The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 27

$-1 T'VSvr .1 SECTION 6 Gardens Medicine Today B-16, 17 B-18 Movies and Theater B-23-27 Travel B-20-22 Weather B-2 SUNDAY, APRIL 28 The bathroom: today's status symbol luxur Ftp? k. 67 NORA KERR IKtf Writer Gcld-plated faucets are in vogue an Arabian Nights fantasy print gathered at ceiling in a tentlike pouf gold-plated faucets are set with tiger-eye gem stones, and the sink basin is enameled in a rich floral design. The sink" and faucets alone cost him $700. The owners of a custom-built $500,000 house in Alpine have spent more than $3,000 on each of four baths. The striking and dramatically scaled house has 7,000 square feet of living space and is 168 feet long.

One of the baths features unusually attractive bone-colored floor and wall tiles in a raised flower pattern, a bidet, a clear glass shower enclosure, and a rnirrored wall above the sunken tub. Another family in the Northern Valley is enjoying the luxury of a $28,000 bathroom installed especially for a bar mitzvah. Rumor has it that a million-dollar mansion going up in Alpine is so big that a special septic tank costing $100,000 had to be installed. "Think of the bathrooms that one will have!" exclaims an enthusiastic 3 Such opulence is all in a day's work for Stan Saperstein, founder and part-owner of Englewood Hardware, the store that supplies most of the luxury fixtures in this area. They came up the hard way' He still shakes his head in amazement at the money spent there, though he's not complaining.

Because so much emotion is invested by his customers, as well as money, Saperstein gets to know them well. He has a genuine respect, even fondness, for many of them, but selling $100 towel bars still leaves him slightly breathless. "Each customer is a potential ulcer," he says with an easy-going smile. "We don't deal with Vanderbilts and Kennedys. We deal mostly with people who worked hard for their money and want something to show for it.

"You've got to realize they came up the hard way, most of them; they may spend $5,000 in 'here, but they want $5,000 worth of value. So we spend lots of time with them," says Saperstein, an affable man with a warm, down to-earth manner. Many of his customers come from Engle-wood's monied East Hill, Alpine, Englewood Cliffs, Franklin Lakes, Woodcliff Lakes, and the Fort Lee high-rise palaces. "Take the Plaza in Fort Lee we've got maybe $100,000 worth of hardware in that building alone. There are probably mora millionaires living there than in any other.

Maybe a third, conservatively, are in the top one per cent income level in the United States," he says. Flipping through work orders in the cluttered back office of his spacious new shop, Saperstein ticks off amounts while discreetly covering customers' names: custom-See BATHED, Page B-9 Don't call it the 'john' anymore. Not when some bathrooms make the average, color-coordinated tile bath look like a throwback to Tobacco Road. Superbaths have outdistanced function to become luxury status symbols home entertainment centers, crystal Renaissance pleasure domes. Ornate chandeliers, 10-foot sunken tubs, gold-plated swan faucets, greenhouses, saunas, and mirrored walls are available if you've got the cash as accouterments to the Saturday night bath.

And cleanliness is next to nothing in this tale of the tub. The point of such pleasurable self-indulgence is not getting clean, but the pursuit of dreams, luxury, and status: Recalling the celluloid fantasies of her childhood, one Oradell woman told her decorator she wanted a master bath complete with ceiling-high marble columns and a sunken tub. "I told her it would cost proportionately as much as the rest of the house," says Ruth Rutstein, a Harrington Park decorator, "but she insisted. She said that's what I always wanted, and that's what I'm going to have. It was her dream-come-true." Passing up the Joneses Another interior decorator says the luxury bathroom is a means of outdoing the Joneses: "These days, anybody with a decent income can use imagination and careful shop ping to come up with a sharp living room.

But the bathroom that's the Great Divide. It's a way of saying 'Drop dead' A Rockland County bachelor who built a hilltop aerie with a room-sized bath overlooking a lush green ravine installed a Stereo system in the wall opposite his seven-foot sunken tub. The two interior walls are covered In the same handmade European tiles set into the rim of the tub. The other walls are glass, partially obscured by stained-glass hangings and exotic green plants. Towels and other necessities are contained in an antique bombe chest.

The owner claims the room is large enough 9 by 12 feet to keep the chest safe from moisture. A crystal chandelier from France provides light. His guest bathroom walls are covered in Modern geometry faucets UllUllUlllUUUl.i I Ml I I lllllMII .1. AlmmmuK lm J.I.JJH1UJIUU JljlJJjJIJ.1 ,...1.4 I In I i "SlL JmJIK j-l 4 3 i American-Standard's limited editions have numbered plaques to show how exclusive they are. Painted ines are also popular 40s star prefers glamour CP Pyramid revamped refunds offered Ann Miller By EDWARD J.

