Star Trek Enterprise-themed theater. Photo by Andy Frame.
Entrepreneur Marc Bell was a tender 10 years old when he became captivated by Star Trek during a 24-hour T.V. marathon.
He had been banished to a cot in a hotel conference room because there were no vacancies at a hotel where his father had a speaking engagement. But the room had a big-screen T.V. _ a novelty in 1976, and he stayed up all night watching the breakthrough sci-fi series.
A Trekkie was born.
“By the time my parents found me the next day, I was addicted,” Bell said this week, from his palatial two-lot estate in Boca Raton’s Woodfield Country Club.
Fast forward a few decades and Bell is a multi-millionaire businessman and Tony Award-winning producer so shaken by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that e left his native New York for Boca Raton.
Theater room at 3682 NW 52nd Street, Boca Raton. Photo by Andy Frame
That’s where he started designing his Star Trek Next Generation-themed home theater. The design became a blogosphere star recently after he put his 27,000-square-foot home on the market for $35 million.
“We literally started designing the theater before we started designing the house,” said Bell, 46. “I wanted to build a really cool theater, and I wanted it to be perfect.”
Bell worked with Jay Miller, president of Boca Raton-based Accoustic Innovations, on the design. It was a four-year project.
Q. Why use the Next Generation as a muse, rather than the original series?
Bell: The Next Generation, from a special effects point of view, is fabulous. It really had the nicest bridge. The original show had so many things that impacted society, and was a lot about storyline. They had so many firsts. The first communicator. The first interracial kiss.
Q. How often do you actually watch movies in there?
Bell: We watch a movie two or three times a week. We're big movie buffs. The kids get enjoyment out of it too. All the chairs turn into beds and so they can go and camp out.
Q. What other Trekkie things do you have?
Bell: I actually own a lot of the original models from the T.V. shows. A lot of the spaceships that you see, I own, and we've been restoring them one by one. I have a multi-year project where people fly in who are experts on this stuff and we take them apart and clean them up and put them back together. It's very cool.
Call of Duty game room. Photo by Andy Frame.
Q. You also have a room modeled after the video game Call of Duty. What's up with that?
Bell: My boys are addicted to Call of Duty. We actually bought military bunk beds and put them in there. It's like a MASH camp.
Q. Do you play?
Bell: I play because it's the only way to communicate with the kids!
Q. You also have a room with vintage video games.
Bell: I always wanted to own a bar so we built a 7,000-square-foot structure with 3,000 bottles of liquor. I collect and restore antique video games _ Tempest, Pac Man, Space Invaders. Now it's like my own little arcade museum. We named the bar Bar Bell. We say, 'Bar Bell will be open tonight from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.' and, literally, 350 people show up."
Q. What do your neighbors think of that?
Bell: They're all invited. We have our own valet parking.
3682 NW 52nd Street. Photo by Andy Frame.
Q. Why sell a home that you worked so hard to customize?
Bell: I want to build another house. It will still have a very cool theater, something probably with some kind of Star Trek theme. The technology keeps changing, so we can do a lot more things.
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