Ditching Sofas
For Conversation Pits

Smack in the middle of Troy Halterman's Manhattan living room is the definitive, if retro, chat room: a 10-foot by 20-foot alcove, defined by a $10,000, built-in suede sofa, with a 5-foot by 5-foot rock slab that doubles as a footrest and coffee table.

The design emulates the "conversation pits" of a groovier era: It is low to the ground, intimate and "nurturing," Mr. Halterman says. At one recent dinner party, guests never even made it to the table; after appetizers were served in the pit, everyone "started sliding off onto the floor," says Mr. Halterman, owner of an upscale New York furniture store. "If Halston were to walk through the door, he'd feel comfortable," he adds, referring to the swinging '70s fashion designer.

Take two steps down and three decades in reverse. The conversation pit -- that sunken symbol of suggestive home design -- is getting another look. Carpeted in shag and lined with sectional sofas, such spaces tap into the homeowner's inner Austin Powers. They are showing up in the pads of cutting-edge design-o-philes and artists, as well as in trendy hotels. But even with their kitschy, sense-surround aesthetic, conversation pits aren't limited to the shagadelic set: Across the country, homeowners are signing up for the pit's tamer suburban sister, the sunken living room, which is serving to break up the vast expanse of oversize great rooms.

The lobby of the fashionable Standard Hotel in Los Angeles features a 21-foot by 24-foot area where the wall, floor and ceiling are carpeted in thick white shag, with a 36-foot ultrasuede sectional sofa to complete the look; likewise, all of the suites in the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas feature sunken living rooms. And builders around the country say sunken living rooms, which peaked in the '70s, are starting to show up again in new homes.

Last year, Toll Brothers Inc., a builder based in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., introduced a new "estate" home with a sunken family room as a standard feature, saying such spaces are "gaining in popularity." D.R. Horton Inc. in Arlington, Tex. says it has built about 100 homes in Maryland and Virginia with sunken living rooms in the past year or so. A recent survey conducted by a builder in Wisconsin indicated that 60% of homebuyers were interested in having a sunken living room.

The new pits, like the old ones, create intimacy. "They are absolutely aptly named," says Manhattan designer Jeffrey Bilhuber. "There's nothing more horrifying than three on a sofa. It's like waiting at a luxurious bus stop." He sees the conversation pit as a reaction to the pampered lifestyle of the early '90s. Pits, by comparison, "are very egalitarian." The suburban versions have a slightly different appeal, adds Tom Hignite, a builder in Richfield, Wis.: A lower living room creates more vantage points for watching television. "People at the dining-room table can view over the heads of people in the living-room area."

For example, when manufacturing executive Otis Cobb toured a $599,000 model "Miracle Concept House" in Menomonee Falls, Wis., one of the features that sold him was the 17-foot-square sunken living room, complete with 80-inch flat-screen television, semicircular seating arrangement and fireplace. After buying the place, Mr. Cobb arranged his furniture exactly as the builder did in the model. "It's akin to going to the theater, especially with the large screen. Not too many people have that," says Mr. Cobb, who has invited friends over to watch everything from "March Madness" college basketball playoffs to "The Sound of Music."

Safety Issues

Though some buyers express concern that the step down could be dangerous, Mr. Cobb, at 65, isn't worried. In the worst-case scenario, he says he will fill the hole in, but adds, "You'd have to be in pretty bad shape to not be able to go down one step."

As to the origins of the conversation pit, they are fixed historically somewhere between the Turks and the Beatles, whose movie, "Help!" featured John Lennon pontificating about the meaning of life from a pit in the group's communal home. Some art historians blame perpetual Playboy Hugh Hefner; others credit everyone from fabric designer Alexander Girard to Frank Lloyd Wright to the American Indian. Terence Riley, chief curator of the department of architecture and design for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, thinks the sunken living room evolved from the European inglenook, "a cozy corner where people sat and had a chat." But he admits that James Bond movies and the "Dick Van Dyke Show" -- with the star tripping into his living room nightly -- gave the concept cachet with the public. Mr. Riley remembers sketching his first conversation pit in architecture school years ago and thinking "it was immensely cool."

Los Angeles artist Jorge Pardo had none of these cultural references in mind when he decided to include a 10-foot by 10-foot conversation pit in his 3,200-square foot house-cum-art-installation, commissioned by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. He just liked the look. "It inspires conversation," he says of his pit, sunk a foot and a half into the ground and featuring a fireplace and built-in, light-blue corduroy sofa. Mr. Pardo admits, however, that guests sometimes have different first reactions. "You get the chuckles," he says, "People come to the house and say, 'I had one of those in the '70s.' " The sniggering doesn't faze him. "It doesn't look funky in context," he says.

Indeed, Sharon Spaeth in West Bend, Wis., thinks there is nothing retro about her 17-foot by 17-foot sunken living room with fireplace. "It's a very modern concept," she says. If anything, the sunken space has expanded her furnishing options. "I can pop chairs in and they don't look goofy or abandoned," says Mrs. Spaeth, who moved into the 2,100-square-foot home about a year ago. The sunken space is a stylish way to break up the expanse of an oversize great room, she says, especially since "no one is going to put up those ugly room dividers."

According to builders, adding a conversation pit or sunken living area to a new home isn't that expensive -- depending on the size of the sunken area, it can range from $1,200 to $10,000 for a house under construction -- but it can be prohibitive to retrofit an existing space. When home buyers hesitate to jump into buying a pit, it is usually because they are worried they could trip, a la Mr. Van Dyke, on the step down. Still, Sarasota, Fla., builder Brian Pruett says active baby boomers are overcoming the fear of falling. "Years ago, Florida used to be the shuffleboard capital of the world," he says. "Now you've got retirees playing tennis into their eighties. It's not a big deal walking up two steps."

Mr. Pruett recently included a sunken living room in a model home, because, he says, "when you sink a room it becomes more intimate." The first one he ever built was for himself, 16 years ago. "It was a sunken pit with a television, bookshelves and a stone fireplace that went up 22 feet. It was a neat thing." But he doesn't hang out there anymore. "I was a bachelor. I sold it. I got married," he says.

Conversation pits can have other drawbacks. Investor Buck Scogin has a lakefront home, with a 12-by-10 foot sunken living room, in Brandon, Fla., that he built in 1975. All went well until El Nino hit town two years ago, raising the lake level by 7 feet, and flooding his foundation. "I had 8 inches of water around my fireplace for 10 months," complains Mr. Scogin, who removed all his furniture and fretted about his white carpeting, but could do little else about the flooded area. "I just looked at it," he says.

Finally, the space drained. Mr. Scogin moved "pillows, books and candles for atmosphere" back into the pit and resumed using it as before. Once more, he says, "We sit cross-legged, lie and romp."

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