NYT November 7 Style Section - Clotaire Rapaille, a French-born medical anthropologist and psychiatrist, is paid top dollar by American corporations to tell them what consumers want from their coffee, toilet paper, artificial sweetener, luggage, cheese and political candidates -- but most of all in their cars.

Consumers make decisions from the gut, not the brain, Dr. Rapaille maintains, based on the earliest memories of home and happiness. Thus the way to understand their choices is not polls or focus groups, instead Dr. Rapaille says he prefers the psychoanalytic methods of Freud and Jung, which expose unconscious desires that transcend time and fashion.

New York Times

Style

November 7, 2004

A Dream Life Freud Would Have Envied

By JANE GROSS

TUXEDO PARK, N.Y.

Paxton for The New York Times

WHEELS AND DEALS Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, a psychiatrist who is paid to tell corporations what Americans like, with some of his toys outside his 19th-century mansion.

Paxton for The New York Times

INTERIORS Dr. Clotaire Rapaille near a portrait he painted of his mother, filtered, of course, by his unconscious.

CLOTAIRE RAPAILLE, a French-born medical anthropologist and psychiatrist, is paid top dollar by American corporations to tell them what consumers want from their coffee, toilet paper, artificial sweetener, luggage, cheese and political candidates -- but most of all in their cars.

It is Dr. Rapaille, best known as the "car shrink," who has persuaded chief executives from Chrysler to Procter & Gamble that Americans care more about the aroma of coffee than the taste, want their cheese refrigerated rather than runny and prefer automobiles that resemble armored tanks on the outside and cozy living rooms on the inside.

Consumers make decisions from the gut, not the brain, Dr. Rapaille maintains, based on the earliest memories of home and happiness. Thus the way to understand their choices is not polls or focus groups, tools of more standard market research. Instead Dr. Rapaille says he prefers the psychoanalytic methods of Freud and Jung, which expose unconscious desires that transcend time and fashion.

Dr. Rapaille, who charges $200,000 to conduct research and advise companies about a marketing strategy or product, calls these deeply held preferences archetypes. He uncovers them in a process similar to dream analysis, and practices what he preaches as founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide, his company in Boca Raton, Fla.

"I want to live in a house that's an archetype," Dr. Rapaille said. "I want a car that's an archetype, a jacket that's an archetype."

He has succeeded on all counts, playing the role of the archetypical French aristocrat. Dr. Rapaille, 63, wears a black velvet frock coat, starched collar and cravat rather than more standard daytime attire. He is doted upon by a white-gloved servant and a new bride half his age. His French accent makes his grandiose pronouncements sound whimsical and his hair flies every which way, mad-genius style.

His hobbies, playing polo and painting portraits of his ancestors, signify privilege and mock it at the same time. His turn-of-the-last-century mansion here, in a gated community an hour north of New York City, is a stage set for his personal choices as a consumer. The circular drive out front is crowded with two Rolls-Royces, a PT Cruiser, a Chrysler Prowler and a Porsche 911 (when it isn't in the shop). If he had more garage space, Dr. Rapaille said, he would add a Mini Cooper and a '64 Mustang convertible. Also on his wish list are an old Rolls-Royce Phantom limousine and the new limited edition Morgan Aero 8.

Inside the house, ground-floor parlors are decorated with gilt-framed portraits of Queen Victoria, Louis XIV and Pascal; alabaster busts of Thomas Jefferson, Apollo and Napoleon; and vintage armaments, including an original Winchester rifle and Colt pistol and gleaming sabers of all sizes and shapes. Mozart plays on an invisible sound system. There are no examples of modern technology visible in the public spaces: not a television, telephone or computer.

Dr. Rapaille's taste, to put it mildly, is classical. "I'm not the trend expert," he said, summoning another log for the fire and a service of morning coffee. "I'm the expert in what doesn't change, from one generation to another."

His house here, with its original Parisian fixtures and Italian marble, was built in 1890 by Warren & Wetmore, one of the architectural firms that designed Grand Central Terminal. It is situated deep in the woodsy confines of "the park," as this exclusive community is known to its 1,000 or so residents. The compound, on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1886 by Pierre Lorillard, the tobacco heir, as a fishing and hunting retreat for his friends.

