The home theater of yesterday—tucked away in the basement, with rows of brown leather recliners (popcorn caught between cushions) and a projector—has become a cautionary tale. “You’d watch a movie after dinner, and after two glasses of wine, everyone’s ,” says New York City–based designer . “No one’s really into that.” The new approach to home entertainment is much more nuanced. Now the focus is placed more on creating a social environment, one where you can kick back, relax, and chatter while enjoying not just postapocalyptic sci-fi flicks and breezy rom-coms but also video games, vinyl, and live streams.
For the media room of a Manhattan apartment, Richard Mishaan designed a custom mantel with a hidden slit from which a screen drops down in front of the fireplace.
“It’s not just about a single screen anymore,” says Francis Nicdao, principal at the New York City firm . “Sometimes you’re watching a movie while scrolling through TikTok and you’re on Instagram on your iPad.” Some of the firm’s most successful entertainment areas, for example, go beyond high-production visual stimuli to also incorporate pool tables, wine racks, bars, and scenic views. In Nicdao’s own home, the media room is about having multiple “channels” playing at once.
“My husband uses it as an office,” he says. “He can have CNBC playing on the big screen while he takes calls—or whatever it is he’s doing.” Indeed, soundproofing and a level of separation from other communal areas of the home make the media room an ideal place to work from home or hop on a Zoom call. Just hook a webcam up to the big screen.
Custom ebonized wood panels contrast with black leather in the media room of the São Paulo home that Andre Mellone designed for his sister.
From a decorating perspective, balancing all of these wants and needs can be a real challenge, as “high tech and high design have historically been at odds with one another,” says Ksenia Kagner, cofounder of the Brooklyn-based firm . The solution, often, is a custom media center that hides unsightly wires (as if there were any other kind). “If you walk into a store and buy one off the shelf, it can be very generic,” says Erin Hardy of . “But we can really customize the piece based on what the person is interested in—whether that’s photos of their grandchildren, books, or something else.” Many of New York City–based interior designer ’s clients, for example, work in the music industry and prefer a more open form of storage that shows off their vinyl. “It’s like having an art collection,” she says. “You want to highlight those things and work with them.”
A patchwork of hand-dyed and -woven blue rectilinear shapes covers the media room’s walls in an Oliver M. Furth–designed home in Los Angeles.
But centering a room around the biggest screen possible can prove to be a hindrance. Televisions get larger every year, but is a 100-inch-wide piece of tech worth it? “I’m constantly having discussions with clients about this,” Mishaan says. “It’s a tug-of-war. They want the biggest TV they can possibly get, but it’s not always optimal for viewing. It’s like when you’re dying to see a movie in the theater, but you end up in the third row, so you just kind of sit lying back, and everything is out of whack.”
Even the way in which we consume media has shifted significantly in the past few years with the streaming boom. The result? Viewers are just as likely to binge a 12-episode show on Hulu or Netflix as they are to rent a three-hour, Oscar-nominated film. So rather than creating a space that mimics a silent, no-phones movie theater, the emphasis is on facilitating the conversation that’s already happening online when new episodes drop. Nicko Elliott, who cofounded Civilian with Kagner, says it’s a whole new ballgame for media room design. “It’s about having a meal, a drink, talking to people, and analyzing what you just saw,” he says. “It’s more about a cohesive social experience.”
This story originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of ELLE DECOR.
Helena Madden is ELLE DECOR’s market editor, and covers all things product and trend, from flatware and furnishings to kitchen and bath. She previously worked as a staff writer at Robb Report, where she covered luxury news with a focus on interior design.