The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 69

Nov. 28, 1978 S.F. Examiner Page DD-1 The bed that came out of the closet By Nancy Adams Chicago Tribune uuhu mc iui ji ui uie ueiiiui lilt; I JJ late William L. Murphy was living the frontier life. He had a cattle ranch in the Jl Sierra Nevada near Stockton, and he' was into gold mining as well.

A deputy snerui tor a speii, Murpny also ran a stagecoach line. Such a rough-and-tumble existence seems an unlikely background for the man who popularized a bed that, for more than 75 years, would come out of millions of American closets every night. Perhaps, though, the stand-up, stash-away sleeping accommodation that came to be known as the Murphy Bed was inspired by its inventor's appreciation of wide open spaces. "My father was 82 when he died in the late 1950s, and he was a very interesting character," says the frontiersman's son, Bill Murphy, now president of the New York-based Murphy Door Bed Company. "His mother was said to have been the first white child ever born in that region, and he even broke wild horses." Mrs.

William L. Murphy, her son explains, was "just the opposite" of her wild west husband. "She was from San Francisco, and she had gone to finishing school. She vacationed in the mountains, and that was how she met this crazy, 'wild Because he was so he had to move to San Francisco to prove that he could be civilized before my mother would marry him." As the story goes, the late Mr. Murphy began to invent space-saving devices.

There was an ironing board that folded neatly into a wall, and there was a dinette set that folded up out of sight when not in use. "But it was the beds that really took off," says Bill Murphy. "So many people have asked me why I think my father began making them, and I've really never had an answer. I think he foresaw a need. As people moved from wide open spaces into cramped city quarters, they would want things to help make those small spaces more liveable." First introduced in 1908, the Murphy Bed peaked in the 1920s with annual sales of between 50,000 and 100,000 units.

The first version, no longer manufactured, was designed to be mounted on a door jamb of a closet or dressing area so that it sw ung out and around in a semi-circle on its hind legs into a room. There was a bed on wheels, too, that rolled out, needed no special installation, and could be wheeled on end from one room to another. The most popular style, and the one that has survived over the years, is the Murphy Bed that neither pivots nor rolls. It just lowers bridge-like from vertical to horizontal position but it is bolted to the floor. Like all the other Murphy models including the contemporary "sidebed" that folds up and down from the side, rather than from the end the bolted-down version operates on the same counterbalancing mechanism that Murphy patented so long ago.

There have been imitators but no manufacturer really has outdone Murphy because of that counterbalancing device. Its engineering allows even a small child to smoothly and safely lower the bed. "The key is in the word says Bill Murphy. "Contrary to all the movie jokes and rumors of Examiner Dan de la Torre Variations on Murphy's masterpiece lawsuits by people who claim to have been stuck, maimed, trapped, detained, or otherwise inconvenienced by a Murphy Bed, the reality is just the opposite." Sleek European fold-up beds in their sophisticated cabinetry (Murphys never come with cabinets you either build one, buy one, or use a closet) have trouble competing because their lowering and raising capabilities are limited: They can't handle much weight, and that means that some types of bedding, particularly box springs and mattress combinations, are verboten. The load restrictions and consequent bedding limitations of other hiding beds have meant continuing success for the Murphy Bed, as well as a recently renewed interest in them because folks are comfort conscious.

Today Murphy beds sell for between $150 for a sidebed and $340 for a bolt-down style, not including mattresses. A foam innerspring mattress, a new Murphy offering and a concession aimed at meeting consumer demands for foam bedding, sells for up to $485. Chicago Tribune The bed that does not look like a bed has myriad variations. The sofabed is one of them, but it has become almost commonplace and can be identified usually by its heavy-bottomed design. But the really surprising sleeping items show no limit of imagination.

There's a bed out now that looks like a gigantic high-top sneaker. Presumably, you just slip in like a foot, and lace up for the night. In his new "The Bed and Bath Book," published by Crown, British home furnishings expert Terence Conran writes that all this masquerading on the part of beds isn't so new. In the 18th century poet Oliver Goldsmith wrote about double-image and double-duty sleeping facilities in "The Deserted Village." "The chest contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest by day," goes the verse. Somehow it is reminiscent of Dr.

Benjamin Spock's advice on a first bed for a biby. After remarks on proper cribs, Spock then conceded that a dresser drawer lined with soft blankets was suitable, too. Perhaps bed is just what you make it. The stately palm tree, the statue and the empty corner crisis By Nancy Scott flAVIS, my friend and I I former neighbor, is if going through a crisis II over empty corners. 11 Empty corners have i all about it.

What kind of a friend are you, anyway? You must have some stuff tucked away about what's new and exciting. You're just not telling." "Mavis I do have some stuff tucked away. I have a great fat folder tucked away. It's full of items. Most of them contradict each other and, frankly, I am intimidated by the idea of advising readers to change decorating schemes every two or three months, which is hat they'd have to do if they took all these items seriously." "Nonsense," said Mavis.

"You underestimate your readers. If the items contradict each other," she said grandly, "very, well then, they contradict. No sensible person is going to redocorate every two or three months, but we can dream, can't we?" "You win, Mavis. I will give you an annotated list of items and don't say I didn't warn you." "Begin with color," said Mavis. "Then, you can fill in the corners." Right.

