When the public arrives to see a design showhouse, they expect to see an ideal interior creation. "Fabrics, furnishings, and textures should inspire awe and spur ideas that designers can use in a client's house and perhaps even their own. Those involved with creating the showhouse, however, know all too well that the creative process can be an experience far-removed from the inviting, luxurious interiors that result.

When Carmen Quartararo and her design team clung to ladders in high winds, struggling to drape the pergola in the grand courtyard of the Pasadena Showcase House of Design last spring, luxury was probably the last thing on their minds.

Across the country, on New York's Upper East Side, Susan Gutfreund also has a familiar understanding of "come hell or high water" showhouse design. The enormous stable she transformed for the Kips Bay Decorator Show House sprang an unfixable leak during a storm, making it necessary to build a new wall—overnight—to conceal the rain damage. So much for the king-sized library she planned for the space.

Gutfreund traded the books for a large, lush sitting room filled with Rothschild family treasures, an l8th-century axminster carpet worth $800,000, and Kinko's-photocopied landscape views seen through the three faux windows she created in the new wall.

No one ever said designing, financing, building, and decorating a drop-dead gorgeous room for all the world to see is easy. But few turn down the invitation to take part.

Beloved by designers and the public alike, designer showhouses have become a spring–fall ritual across the US. Producing showhouses for 42 years, Pasadena claims to be the oldest, followed by Kips Bay, now in its 35th year. Between the blockbusters on the coasts, hundreds of showhouses entertain and inspire home decorators, promote good design, and let local design-industry pros strut their stuff before a steady stream of potential clients.

But the promotional opportunity is complemented by altruism. A local charity almost always benefits, drawing in donations after all the art, sweat, and occasional tears that go into the making of any showhouse. The arts, children's charities, and natural disaster victims are among the beneficiaries of the design industry's time and talents. For example, the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) Showhouse has poured some $6.3 million into the musical life of Washington, DC, since l978. Kips Bay brightens life and learning for nearly l3,000 boys and girls in the Southeast Bronx every year. In Palm Beach, the Red Cross benefits. Pasadena's annual showhouse has raised $15 million over many years of operation for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, local schools, and other charitable organizations.

"In the long run, you do it for the charities," says Carmen Quartararo, who designed the outside living and dining areas in the Pasadena courtyard. It was her fifth showhouse venture, with each investment estimated at $30,000–$50,000. But it's time and money well-spent, Quartararo says. Participation is by invitation only. Several hundred designers apply, but only a dozen are chosen. The payback is enormous, in terms of major media coverage and personal exposure; thousands of people come to look, and many return as clients. However, clients may not surface immediately. Babs Yonkovig, a publicist in the New York office for Jennifer Garrigues of Palm Beach, remembers a phone call two years after a showhouse room she'd designed for the firm: "The woman loved the room. She said, ‘I saved all the information until I was ready. And now, I'm ready!'"

For Charles Pavarini III at Kips Bay, the new clients came from a new and unexpected direction—boutique hotels and the hospitality industries. They were attracted to his high-tech "renaissance bedchamber," with its computer-controlled LED ambient lighting that transitioned through a timed cycle of subtle color changes.

It was Pavarini's second Kips Bay venture. "It took l0 years to get in the first time," he says. The application process is rigorous, to say the least. Any designer can apply, fee-free, to participate in the Kips Bay Show House, held every spring in Manhattan. The famously tough review committee then goes over each portfolio and taps a mix of what it calls "design icons and emerging talent."

Maria Videla-Juniel of MV Design & Construction Group partnered with her husband, Marcus Juniel, to turn the Pasadena poolhouse into a sleek, private spa. The spa was a major construction project that took six "very intense" months and used up the firm's entire marketing budget for that year, she says. But there's another reason to justify the effort: "Showhouses challenge you to be more creative," says Videla-Juniel. "You don't have a client to please, no favorite colors or special requests, so you can show your own style, show off what you can do."

"Or show off what you would like to do," says Michael Leondas Kirkland of Halleon, who teamed with John Hall Nelson to design "A Gentleman's Reading Room" at the 2006 Red Cross Designers' Show House at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in Palm Beach. Entitled "Moiré and Moliére"-one wall was inscribed with quotes from Moliére praising charitable deeds-the room featured gauffraged, moulded, and hand-painted fabrics and leathers, remarkable antiques, and furniture from the collection of designer Ann Getty, who came from San Francisco to take part in the Celebrity Lecture series. "I'm an artist, not a decorator," says Kirkland. "Our room might be considered a bit over-the-top, but you can get away with a lot more in a showhouse medium than when you have a real client."

Meanwhile, what about those real clients? "They can feel put off and get kind of angry if you make them wait while you spend all your time and energy on a showhouse," admits Basha White of Chevy Chase, MD. She is a veteran of a half-dozen showhouses, including the 34th Annual NSO Decorators' Show House at a large Potomac, MD, estate this fall.

More often, however, clients also enjoy the showhouse experience. "Some of my clients have been coming to my showhouses for years, even my busiest clients whom even I seldom get to see. They'll come, have lunch, spend the day. And on weekends, that includes men," she says.

Still, showhouses aren't only about escapism or voyeurism, according to Susan Gutfreund. "The big message a showhouse room should give is: design can make things livable-for the way we live today," she says. "That's why I put a TV on top of an l8th-century Adam mantel at Kips Bay. I wanted to show that even if you'd bought all these treasures on, say, your grand tour, you can actually live with them and feel comfortable. You can mix Russian chinoiserie commodes with Crate & Barrel sofas. You can let the children in, and it will be okay. You can even turn the dogs loose!" FFI