There are dream homes, and then there are dream homes.
This 40-million-dollar home has a tech integration worthy of its pedigree, and the multiple CEDIA Awards it picked up in 2020 are evidence.
The AudioVisons team gives us the numbers in play: “This beautiful house is two stories above ground plus a basement for the garage, lounge, and exercise areas. The total square footage is 16,450 sq. ft. The entire home with six bedrooms and ten baths will set you back a meager $39,950,000.”
From the outset, the client – a developer — was committed to AudioVisions’ grand designs. The firm says, “Our client’s $40M speculative home needed a remarkable integrated system to stand out in the marketplace and draw the attention of a potential buyer. He wanted AudioVisions to design an integrated system that would ‘wow’ homebuyers of this stature. From our very first meeting until project completion he repeated the same axiom, ‘Your technology is going to sell this house!’”
It includes Ketra Lighting, Lutron Lighting Controls and a Delos Darwin healthy living system.
Healthy Living
AudioVisions continues: “One of the main focuses was the healthy living aspect of the home and how technology could help make that happen. Clean water, clean air, and balanced human-centric lighting were used to create an oasis of healthy living. Delos provided monitoring systems that were ultimately controlled by the Crestron automation system. Darwin automatically detects air quality changes and turns on the Mitsubishi HVAC system as necessary and the Ketra lights adjust automatically throughout the day to reflect the color temperature outside.” It’s just one of many automated features in this showplace.
Even “standard” systems like video were supersized with two wall installation in both the basement bar and living room. But perhaps the most compelling installation in the entire home is the custom projection video wall incorporating three 4K projectors. Pretty nice for a garage, right?
AudioVisions has the deets: “For the curved garage video wall, three Barco Balder 8K video projectors were used to create an 88-foot-wide blended image to wow the owner when returning home or entertaining guests in the dance club/lounge. Custom video graphics were developed specifically for the video wall. These graphics include a waterfall scene that is very realistic and has fooled a couple of visitors. In the underground lounge, there’s a 220-inch custom 4K video wall behind the bar to enhance the ProAudio in-ceiling audio for the dance club area. In the master bedroom, the view is unobstructed when the 85-inch TV is folded up at into the ceiling.”
Another stunning feature: The secret cinema with an entry hidden behind a bookcase. That theater, with its Barco projector and 206-inch Seymour screen sounds as good as it looks: the cinema was custom calibrated by Paul Hales, the founder of ProAudio, who took the sound of the room to “the next level.”
The Awards
CEDIA’s technical judges gave the home top honors in the Integrated Home, Level IV category, and then a panel of judges were drawn from some of the finest architecture and interior design firms in the business had a look.
That panel first handed the project the Technology Meets Design Award for 2020. That honor celebrates the best integration of technology that complements the design scheme for the room or home. The judges look for projects that show a successful working partnership with the integrator and design and build industry partners.
The next award: Life Lived Best at Home, a design award that really speaks to the mission of CEDIA’s members. That award honors the project that uses technology to maximize and enhance the client’s lifestyle, providing functionality, safety, entertainment, convenience, aesthetics, and efficiency.
Photos by Joel Danto