them – also have taken off during the past few years.
Probably the biggest editorial recipient of the zeitgeist is the magazine Dwell, which celebrated its five-year anniversary with its October-November issue. At 264 pages, the issue is the magazine’s largest ever.
The serious business of design
Dwell launched with an emphasis on contemporary design and thoughtful, sometimes academic, articles, and it stood out for its seriousness. Five years later, the title has maintained its sober approach, and thrived.
“I really think 2003 was our defining year, that was when I could feel the traction. We had taken hold,” says Michela O’Connor Abrams, publisher and president of the magazine. “In 2004, we very handsomely built on that, we had a 60 increase in revenue. And then 2005 I would call the tipping point. There isn’t a place I go where if I’m holding a Dwell or talking to somebody, they say ‘Oh, do you get Dwell?”‘
375 “shelter” magazines
Last year, Metropolitan Home published six issues a year. Now, it’s up to 10. Elle Decor went from eight to 10 issues during the past year. The latest issue of Veranda is its largest ever, at 312 pages.
“It was responding to the times; it wasn’t planned years ago,” says
Metropolitan Home editor Donna Warner. The magazine started as Apartment Life in the early 1970s,
and changed its name to Metropolitan Home in 1981. “We’ve always talked about going up in frequency,” she
says. “I’m just thrilled to have those pages.”
Abrams says there are about 375 shelter magazines, if you include regional publications. The category has grown fast during the past few years.
“There are a lot of Johnny-come-
latelies,” says Anne Triece, publisher of Metropolitan Home. “You have new magazines coming into it every day, because they think there is gold in them thar hills.”
Abrams, who was the publisher of Business 2.0 magazine during the dot- com boom, says the blossoming of so many shelter magazines can be compared to the sudden launching of dozens of technology publications at the turn of the past century. And just as the bursting of the Internet bubble killed many of the new technology publications, Abrams says that
magazine folding in the shelter
category is inevitable. Still, the shelter-magazine market is much different from those that sprouted from dot-coms.
Housing doesn’t ensure a boom
During the Internet boom, “everything was new – nobody really understood what was happening,” says Steven Grune, publisher of Country Living, the largest shelter magazine in the country. “With the shelter category, most of the core competitors have been in existence.”
And the 21st-century’s moneymaking boom, real estate, hasn’t led every publisher to advertising riches.
“There are a lot of people
buying houses because of the low interest rates, but not necessarily decorating them to the extent that we would like to see,” says House Beautiful editor Mark Mayfield. “It doesn’t necessarily directly correlate to the design magazines, in terms of this housing boom.”
Staff writer Douglas Brown can be reached at 303-820-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com.
