Sarah Boll didn’t just rewatch Titanic. She rebuilt it—inside her New York City apartment.
What started as a party theme spiraled into something closer to a museum installation, or maybe an obsession. Boll, 38, has spent the last few months methodically transforming her rental into a near replica of James Cameron’s version of the doomed ship, complete with portholes, gold-trimmed ceilings, and even an “iceberg room.” She calls it “the best summer of my life,” though her project also doubles as one of the strangest home makeovers the city has seen.
Boll’s attachment to Titanic goes way back. She says she’s watched the film over 500 times, first alongside her dad in the late ’90s. She wore a necklace made from the ship’s coal as a kid and toured traveling exhibits. When her father gave her a model Titanic for her high school graduation, she held on to it for decades. That model now sits in her “sinking room,” a centerpiece for a project that’s become both intensely personal and endlessly shareable.
The inspiration came after a trip to Sleep No More, the immersive New York theater experience. Boll wondered: why not Titanic? She began with the idea of hosting a themed party, but the apartment never felt finished. She added ceiling and floor tiles, spray-painted fixtures to mimic the ship’s gilded interiors, and shopped endlessly on eBay and Etsy for props. Slowly, her apartment stopped being a backdrop for a party and became the party itself.
Her living room now channels the ship’s Verandah Café, her bedroom feels like a first-class suite, and the portholes she built glow with blue fabric meant to suggest open ocean. The most expensive piece, she admits, was a $900 cherub. The rest—costumes, Titanic purses, control boards, switches—she picked up piece by piece. She doesn’t know how much she’s spent overall, and doesn’t want to know.
On TikTok and Instagram, Boll documents the progress, sometimes polling her followers for ideas. Friends come by and film their reactions; Hinge dates have been asked to paint. It’s weird, it’s excessive, but it’s also renter-friendly, she insists. Everything is taped, nothing permanent, though she concedes she worries her landlord might stumble across the videos.
What she’s built is more than cosplay, less than theater. It’s a temporary shrine to a movie, a piece of history, and a deeply personal fixation. At some point she’ll have to take it all down—her next dream is a Wizard of Oz apartment—but for now, she lives every day aboard the Titanic.