Tuxedo Park was a playground for millionaires from the turn of the century to the Great Depression, when a few mansions were said to have been abandoned or deliberately burned down by their suddenly impoverished owners. The house Dr. Rapaille bought here 15 years ago had been in foreclosure for so long that birds nested in its ruined rooms and real estate agents considered it a tear-down.

But the spooky structure called his name, said Dr. Rapaille, who said he was guided by what he called the "reptilian brain," in which primitive urges trump flinty intellect. "It wasn't a rational choice," he said of the house. "It happened at a gut level. This is a love story. To me this house has a soul, like a real person. After a while I became the house and the house became me."

Dr. Rapaille said that after living in more prosaic homes in Greenwich, Conn., and Beverly Hills, Calif., he "wanted a house with ghosts," a house that had "suffered and was left scarred." In that regard, it is an American version of the Rapaille family's ancestral castle in Normandy, circled by the Orne River as if by a moat, with turrets that date to the ninth century.

That home was seized by the Nazis during World War II, Dr. Rapaille said, just as his father, an officer in the French Army, was captured and imprisoned by the Nazis. The remainder of the family -- Dr. Rapaille, his mother and grandmother -- spent the war in hiding in Paris. Already a devotee of cowboy movies, Dr. Rapaille said, he developed a love for all things American when tanks rolled into Paris and G.I.'s rained chocolate and chewing gum on children like himself.

And so the United States became his beacon and his ultimate destination, where he arrived armed with advanced degrees in political science, medical anthropology and psychiatry, although not business. That did not stand in his way when he began selling his eclectic expertise to American corporations 20 years ago, eventually becoming successful enough to repurchase the Normandy castle and make it his second home. Clients have included Boeing, I.B.M. and Kellogg, his office said.

A Renault minivan and a Corvette convertible occupy the driveway in Normandy, where Dr. Rapaille's mother-in-law now lives. And in another gated community in Boca Raton, home to Dr. Rapaille's former wife and teenage son, there are three additional cars, a Jeep Wrangler, a Hummer and a Ferrari. But the automobiles he loves best are here on Crowsnest Road, the address he gives when asked "Where are you from?"

The Queen Mother of Dr. Rapaille's cars is a 1978 Rolls-Royce, mossy green with a cracked tan leather interior that proves that new-car smell is not limited to new cars. Dr. Rapaille said the old Rolls reminds him of Queen Victoria, square of build and elegant and detached in demeanor. The cellular telephone inside is prehistoric, big as a bread box.

The other Rolls-Royce dates from 1994 and could be the last Rolls that Dr. Rapaille will buy, since the current German ownership of the make has tinkered with the flying lady hood ornament, making it smaller and retractable to discourage theft. Dr. Rapaille considers that heresy and, from a marketing standpoint, a foolish mistake. Nobody who buys a Rolls worries about such trifles, he said.

Equally beloved is a 2000 Prowler, a Chrysler design car no longer in production but which Chrysler had made to add sex appeal to its image. Dr. Rapaille said the car, a "completely absurd" riff on a 50's hot rod, attracts more attention in parking lots than the old Rolls because nobody can guess its age or provenance.

He talks about the Prowler as if it were human. "Look at the big butt," Dr. Rapaille said, pointing to the place where a trunk would be, if there were one. "And the face," he adds. "Eyes, a nose and that menacing chin." A broad gesture takes in the Prowler's front wheels, which move independently, each hooded with its own bumper, and the grill in between.

Missing from the driveway on this particular autumn morning are Dr. Rapaille's PT Cruiser, the model he helped Chrysler design, with a masculine exterior fit for Al Capone and a feminine interior to satisfy any mom. His wife, Sophie, a student of French literature and editor of several of Dr. Rapaille's books, has taken it to run errands.

Also absent -- out for repair -- is his 22-year-old Porsche 911, classic black inside and out, which he has raced in the mountains of Switzerland. "That's the car," Dr. Rapaille said, "that I never let anyone else drive."