GORE Consumer Writer population. Hence, the term pyramid plan. It's the same concept as a chain letter. I'm sitting here with a Bestline Tile two Biches thick dating back to early 1971, filled with complaints, letters, actions, orders, and sales material. An awful lot of heartbreak took place while the wheels of Justice slowly moved.

Just last week a letter came from By VIRGINIA LAMBERT For the last several weeks, Ann Miller has been falling asleep to the sounds of peacocks screaming. It's appropriately exotic for an actress who maintains a glamorous image in these days of casual chic. "People expect me to look glamorous." she smiled, doing just that in a navy pantsuit with tons of gold chains around her neck. of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" I the Paper Mill Plahouse in Mil'bum and the Playhouse on the Mall in Par-amus, certainly won't do anything to detract from the Ann Miller image. The role of the nightclub singfr-evangelist gives her a chance to ap--pear in a succession of gorgeous costumes lavished with sequins and feathers and accessoTjed by custom-designed jewelry.

11 Cf CCTSJ.TJG rfTCREST "Those of us at MGM learned tchal teas expected of uj." i Bcstline and the State of New Jersey have reached an agreement that wiU aSow the company to stay in business with a revised marketing plan, hile offering refunds to investors ho want them. The settlement has the potential of exceeding $3 million, nhidi would make it the biggest consumer case ever in New Jersey. Bestline, which for a couple of years was a busy, dynamic, pyramid selling plan in the state, was charged by the Division of Consumer ASairs witli fraud. The company sells soap and household cleaning products, but according to the state the money to be made in Bestline until last year was from Rrt-txg others to imest thousands of 6W-lars rather than in actually selling product to the consumer. Thnahout The Record crniatka area, the comply conducted sales mretxgs at which pecple were led to believe they could earn rrrre than a ytar and were induced to vest core than SJ.OOQl Ca2s plaa taposie The pUa.

said ar-yr g5TraTs riTxe. was bafd on a miFTjcxal irfmaiLiy A prnra txra the bvA this irsme br actractag ether iprestrs asd ticnr a cjctsssmb on tirtz ictestnnts. Who you cara-bte th ccc crestor prU (then wtaiatrspt 1J cthtrs, ard so on. yja very cci-'y pass tie cxrZj the father of an ASendale brother and sister wbo for two years has had a garage and basement fuQ of aoap products for wtuch they paid nearly $4,000. He wanted to give it to chanty because he couSil stand looking at ft anymore.

I was happy to tell him that it appears ha kkis wi2 get a refund. I remember a call last year from a poor g-jy with a one-room apartment wbo was good-tsaturedly UHing me that he would never kate to paint tus waZs a be had them tned w2h soap, Cocr to I wonder 2 he ever moved? Throughout IfTI and BT2. whenever I wrote senrthi- nasty about Best-Lie, rd get caZs and lexers from sat-tsfd partxparts wbo said thry were kr fine, that I was wrorf a Vsrk-rf the cwrpay a fraal and at cy wrrs were krtrg their bussvaa. I s-ii thea and 111 ity new tiat the prodfts are Eae acd if aa bury is actsly ratrj crney aeLS then reUi they bre try best wishes, FO-UCD, Fia B-7 "Those ft us who learned the business at MGM learned what was ei-perted cf us. But thoe days gave us a legacy.

ix. -My pictures are still berg shown on television and in courtnes and In reccgnsrt whfrever I Arid I've never needed a press It tests me a fartaae' She furires that it csts ter clcse to tl.500 every tme she appears en a television tai show s.ke a fre-Cjert Merr Grifa gxst ta that the cost is wcrij it "It casts ne a frt-re fcr tke dhes. the ba: ester, a-sd evtrr-thrg. and I get ahxS t3X Py the trrse tbey take o-t the tues ard fee agtri fee. I wrd wJs sbcJi jisa.

-Ejt pubLciy Is wcrrferf nayr4 F.ero Seerjey tte mtnl "I even have a special jist to take my bo. she Miller Iovts the frivolous musical, so remuuscert of those N'r a Hollywond star in the Fortes. -It's the srry." she said. "They're so wmderf.il. I love to take the show to Broadway.

"I furJt the Fortes are g-sirg to have a tr.g coTiehack. Voulil that be wild. tg bards ad all?" She a few bars cf "Arvth-- Gt'' qxetly. locicrg at her plate cf spachetti. "These hrxs are so g-eat so new I thirl p-c' srrrs they can ari re-re htr after thev hari trc-n So rr.rh c-eri rrslc sojr-is ae She sccre prrtlerts rxrEr perf rctrjErs hr preicxs ahrjt the Fcrrxs ce-es trje.

Kal of thcra canl dsrre a4 til si thra ANN. Faje rM jm mr- A Idler it sqi tr..