The couch was voted the ugliest in America on Tuesday by a studio audience watching the Live! with Regis morning TV show. Prince, in New York with wife Paula, was unswayed by the audience's selection.

"I'm telling you, I never thought the furniture was ugly," the 63-year-old Port Richey man said of the sofa, which features red velvet trim and a wavy psychedelic pattern of beastly brown hues.

"We still don't think it's ugly. But you can never tell about those New York audiences. . . . "

The "Ugliest Couch" contest is sponsored by Sure Fit, a manufacturer of slip covers. Each year, the company asks its customers to send in pictures of their hideous sofas. More than 1,000 nominations came in this year. Sure Fit narrowed the lot down to 10 semifinalists, posted the pictures on its Web site and let the public pick the three ugliest. The Princes' sofa got 552 votes and placed third.

Sure Fit flew the top three vote-getters -- and their couches -- to New York City and let the television audience pick the winner.

First prize was $5,000 -- not bad for an aging hand-me-down.

The Princes inherited the couch from Richard's father about 20 years ago. They were living in Michigan at the time, and when they moved to Port Richey in 1983, they lugged the sofa south.

"My dad liked it, so I liked it," Richard Prince said. "I bet Dad's having a good laugh right now. Five grand for that couch? No way."

Paula Prince may not be as enthusiastic as her husband about the couch, but she said it's not that bad. Still, she doesn't put the sofa in the living room where everybody can see it. No, the couch -- along with its matching love seat and over-stuffed chair -- stays out of sight in her husband's den.

She said she didn't think the couch was ugly enough to win until she saw pictures of previous winners and saw one that looked like a mutant spawn of the aging sofa parked in her Port Richey home.

"It was so similar to ours that we had to enter," she said. "It could have been our couch."

The Princes plan to use the $5,000 prize to buy a new couch, but they say their award-winning heirloom will stay put in the den.

Sure Fit spokesman Tommy Semosh said past winners have gleefully unloaded their ugly couches on his company after their television appearances. Sure Fit often gives the old sofas to one of the many Ripley's Believe It or Not! museums around the country, which put them on display. Richard and Paula Prince, though, wanted their couch back.

"Hey," Richard Prince reasoned, "it's a famous couch."

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