Donald Trump has been known to call himself the “biggest name in real estate,” but at the recent High Point Market – the world’s largest wholesale home-furnishings show – he may have been the biggest name in TV storage.
Trump made a brief appearance here to unveil two “Trump Home” furniture collections for Lexington Home Brands, inspired by some of his penthouses, estates and historic homes, including those in Westchester County, N.Y.
The furniture is intended for “aspirational” consumers who want a luxury lifestyle, and apparently one of the things these consumers aspire to is a large flat-screen plasma TV.
One of the pieces in the Westchester Collection is an entertainment console with a remote control that lifts the television in and out of the unit.
This is one way of addressing a growing domestic problem: At a time when large-screen TVs are encroaching on every room of the house, how do you display it (or, in Trump’s case, hide it) in a way that does justice to the rest of the furniture?
“Think about how much money people spend on their home entertainment products; this is equipment that deserves to have as good a piece of furniture to hold it as the equipment itself,” says Chris Plasman of Bolier & Co., which specializes in finely crafted furniture made with unusual woods and materials. Bolier’s answer to the problem was to design an elegant rosewood console with antiqued silver gilt accents that looks like it belongs in the dining room. Inside, though, are trays to store DVDs and CDs.
Hooker Furniture looked East, introducing a TV console with a red and black finish inspired by Asian antiques. And Vermont-based Copeland Furniture yielded to the inevitable appearance of the flat-screen TV in the bedroom: For an extra $300, the solid maple dresser in the Harbor Island collection comes with a “TV organizer,” which supports a TV screen and holds a cable box and DVD player.
