London-based interior designer Kamini Ezralow had just put the finishing touches on a 7,500 squarefoot triplex apartment in Mayfair that was being kitted out as a show home. As one of six units in an exclusive new development designed for ambassadors, tycoons and other assorted dignitaries, the home was fully furnished to give prospective buyers an idea of how the spaces could ultimately look.
Twenty minutes before the official launch party, James Packer - son of the late media baron Kerry Packer - walked in. He wanted the flat - with everything in it, down to the last cushion - and paid GBP12.5 million (about HK$180 million at the time) - GBP2.5 million more than a slightly smaller but completely empty flat in the same development. Two days later, another buyer offered GBP17 million for the same space. (Packer did not sell until some years later.)
This was in 2006, when show flats - also called model homes, or spec homes - were gaining new prominence in the world of residential interior design. Traditionally, the norm has been to equip a flat or house in generic and often unimaginative ways, the primary purpose being to give a sense of where the furniture might go.
Beyond that, however, show flats also had a bit of a dubious reputation, with cases reported of developers using misleading show homes - raising ceilings and removing structural walls to make the spaces look bigger than the actual units.
But in recent years, these show homes - both in the West and Asia - have come into their own as self-contained entities, conveying sophistication and highbrow taste; in short, the kind of design the new buyer would opt for anyway.
As a result of the new focus put on show homes, designers and developers say a growing number of people are buying them outright.