One Frasier Set Cost The Show Half A Million Dollars

In the pilot episode of “Frasier,” the titular doctor moves his father, Martin (John Mahoney), into his apartment, thereby setting up the odd-couple dynamic that would characterize the pair’s relationship throughout all 11 seasons. Frasier is eager to show off his interior design choices, explaining, “You know, every item here was carefully selected — this lamp by Corbu, the chair by Eames, and this couch is an exact replica of the one Coco Chanel had in her Paris atelier,” to which Martin replies with an incredulous, “Nothing matches.”

When it came to furnishing the set and ensuring everything was believably high-end, the production team was about as fastidious as Dr. Crane himself. As production designer Roy Christopher explained in a behind-the-scenes clip, “We try to personalize the set as much as possible and really make it as real as possible so you believe it really is where Frasier and his family live.”

As Christopher went on to explain, he and his team’s dedication to realism made for some particularly difficult set design challenges. For one, they were tasked with creating the “exact replica” Coco Chanel’s couch that Frasier mentions in the pilot. That meant researching the original couch and ordering a special recreation to be made with actual suede cloth. Paul Parenteau, head of Parenteau Studios in Chicago, spoke to the Orlando Sentinel back in 1994 and estimated that this couch recreation would have cost “from $15,000 to $20,000.”

Elsewhere, set decorator Sharon Viljoen was the one who did all the shopping for Frasier’s apartment decorations and furniture. She told the Sentinel that she ”used the normal sources of an interior designer — not prop places — to shop.” That dedication to realism clearly paid off, but it made for a hefty overall spend.