Original article:http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/0902/30bachelor.html.

Creators of "The Man Made Movie" build the ultimate guy pad

Getting your place up to "guy code" Still unclear what it takes to turn your home into the ultimate guy pad? "The Man Made Movie" host Chad Taylor offers these pointers: So much power, so little responsibilty. "Anything that gives you power but does not require a lot of work," Taylor said. "Like the dishwasher. . . you gotta have the dishwasher." Grab your toolbelt -- "The more tools you need to put something together, the cooler it is." Yeah, baby, yeah -- "When you set something up and it makes you go 'yeah'." Maxim's John Walsh says the following items are just a handful of what no guy worth his weight in empty beer bottles should be without. X-Box with X-Box Live connection, which will be available later in the year for $299. See www.xbox.com. This enables you to play games with anyone else with an X-Box, regardless of location. Beamer Videophone $500 for two. "The Jetsons" already? Just make sure you're decent before you pick up this phone. www.vialta.com SD-AT50DV Home theater system from Sharp -- 300 watts total, six channels for surround, plays discs in all formats. One-bit tech converts analog signals to digital information, creating a purely digital signal path. $800. www.sharpusa.com. It just sounds cool to have, he says. Which is always cool.

Near the shore of Lake Allatoona in Woodstock stands the mythological abode often pondered by some of civilization's greatest thinkers -- Bundy, Bunker, Simpson and Seinfeld.

It is beautifully unpretty.

It is paradise drinking a cold beer.

It is the ultimate guy pad -- an entire house dedicated to gizmos, gadgets and unadulterated dudeness.

Windows are un-treatment-ed, flowers unplanted and for every 400 square feet, a television.

Massaging recliners sport beer holders. A fully operational mini-bowling alley in the basement awaits, and the "landscape" features three putting greens and a horseshoe pit.

This wonder is the brainchild of Bill Cox, senior vice president of programming for TBS and the staff of "The Man Made Movie."

"The Man Made Movie" is a weekly home improvement show spliced with an ultra-butch film usually starring someone running with a gun or frowning a lot.

Over the past two seasons, Chad Taylor, host of the show, has led viewers through the planning and construction of this four- level, 4,600-square-foot cabin home. With the home nearing completion, the show is being moved from Thursdays to Tuesdays at 8 p.m. starting tomorrow. Set to wrap up this one in November, Cox and company are looking to start building a new home in February.

"Everyone was doing home improvement and since we carry the Braves and action movies, we thought it was a natural fit," said Cox, who has led the station's programming for seven years. "Not every idea was on the plate when this started but once we got it on the air it just escalated to this perfect guy house."

Overseeing the work is local builder Scott Mackey, who said the project was "a dream come true."

"You always have these ideas that you think would be cool, but they stay in your head because no one's crazy enough to want it done to their house," he said. "This home allows me to be really creative."

Above: Builder Scott Mackey created an attic wall that rotates to expose a basketball hoop or a wildebeest head.

How so?

Try a saloon with swinging doors, stuffed boar's head and full bar with a beer tap. Or a fire pole you can slide down from the rooftop patio to the saloon.

What about a second fire pole that runs from the saloon to the basement where you can play pool, foosball, airhockey or Ping-Pong while watching one of three televisions, including one the size of Phipps Plaza.

Still not impressed?

What do you think about the dumbwaiter that runs from the jacuzzi on the roof to the game room in the basement?

Perhaps the bathroom with a choice of three stalls -- a library, saltwater aquarium or throne -- is more to your liking.

Yes, a throne. Mackey and company took a turn-of-the-century handcarved walnut and mahogany chair apart, then reassembled it around a working toilet in a 3-by-5 cubby. Burgundy fabric on the wall complements burgundy and gold tassels draped over the chair, next to a chain to be pulled when the king of the house is done with his royal business.

"Everyone that visits the house loves that bathroom," Mackey said.

And everybody is a visitor here. Since no one actually lives in the house, TBS plans to hold on to it for the time being, much to the chagrin of the host.

"Back in third grade I'd be sitting in science class, and I'd designed the place I wanted to live -- giant radar system on the roof, fire poles, big place to grill and one of the hugest entertainment centers you could think of -- the house hits that nail on the head," Taylor said.

The two-bedroom A-frame house is almost as interesting for what it doesn't have -- closets or an oven -- as for what it does have.

Right: Three putting greens let the stay at home athlete work on his golf game.

"There are no kitchen cabinets because of the two-drawer dishwasher," Mackey said. "You never have to unload it, just put your dirty plate in the other drawer."

The "Man Made" house is a hit with its intended audience. The show is the tops on basic cable for its time slot among men 18-49, which doesn't surprise Robert Thompson of the Popular Culture Association.

"We're in a transition stage," said Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University. "It used to be a time when 'men's magazine' meant Playboy. Now there are racks full of them talking about relationships, style, fashion and furnishing, and the show helps them piece some of this stuff together."

Thompson said in the past all the ultimate guy pad needed was "a working television, toilet and fridge to keep the beer cold."

"Now with the availability of technology, it's more about comfort," he said.

John Walsh, senior writer for Maxim magazine, agrees.

"Twenty years ago, there just weren't that many tech options out there," Walsh said. "The bachelor's pad of the old might have had a hi-fi system. Today's bachelor has a lot more options and probably a lot more reasons to be at home because it's more fun."

Men have more time to develop an ultimate guy pad because they are marrying later in life, Walsh said.

"Back in the '50s they had a wife early and she cooked and cleaned and pretty much was responsible for the house. Nowadays even when a guy gets married he participates equally in chores and decorating decisions," he said.

Some, though, still dream of what they'd like in an "ultimate guy pad."

Right: One of two fire poles runs from the rooftop patio, where it is accessed through a Britsh-style phone booth, to the saloon.

Clint Davis, manager of Jock's & Jill's in Brookhaven, said that when he was in his 20s he had a decent guy pad complete with a mountain bike hanging from the ceiling in the living room and neon beer signs on the wall.

"I think it would be cool to have a double-headed stand-up shower so you and your woman can shower at the same time," the married 32-year-old said. "I definitely would like a little sports bar in the basement with a big-screen television with two 9-inchers on each side."

The deck is the big key, according to bachelor Brian Healy, a 30-year-old real estate appraiser in Huntley Hills.

"I would turn the garage into a smoking lounge with couches and a television," he said. "It's all about being entertained and entertaining."

And there would be windows for Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse Manager Blake Hardy.

"I would also like a really nice entertainment center with all of the latest video and sound equipment," the 41-year-old said. "And really cool furniture, bright colors like bright blues and greens."

Regardless of age, race or location, there are just some things you need to be up to guy code standards, according to Michael Payne, host of HGTV's "Designing for the Sexes."

"The ultimate guy pad for the ultimate guy is certainly going to be pretty tacky," Payne quipped.

 
Right: The wildebeest head looks out over a saloon.

"For example, he is not going to want to hide his big screen television and all of the technology like the CD changers and DVD players behind some nice cabinet. Oh no, this object of extreme beauty is going to be huge and on full display.

"The bigger it is, the more masculine he is."

"Man Movie" host Taylor concurs.

"Size matters, always has and always will."