An Old Story Revisited – Whatever Happened to the Star Trek Apartment?

I first wrote about Tony Alleyne’s amazing Star Trek apartment back in 2009, but after seeing some photos of his ultimate Trekkie crib I decided it was worth another look. It’s yet unclear if the dedicated fan still owns the place, or if it even exists anymore.

It was 1994 when Tony Alleyne started redecorating the apartment he was living in with cream and metallic colors inspired by the interior of the USS Enterprise from 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. His friend had just given him a Star Trek magazine and he became obsessed with having his own ship. But soon he realized the old Enterprise was a bit boring so he decided to start over and this time recreate the set of the starship Voyager from the 1990s series. Soon his conventional apartment featured a computerized flight deck, a voice-activated computer system, bleeping panels and fluorescent lights inspired by his beloved TV show. Even the windows had been replaced with layers of wood and perspex so they would appear to look out on outer space, and the doorbell played a sample of Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. It was a dream home for any real Trekkie  and Tony had spent just £4,000 ($6,000) sourcing the materials and building it himself. His only mistake was doing it in an apartment he didn’t own. And that apparently cost him everything…

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Building the Star Trek apartment was a form of therapy for Tony Alleyne to get over the divorce from his wife Georgina. He just buried himself in work to escape the stress of it all, but somehow forgot he was creating his masterpiece in his now ex-wife’s home. Georgina owned the place, and even in 2009 when we first covered this story, she was trying to sell it. According to a series of articles dating back to January 2012, she had officially put the place up for sale again as a conventional apartment because she figured it was worth more as a normal home. Tony was devastated, and admitted to shedding some tears when he learned about her decision. He said rebuilding the sci-fi set somewhere else would cost at least £100,000 ($150,000), money the 59-year-old didn’t have. It’s yet unclear if she went on with the sale in the end. There are some recent photos and videos of Tony showing off the apartment, but according to a recent NBC article, he was forced to put the apartment up for sale on eBay. I hope whoever buys it decides to leave it unchanged, because it simply couldn’t get any better then this.

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Photos © 24th Century Design (Tony Alleyne’s interior design firm)