Top of the Line if You’ve Got the Dime: How to Create the Ultimate Man Cave
Gentlemen, you can either come to the Hamptons to dabble in sunglasses and seashells or you can come to the Hamptons prepared. Yes, the weather is beautiful outside and you have a full social calendar booked, but we all know that sometimes a night free from obligations is best spent relaxing indoors within the sanctity of one’s own self-designed domicile. If your summer plans consist of hosting get-togethers or simply idling the afternoons away in the privacy of your home, you’ll want to stay abreast of the season’s top appliances. Here are five items to help transform any humdrum living space into a palatial man cave beyond compare.
1.) Kegerator: UBC KegMaster. Let’s start with what matters most. Sure, there are dozens of restaurants worthy of your patronage, and few things can beat a weekend bar deck overlooking the water, but when you’re hosting guests at home, bottles and cans can pile up and become cumbersome. A properly installed kegerator will turn your pad into a classy and intimate social venue. This stainless steel model fits quarter-barrel, half-barrel, one-sixth barrel and home brew kegs, hosts its CO2 tank right inside its refrigeration unit (though a line can be drawn through the back for a larger tank). It’ll run you about $1,200, but is less likely to fail than its competition, and frequent up-all-nighters will agree that it earns its keep though the time it saves one from waiting for service at a crowded bar alone.
2.) Cigar Humidor: Liebherr XS-200. Nothing beats capping off a warm summer night with a fresh cigar, but not all humidors are equally reliable. The XS-200 freestanding humidor has rightfully earned its reputation as the top of the line. It features a locking, insulated, UV-protected glass door, shelves made of solid Spanish cedar, LED lighting and touch temperature controls, and at 17” with 1.4 cubic feet of space, can store approximately 60 medium-sized cigars at your ideal temperature. A unit this refined will only set you back $2,600, so don’t let this great opportunity go up in smoke.
3.) Whirlpool: Kohler Riverbath. Kohler specializes in ergonomic enhancements to many bathroom appliances, such as lighted toilet seats and touch-sensitive faucets. Their diverse line of whirlpools features models like the Riverbath, a drop-in effervescent bathtub complete with (floating) remote controlled jet streams and adjustable heating utilities. Even better, it contains a chromatherapy LED lighting display, which can alternate water coloring between soothing blues, tantalizing reds, alarming yellows and horrifying browns. Before balking at its price point, which ranges from $8,700 to $16,000, consider your guests’ faces as they shift from pure bliss to absolute fear at your simple press of a button.
4.) Home Thermostat: Nest Learning Thermostat. The second generation of Nest’s Learning Thermostat offers a better approach to temperature regulation than any other competitor. It does this is by not relying on the user to remember to program it, but instead by learning its owner’s schedules and modulating temperatures accordingly. If you’re the sort to rush for the beach with your front door swinging behind you, rest assured that Nest takes this into account, forgives you, and will have the house set to your tastes upon your return once it’s figured out how long these late night trips usually last. It can also be programmed remotely from your smart phone, so you’ll not overrun your AC unit should you happen to take an unexpected detour. At $250 per unit, they may take to offset their costs in your heating bill, but given Google’s recent acquisition of Nest, it’s a safe assumption that this is just the start of what’s in store for computerized homes. Embrace it or ignore it, but it
5.) High-Definition Television: Sony KD-55X9005A. Ever sat in front of your television counting pixels, feeling cheated when it falls short of the quality you’d get from a movie theater? Well, calm down. At $6,000, Sony’s 65” set packs enough picture quality to put every television come before it to shame. One of the first “4K Ultra HD” format TVs available to consumers, this displays a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution (four times as detailed as that 1080p set you splurged on a few years ago). And it really is that much better. The clarity and depth of this upscaled display is beyond anything you’ve seen in a private home. It also features four HDMI inputs, three USB ports, Wi-Fi and a very powerful built-in sound system, which means you can transport and mount this thing anywhere you take it. 3D has television lost the race, it’s time to take off the glasses. Or hey, leave them on if you prefer to. It’s up to you to determine your own man cave’s set of rules.