Ashes to Awards: Ultimate Home Goals

A devastating fire destroyed the first iteration of this mansion but undeterred, building started again and is now the client’s dream home. Amy Stoneham looks at how it went from ashes to award winner.

Based in Minneapolis in Minnesota, with picturesque views overlooking Lake Minnetonka, this mansion has been transformed into a modern home packed with hidden technology. Home to a married couple with a young son, the house features large banks of windows capturing the views of the bay from the garden and the private wooded lot in the front. With so much open space both outside and indoors, it was important to the client that only necessary technology is visible while the rest is completely hidden, promoting a clean and open aesthetic.

Integrator, Admit One Home Systems, was chosen to undertake the challenge of this whole-home control and AV installation. Lance Anderson, owner of Admit One Home Systems, says: “It was important for the interior of this home to convey a feeling of flow and open space with minimal technological intrusion. With clean simplicity as a motif for this home, the Crestron Home System was a natural fit, providing consistent, elegant control of AV, lighting and shades, with minimal clutter.”

Key Themes

The key components to the success of this project were entertainment and security and safety. As it is such a big property, there were many zones to cover and several areas that were dedicated to different interests and hobbies.

“We provided numerous television displays throughout to satisfy his love for TV, while maintaining hassle-free, reliable operation to satisfy her concerns,” adds Dan Playman, senior technician at Admit One Home Systems, and lead on this project. “TVs and flush-mounted speakers were deployed in most rooms of the house, so the big game is never too far away.

“Entertaining was a priority, especially in the lower-level, where we specified multiple displays in the shared spaces, as well as an open concept theatre for dedicated watching. The same approach carries over to the outdoor spaces, where TV and music can be accessed in the cabana, porch, pool area, and putting green. Two indoor ‘fun zones’ were also important in the AV design considerations: a golf simulator and a sports court.”

Safety and security were of utmost importance to these clients in order to keep themselves, their property and possessions safe and always have peace of mind when away from home. The integrators had to specify multiple cameras and NVRs across the interior and exterior of the property to fully cover the grounds.

With this level of home, comprehensive door, motion and glass monitoring is standard, but it was extremely important to these clients that they have thorough environmental coverage too, including fire, water and low temperature protection.

“Fire coverage was particularly critical,” explains Anderson. “Tragically, during construction, this massive home caught fire, creating an alarmingly huge blaze that appeared on the local news. The Stanley Park home, in its newly framed up stage, was reduced to cinders. However, the undeterred clients immediately resumed rebuilding their dream home soon afterward. Now completely finished, the grand home stands gloriously atop the ashes as a testament to persistence.

Extensive surveillance coverage is included across the vast property, ensuring it captures footage in the many nooks and crannies of the home’s angular façade and extended breadth of the property. There is also a 2N door station to monitor the activity at the front door.

“With such comprehensive security coverage, these clients can travel abroad with piece of mind that their prized property is in safe keeping,” defines Anderson.

Lighting & Shading

With so many windows creating a light and airy property, it was important to have sufficient lighting and shading solutions to control temperature, light and privacy. Prior to this install, the client had no experience with lighting and shade control, so it was important that it was simple to use and understand while bringing necessary benefits to the residents.

Playman says: “We designed a comprehensive Crestron lighting system to facilitate lighting and shades as well as energy saving potential with automation scheduling. This is a very large home, so it was a priority that we provide a system that illuminates these large, connected spaces with a single button push. Extensive landscape lighting, outdoor fixtures, and water features are reined in by simple keypad and app control, which is essential as the clients often host gatherings and occasional bands in the backyard.”

He continues: “Lighting is facilitated by Crestron lighting, with 40 Horizon keypads controlling 130 light loads, seven fans, two outdoor heaters on the screen porch, and two outdoor water features. Most of the lighting was home-run to the two 10 module lighting enclosures, with local Crestron dimmers for less prominent zones like mechanical rooms and closets.”

All bedrooms and living spaces feature extensive shades and draperies to accommodate the numerous, huge windows. As the ultimate goal of this home is to be kept light and bright during daylight hours, having motorised shading is essential to controlling privacy and solar heat. The bedrooms have black out shades in conjunction with sheers to keep the room extremely dark when sleeping, no matter what time of day it is.

“There are 43 shades and eight drapes in the home, home-run to two shade panels,” Playman illustrated. “There are also three Somfy Phantom screens installed on the screen porch and five Phantom screens in the cabana. All are integrated with the Crestron Home system, allowing app and keypad control.”

AV & Entertainment

Big fans of TV, listening to music, and hosting parties and social gatherings, the AV installed in this property had to be first class to give a premium performance to the residents and their guests.

The main area of entertainment is the dedicated home theatre in the lower-level of the house. The cinema is very unique in its design, yet fully functional as a high-performing home cinema. Its unique design features only three surrounding walls with the right side open to the rec room, revealing a smooth bar flanked by stone pillars.

