Inside Lindsay's Playpen

Been keeping track of Lindsay Lohan lately? Good. Then you're caught up on her late-night car chase and her latest trip to Promises for rehab. But you're probably still a little fuzzy on her new haunt (and Jeremy Piven's, and Paris Hiltons'): the Polaroid Beach House.

The Malibu mansion, it turns out, is an elaborate marketing ploy engineered by Fingerprint Communications, which started handling Polaroid's PR after Petters Group bought it in 2005.

It's a twist on the old product-placement trick: Rather than place products among celebrities, the idea here is to place celebrities among products.

For Fingerprint's co-owner Jessica Meisels, the scheme was a no-brainer. "I saw: a) celebrities, b) the beach and c) all of these homes," she says. So she took a $30 million beachfront estate, stuffed it with goods from secondary sponsors from Clinique to Budweiser, and booked three months of events.

These events, by the way, range from product launches to a wedding reception (actors Jennifer Finnigan and Jonathan Silverman booked their nuptial celebrations there for Saturday).

The Polaroid Beach House was around last year, too, but this year it upgraded from a $10 million property to a $30 million one and ditched Carbon Beach for the more protected Colony Beach.

"Other houses were popping up on Carbon Beach and we didn't want to be caught in that hectic scramble," Meisels says. "A lot of them are swag houses. I think French Connection has one and they had, like, a Tori Spelling event or something." Ew.

"And," Meisels adds, "there was a little too much paparazzi there."

Of course, Meisels doesn't want too little at her place. After all, she says the point of the Polaroid pad is to make "long-term brand ambassadors" out of its celebrity guests.

Polaroid makes flat screen TVs and digital cameras now, but its name still brings to mind its boxy, instant-picture signature product. To suddenly find "Polaroid" and "Lohan" in the same sentence all over the gossip blogs -- it's where she was entertaining herself before her unfortunate run-in with a tree -- well, it's the equivalent of seeing the prom queen holding hands with the chess club president.

So how does Fingerprint make sure their celebrity guests do a decent amount of product testing as they party? By maintaining a setup designed to make them notice every bottled water, mattress and walkie-talkie on the premises. Below, the house rules:

1. At least 40 pieces of Garnier product and 40 pieces of Clinique product should be visible in the house at all times.

2. A kitchen staff of 4 (one executive chef and three sous chefs) should be on hand at all times to prepare meals using Whole Foods ingredients for guests.

3. Each room should contain West Elm furniture.

4. A Polaroid 7.0 megapixel T730 digital camera (red edition) should be placed on each nightstand.

5. Each guest room should have a Sunbeam mini-refrigerator, and each should be stocked with the following: 5 Evian waters, 5 Playboy Energy Drinks, and, depending on age of guest, 5 bottles selected from the following: Budweiser Select, Bacardi Silver Mojito, PEELS, Rolling Rock

6. Each bed should be outfitted with a Hastens mattress.

7. One house manager must be on hand at all times to answer guests' questions about the product within the house.

8. The house should contain 18 Polaroid 46" high-definition LCD televisions (1 in each of the four bedrooms, 4 in the game room, 4 in the living room, and 6 in the outdoor courtyard).

9. The game room should have 2 Xbox stations set up and 5 Xbox games to choose from at all times.

10. No swag. "The house is a showcase only," says Meisels.

The house manager, however, is prepared to advise guests on where to shop for every snack, appliance and accessory in the house. Except for Lindsay's sobriety-monitoring
anklet. For that they'll have to try their local police precinct.

by Megan Angelo