Trekkies may live for Star Trek, but Tony Alleyne lives inside the fictional space-age world. A science fiction fan since he was a boy, when he grew up Alleyne transformed his suburban British apartment into a meticulous recreation of the starship Enterprise.
Alleyne’s interior design odyssey began when he fell into a depression following a divorce. A friend tried to console him by loaning him a copy of Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, which documents nerdy construction details of the USS Enterprise-D. The more Alleyne read, the more he liked.
“I fell in love with the manual, and finally decided to
have a go at building the transporter console,” he says.
For Alleyne, who had long worked as a club DJ, the project became a practical journey of self-discovery.
But the distraction that was to transport Alleyne out of his breakup misery took off at warp speed into an all-consuming obsession. After completing a full-scale model of the transporter room, he transformed the bathroom, the hallways, even the kitchen of his condo, and worked on the remodel day and night, seven days a week.
To keep his starship running, he needed money. Eight years and $300,000 in debt later, he was all out, and declared bankruptcy. Word of his Trekified masterpiece spread on the internet. Tabloids, TV, film crews, and fame followed — but paying work doing Star Trek remods did not.
He tried to sell the apartment on eBay for a price he knew was high: $2 million. Nobody bought it, but he’s hoping to cash in on newfound fame with a recently completed remodel that updates the apartment to more closely resemble the Star Trek: Voyager period.
Doors are rounded like portals; windows are blocked with thick black Plexiglas, to enhance the illusion you’re hurtling through space.
Alleyne plans to auction the apartment again, at a more modest price, and he’s launched a science fiction interior design firm called 24th Century Interior Design. For a fee, he’ll transport himself to your house and transform it into your own private spaceship. —Xeni Jardin
>>Star Trek Condo: 24thcid.com
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