MTV Show Takes Sharon Home Tour To 'Extreme'

At home, senior Daniel Rosenbaum sees a Victorian-era round metal keyboard -- connected to a modern computer monitor.

Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., MTV adds another anachronism to the scene.

MTV's next "Extreme Cribs" episode features Rosenbaum leading a tour of the 1901 John G. Phillips House on Pleasant Street.

Rosenbaum will highlight the "steampunk" restorations done by his parents, Bruce and Melanie, since they moved into the house in June 2000.

Bruce says MTV had heard about the renovations and asked if his sons Joseph, 21, and Daniel wanted to host an "Extreme Cribs" house tour. Filming happened over about a 13-hour day in early spring.

"I thought it was a pretty cool idea: MTV was coming to my house and wanted me to host one of their TV shows," says Daniel, who will make his TV debut.

Steampunk design infuses period objects with modern technology, Bruce says. The couple began renovating the house, "a cross between a Victorian and a Craftsman-style home" with the kitchen, and "wanted to be sympathetic to the house's style."

"We had people who started to come through who said we were steampunking," says Bruce, who runs ModVic, a Victorian home restoration and Steampunk home design firm, from his home.

Bruce says MTV interviewed him and Melanie discussing the renovations. Snippets are interspersed into the program.

Coincidentally,"(Daniel)'s own room was not steampunk," Bruce says.

"I was like, 'I have my steampunk TV over there. My steampunk XBox over there,'" Daniel says.

The Rosenbaums will host a show-watching party for family and friends Wednesday, Bruce says.

More TV work may be in the family's future.

The Rosenbaums are pitching a steampunk reality TV show to producers this weekend, with an eye toward the fall 2011 season, Bruce says.

The show would be set at Waltham's Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, he says.