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Inside Exposure

On the set of ''Northern Exposure'' -- We take you on a tour of this stage including a 1,000 square foot living room

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By Kit Boss

It's probably the most visited log cabin on TV since Grizzly Adams' — if cabin is the right word for a place with a 1,000-square-foot living room and a dining table that seats 18. Northern Exposure's Maurice Minnifield, the ex- NASA jock (played by Barry Corbin) who splashed down in the one state big enough to hold his bluster, calls it home.

''We wanted to give him a castle that's commensurate with the size of the character,'' explains Exposure cocreator Joshua Brand, ''a monument to himself.''

Imagine, if you will, a collision outside fictional Cicely, Alaska, between Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu and a hunting lodge. A zoo's worth of moose, bear, and buffalo gaze with glass eyes at museum-quality paintings. An arsenal of rifles and knives cozies up beside Victorian lampshades and rococo sofas. ''Guns and roses,'' Brand calls the decor. ''In a way, it's a Rorschach for Maurice.''

The set was inspired by a real log house built about 20 miles outside Seattle by DeWelle F. ''Skip'' Ellsworth III, who teaches cabin construction through the University of Washington. His 6,500-square-foot home, dripping with hunting trophies, Zulu shields, knives, even a carriage and sleigh, was used in three episodes of Exposure.

Eventually Maurice got his own place, built inside a Redmond, Wash., soundstage under the supervision of production designer Woody Crocker, and stocked with furnishings found at thrift shops and taxidermists'. ''This is a man with a great knowledge of period and style, but who overdoes everything,'' Crocker says. ''Practicality is not Maurice's long suit.''

Leaning back in his character's study and scanning the wildlife-studded walls, Corbin says, ''This is Maurice's vision. It's a very odd vision. It'd give me the willies to come in here at night and see all these dead things.''