Thursday, May 17, 2007

Star Trek fans are nerds, I mean dedicated

A Star Trek fan turned his U.K. home into a replica of a part of the starship Voyager, and has sold it for £425,000 (more than $840,000) -- five times its market value.

Tony Alleyne spent two years and more than $59,000 turning his studio apartment into a detailed copy of Capt. Janeway's bridge.

He put his home up for sale on eBay a month ago with a guide price of £50,000 to £130,000 ($99,000 to $257,400). It has sold for five times that amount after five Star Trek fans began a bidding war. In the end, a millionaire businessman won the auction.

Alleyne started work on the apartment two years ago after his marriage broke up. The apartment has molded wall panels, blue lighting and a reproduction of a transporter room.
In February Alleyne filed for bankruptcy after running up debts of more than $330,000. He spent more than $59,000 converting the apartment as well as almost $200,000 on marketing for his business, 24th Century Interior Designs.

Despite going bankrupt, he renovated the apartment using government income support payments.

Alleyne already was featured in Roger Nygard's "Trekkies 2" after SyFy Portal's very own Michael Hinman shared Alleyne's story with the director.

7 comments:

Octopunk said...

Well, that certainly trumps my plan of making my apartment into a replica of Corey Haim’s bedroom from Lost Boys. I was gonna get a Rob Lowe poster and everything.

Jordan said...

I want to see pictures of this, because, damn it, I think it's cool.

If I had mad money (like, Ross Perot money) I'd build replicas of so many sets...I'd build an Overlook Hotel interior and a Paramount Stage 9 and a Saturday Night Live stage. Then I'd rent them out.

JPX said...

I'd want to build the original bridge.

Jordan said...

Me too!

Okay, I looked at pictures and they're lame; the whole thing is lame. But I can't explain why without getting into my problems with the TNG aesthetics (purple neon etc.) and that's been done to death elsewhere.

Jordan said...

The Voyager sets are the best Trek sets of all; but this guy didn't build them; he just wallpapered his apartment with fullsize Voyager greeble. There's no architectural geometry (which is where those Bridge sets excel).

Jordan said...

I love that you can't build the 2001 XD-1 bridge set unless you can control gravity.

Damn, those sets are fine. Best spaceship interiors ever (second is Alien; third is Star Wars (mostly OT). On Television, Galactica's sets rule. TNG are the worst, but I can dig it once I get my Trek groove on.

JPX said...

I love the Blockade Runner interior. I love "MOTHER" from Alien.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...