KBTV

KBTV::The Heavenly Bed

It all began this time last year. I had just obtained what I thought was a rock-solid signed letter of intent. It was nestled in my fax machine, detailing the specs for a writing job — a ghostwriting job, a very lucrative ghostwriting job — and I felt really rich. But don’t worry, it didn’t last long.

Anyway, I decided to go to City Furniture in Boca and see my friend Hal. After flopping on several beds in the showroom — bouncing up and down, celebrating my good tidings — then mimicking sleeping and lots and lots of smiling, I somehow settled on a $3,100 mattress.

What was I thinking?

I threw down my credit card, promptly maxing it out, and left with the promise that the heavenly mattress would be delivered the next day. It was. And two days after that, the negotiation on the book contract fell apart. The letter of intent became just another page at the bottom of my shredder, and now I was stuck with a mattress that cost more than my annual health insurance and a maxed-out Capital One card.

Little did I know that I was, yet again, at the forefront of a trend — the luxury mattress trend. The problem was here I was, night after night, sleeping on a mattress that more or less guaranteed a great night’s sleep, but I couldn’t sleep because of the anxiety over the maxed-out Capital One card.

Camera pan forward to last week. I open up the New York Times and there it was in the House and Home section — a whole article, a very good one I might add, on the new trend of the mega-mattress. My favorite part of the piece cites the craze over Ambien, the boomers’ last deep love, and the fact that it was derailed by a flurry of bad press about its potentially bizarre side effects, including sleep-eating and sleep-driving (a state that Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, may have experienced late one night in Washington last year).

Today, the Times writer cheerfully states: the mattress industry is cheerfully hurling itself into the breach, marketing mattresses to cure every ill, claiming even to put the brakes on time itself.

There not even called mattresses anymore. The Swedish company Hollandia turns out to be a maker of adjustable “sleeps systems,” priced from about $15,000 to $50,000, that look and feel like nothing so much as high-end hospital beds. With their German motors and 12 massage programs, they acknowledge that a body ruined by stress can be only soothed, not remade. Its marketers also claim its beds cure snoring.

Six years ago, barely 2 percent of the mattresses sold cost more than $2,000, according to the International Sleep Products Association, a trade group for the industry, which had $6.7 billion in sales last year. By 2006, about 5 percent of purchases had crossed the $2,000 line.

Let’s take a look at some of the top choices:

• Casa Poggesi has been offering the $24,000 Magniflex Gold for a month and a half. The company has sold 53 Gold mattresses to individuals in Russia and one to a hotel in Dubai. Its cost, he said, is largely a result of the fact that its cover is woven with 22-karat gold thread — apparently “gold is a natural antimicrobial,” as well as a barrier against dust mites and bedbugs. The Mag Gold also has a cashmere under layer.

• The Tempur-Pedic Grand Bed markets four layers, 14 inches, of high density “Tempur” material — then more and more layers of Tempur all encased in a high-resiliency base with a blended silk and an allergen-resistant cover.

• The Holandia Gravity Zero Ultra runs between $15,000 and $20,000. It’s the mattress described above with the 12 German motors and two ergonomic remote controls. The marketing department even managed to include an eco-friendly vibe. It’s topped off with an array of coconut fibers and an aloe vera-treated cover.

Now for the piece de resistance. The Hastens Vividus mattress offers up a “sleep system” described as an exquisite cake — a layer cake, to be exact —layers of oak, flax, cotton, steel coils and hand-teased horse hair. All this for a mere $59,750. And what really separates the Hastens Vividus from the rest (apart from the price)? Once a month you the customer will receive a phone call reminding you to “flip and massage” your precious mattress.

Ah! It doesn’t get any better than that!

posted by katebohner @ 11:28 AM