Item: In September, the word from an expert in Pittsburgh, was pale gray. Sometimes it was muted beige. Conservative colors for inflationary times, that was the word. This month, says an expert in New Jersey, the word is red tomato, burgundy, cherry and flame. It is also mauve and saffron, brandy-wine and peacock blue.

The mood is opulent. So much for conservative spending. Item: Asian themes which were going strong in September are still going strong. That's a relief. Likewise, Egyptian themes are still booming.

It seems probable, in fact, that King Tut's treasures and what designers like to call the "stately palm tree" will soon be as omnipresent as Van Gogh's sunflowers. The palm tree, please know, "has been a favorite ornament since Egyptian times." There will be palm trees on lamps, trees on trays, trees on boxes and are you listening, Mavis? real trees. are in fashion. "America," writes designer Robert Briggs, "is experiencing a new renaissance a rebirth of interest in the decoration of ancient cultures." (Can one have a new renaissance? Whatever happened to the old one? Never mind.) I'm not sure what this renaissance portends. Grecian urns? Cretan bulls? Roman busts? Or large marble statues? "Of course," said Mavis, "large marble statues to put under the palm tree in the corner." Reading on, I discovered that "Pompeiian red is very much in vogue, reflecting current appreciation for fine arts and events of historical significance.

The reds are primarily warm and subtle in the traditional area, with brighter hues concentrated in the more contemporary selections." But this is wonderful. It opens up a whole new world of home decoration, a whole new genre of decorative prose: "Warm up your living room with Vesuvian "Don't settle for less than Lava-ash "20 new creative ways to use Catastrophe Crimson." "What about the corner?" Mavis said. Arrange your own artistic, real-life volcanic ruins; comes in a pre-cut kit in Smudged Stone, Geologists' Green or Burnt Black. Put it next to the statues, under the palm tree in the corner. If the mode is the historically significant event, why stop at Pompeii? Why not the sack of Carthage or the fall of Troy (wooden horse next to the ruins next to the statue under the palm tree in the corner).

"How about," Mavis said, "the burning of Rome for the brighter hue?" Whatever you like, Mavis. Item: Victorian decor is still OK, but early Americana is creeping up on us (again) with crystal witches' balls and crystal witches' canes which were, writes designer Briggs, "used by our ancestors to ward off evil spirits." Mavis thinks they will look nice next to the horse next to the ruins next to the statue under the palm tree in the corner. Item: Did you know that some people look better against red or orange or pink; others look better in front of blue or green? This news comes from a color specialist at the home remodeling and restoration show held in The City last month, and it's something to think about before you turn your living room jnto the last days of Pompeii. Item (to assuage Mavis' curiosi ty about According to Apartment Life, "The hot new period for foresighted collectors is definitely the 1950s." Be advised to search your attic for all your Howdy Doody memorabilia, your Davy Crockett coonskin cap, your 3-D glasses and your old bowling shirt, the rabbit ears antenna and the TV trays, the Melmac dishes and "absolutely anything that says Elvis." Item: A Pennsylvania publicist asks: "Have you heard about Aqua Baby, the new crib-sized water bed for infants? The bed is guaranteed not to wet the baby." Mavis is considering the Aqua Bed for her grandchild, although, she says, there's no equivalent guarantee attached to the baby. Meanwhile, still anxious but undaunted, she has decided to ignore classic and Egyptian themes.

Palm trees shed, she says. She's very taken with the event of historical significance, however, and she has bought a baby peach tree for one of those empty corners. When I last saw her, she was making a life-sized automated replica of Rhett Butler. "Is that thing going to talk?" I asked her. "So long as It fills up the corner," she said, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." ut'tu a ui iiiuif; in Mavis' life ever since she read, probably in about 1953, that decorators frown on wasted space.

Was she, heaven forbid, wasting space? She surveyed her six-room house and discovered that every single corner was empty. Twenty four lonely wasted spaces. Over the years she filled them all with aspidistras with hatstands ith jars full of dead weeds Last month Mavis moved to an eight-room house. The crisis struck: Mavis has 36 lonely corners to fill. What happened to the aspidistra, the hatstand and all? Mavis threw them out.

"They weren't in tune," she said, "with today's bold, new, with-it, stop-and-go lifestyles. I need a whole new decor to go with my all-new corners." "You've been reading decorator magazines again, haven't you Mavis? You've got a serious fit of home decor coming on, I can tell. Have you forgotten how you did a water-color mural on the shower stall and it all came off on your husband? Do you remember how you tie-dyed curtains and ruined a $30 stew pot?" "Not fair," Mavis said. "You don't understand. I get anxious if I don't know whether something is a collectible or something is junk.

I worry about what's in and what's out." "Mavis," I said, "First, nobody knows what's in and what's out; second, now that you've bought a new house you can't afford to deotrate a la mode, and, third, collectible is a nonword." "Don't try to divert me," Mavis said, "I may not buy, but I want to know. Now you," she pointed a dramatic finger, "you must know Examiner; Don de la Torre "a real "Aha," cried Mavis, palm tree for the corner." Item: Ancient Greece, Crete, the Roman Empire and Pompeii.