The World's Most Expensive Bed

So you bought that fabulous multi-million dollar home of your dreams (perhaps maybe one like this?). The question now is how to decorate. Start with the bedroom — after all, many a rich and famous person on MTV Cribs has admitted, “it’s where the magic happens.” A one-of-a-kind house needs a one-of-a-kind bed…How about one worth £4 million (conversion: more than $6.4 million). British designer Stuart Hughes has just unveiled his latest ultra-high end and utterly exclusive foray into furniture: the Baldacchino Supreme. In a joint collaboration with Hebanon by Fratelli Basile Interiors of Nocera Superiore Italy, a team of master Italian furniture makers, the Baldacchino Supreme is the world’s new most expensive bed for sale. Only two will be created, each taking 3 months to hand craft upon purchase. Ensconced in Italian silk curtains, the canopy bed is a decadent vision of creme and gold, carved from chestnut, ash and cherry woods: it’s the type of structure a royal medieval Italian wedding night would welcome. The headboard is fashioned in capitonnè — that button-punctured fabric pattern harking from Parisian home decor — and can be customized with diamonds upon request (in case you want some bling to go with “the magic”). The real expense behind this bed however is the sheer amount of gold in use. It’s generously brushed along the borders of the entire structure in the form of gold leaf: 107 kg of solid 24ct gold to be exact. In commodities trading terms, that’s over $5 million worth of gold at current market prices. The bed may seem like a publicity ploy from the two companies, but surprisingly one order has already been placed — and filled. The inspiration for this entire project came at the behest of a wealthy Italian buyer (who will sadly remain anonymous) looking for an overly indulgent, fabulously decadent bed to call his own. He contacted Hebanon and they in turn contacted Stuart Hughes, who has built a clever brand around bourgeois adaptations of every day items like diamond-encrusted flat screen television sets and multimillion dollar iPhones. As for the one remaining bed, it’s still available for purchase — just in time for Valentine’s Day. Hughes says these items in general can take “one minute or an eternity to sell.” With a bed like this, I can’t help but wonder what the wealthy buyers will choose furniture-wise to accompany it.