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<< Previous   of   Next >> Joe Barrentine / The News Tribune  (click to enlarge) Michael Von Ditter (left) shows off his cars and his "man cave" to his contractor Charles Boss. Von Ditter wanted to have a place where his friends could gather and watch races together at his Port Orchard home.   ADVERTISEMENT   Related Stories • Batteries not included 5/24/09   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, May 24, 2009 Carving out a man's special place at home By C.R. Roberts The News Tribune TACOMA -- In the man cave you will find no open fire pit strewn with the gnawed bones of mastodons -- although there might be a Jenn-Air grill over by the mini-fridge. On the walls you won't see fuzzy stick-figure depictions of woolly bison, but there's undoubtedly a big-screen TV. In the man cave. Outside Port Orchard, Michael Von Ditter stores the majority of his collection of rare automobiles in his newly built version, once merely a two-car garage. "My cars were in storage," Von Ditter said last week. He had considered securing a hangar at Tacoma Narrows Airport as a place to store his collection, but he decided instead "to get this place built to where it was usable." The place of which he speaks -- his own man cave -- comprises a $200,000 project built by Tacoma designer Charley Boss. "I specialize in whatever people want," Boss said. "I like to do the unique." Here, that means granite countertops, porcelain tile floor, a 300-bottle wine cabinet, commissioned artworks, large-screen TV and for the cars a compressed air system and an electric lift that stacks cars one above the other -- the Mercedes S600, Porsche Carerra GT, McLaren SLR, Ferrari F430 and Scaglietti GT, and more. "I spend a quarter of my time here," Von Ditter said. He often invites his friends into the cave. "We drink beer, watch Formula One." "It can be as simple as 25-grand up to however much you want to spend, if you have a certain lifestyle," said Boss. He has designed other such places in the South Sound. "I think it's a trend," he said. "I get a lot of traffic," said Michael Yost, founder of mancavesite.org, an online meeting place for people interested in the phenomenon. "It's basically the West Coast, Southwest and Northeast. My largest traffic states are California, Texas, Washington and Pennsylvania." When he created the site just over a year ago, Yost said he received no more than a dozen hits a day. "Now," he said, "we're over 300. That's consistent. I'm getting a new 'cave display' more than once a week. I see this growing as the word gets out. There's guys that have these, and they don't know where to go." Yost said the term "man cave" was coined in 1992 by a reporter writing a story on a man's remodeled basement. It has since come to mean a space or a place -- a basement, attic, garage, tree house, shed -- where a man can go to be a man and be with friends, or be alone, to be himself in a manly way, whatever that might mean. "I think there's a few factors here," Yost said. "It's become so dangerous to go out and enjoy yourself, drinking on the road. Guys find you can have a lot more fun staying home, invite the neighbors." Perhaps it's simply a matter of marking some territory. "The kids move out and guys finally have a place to showcase all their prized possessions," Yost said. "It's to give guys a place to go. A lot of the guys are married, and usually the wife has the whole house. It's a way for a man to carve out his little piece of the pie. It's a place where a guy can hang up his stuff. The wife and the kids can come in -- and I think wives are in favor of it. It isolates the mess to one part of the house. It isolates a guy's stuff. When she has friends over, she doesn't have to be embarrassed. Some real estate agents are marketing extra rooms for man caves." One South Sound firm -- Garage Plus Storage -- is doing more than that. "Own a Man Cave," says the firm's billboard alongside I-5 in east Tacoma. "A lot of guys want a place where they can work on their cars, hot rods, boats," said Karen Kostner, Garage Plus sales manager. The concept she sells is a hybrid of storage unit, man cave and condo, a 650-unit city of heated-floor, fully secure, 100-amped, 220-volt, cable-ready units ranging in size from 320 to 990 square feet and ranging in price from just over $50,000 to just under $175,000. It's out on the Mountain Highway near the Roy Y and the four owners plan to break ground on June 1. "We have about 1,700 reservations on our e-mail list," said Michelle Simon, a partner in the $15 million venture. "We've been selling for a month now." There are plans for a billiards table and big-screen TV in the clubhouse, she said, plus showers and bathrooms, and there's a three-acre park. All within a community of caves. "Men want some degree of seclusion, where they can do what they want to do, to have the freedom to do what they want to do," said Dave Schmidt, a University Place therapist with 35 years of experience counseling both women and men. "Whether it's a house, or a room, or the side of a mountain, they want to feel free of society's constraints," he said. "It's not a home away from home, but a home within a home, where you can be who you want to be. "It's like a favorite hiding place." READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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