“This functionality acts as a partition wall for the theatre, while creating extra seating for entertaining and watching the big game with friends,” explains Anderson. “When the full theatre experience is desired, motorised acoustical draperies allow the clients to close the room off.”

Early in the design process, the clients were struggling to envision their lower-level space and how this partially open cinema concept would work. “We used Modus VR to build out their entire lower-level entertaining space,” Playman says. “One of the client’s requests was having clean site lines to all four displays from his bar seat and we discovered while in the VR that some of the large stone pillars would need to be adjusted in size and placement for this to happen. Luckily, because we were consulted early, changes were still able to be made. Being able to walk through their space with VR technology instilled a lot of confidence with the clients and truthfully, it was probably a big reason they decided to go with us.”

In the theatre, a Sony projector displays onto a Stewart Filmscreen micro-perf screen. Providing the sound, Wisdom Audio point source speakers featuring planar drivers in a 7.2.2 surround array is used. “This provides the theatre with outstandingly accurate sound with minimal bleed into adjacent spaces,” adds Playman.

“Three large p6i in-wall models live behind the perforated screen on the front wall, while two S90i in-wall subwoofers inhabit the front columns of the space, contributing powerful bass while maintaining the sleek minimalism of the room. Traditional in-wall surround speakers were foregone due to the open concept of the theatre, so surround, surround rear and atmos pairs are the ICS7 in-ceiling models.”

Away from the home cinema room, there is also plenty of audio video distribution throughout the rest of the property with video distributed to 18 displays in 16 zones via a Crestron NVX and 27 zones of audio distribution via Crestron’s new NAX networked audio system.

“The cabana and the exercise room both have dual displays, one on either side of the space,” says Playman. “The system is programmed so each display is independently controlled, but can easily operate in tandem by pressing and holding any source button on the handheld controller. The two upper-level guest rooms are the lone standalone displays in the home, each with a local Apple TV handling streaming duties.”

He continues: “Using Crestron’s new NAX networked audio system for the audio distribution minimises interconnects needed in the rack, easily scales up to accommodate future speakers, and gives us flexibility with future amplifier locations. So if they build a poolhouse in a few years, the only necessary cabling from the house is a simple LAN connection to feed a local NAX amp.

“In addition to providing amplification and switching for all the video sources, the NAX system also provides client selectable doorbell chimes, a do not disturb function, and access to three Sonos Ports for whole-house audio. NAX line level outputs feed a subwoofer in the kitchen, as well as a Sonance Amp which drives an SLS speaker array by the pool.”

Control

Crestron Home is used for the overall control of the technology and AV throughout the property. A total of 19 handheld controllers are used across the house which communicate to the rack Crestron CP4 processor via gateways.

As well as remote controllers, three in-wall touchscreens have also been strategically placed in the main shared spaces for easy control. A 7” touchscreen installed in the kitchen gives full control over audio in the living room, screen porch, as well as the kitchen itself. The owner’s suit hallway also has a touchscreen controlling his bedroom, closets, bathrooms and sitting room. The final touchscreen is flush inset into one of the stone pillars on the lower-level. This controls the spacious rec room, billiards and bar areas.

The Crestron Home app is installed on the client’s phones and tablets, which is also set up for remote access when they are away from home.

To make experiences even more user-friendly, pre-programmed scenes and settings were created. “Driveway and Porte Cochere lights turn on automatically during the evening, then also for a few hours in the morning for the family dog’s morning activities,” explains Playman. “Rear patio, step lights, and pool lights are also turned on just for the evening hours.

“There are occupancy sensors in the master closets as they are the only windowless rooms on the upper-level and always require light, so we automated the lighting for seamless transitions from bedroom to bathrooms.”

He continues: “The front door is a large, unique swing-style door that does not contain traditional latch and lockset. We provided solenoid-driven pin-style latches with sensors to detect when the door is closed, and automatically drops the pins to latch the door. Without this feature, the door swings freely, and could easily be blown open in the wind.”

Combining scheduled automations with user-initiated actions, the aforementioned unique door latch has a lock/unlock button integrated into the nearest Crestron lighting keypad, while an Alarm.com access control system is installed with an outdoor reader to give hands-free access to the home with a fob. This is not only useful for the homeowner in case they lose a key, but also for the cleaning crew or any subcontractors who need to gain access for service.

“Finally, the backyard lake-facing waterfall and a future courtyard fountain are both scheduled to turn on during the day and off at night during the summer months,” says Playman.

Award Winning

Not only is this property a hugely successful project in the client’s eyes, but the integrator was awarded a number of accolades at this year’s CEDIA Awards for the Americas region for their fantastic work.

This Stanley Park project won ‘Best Integrated Home Level IV’, ‘Excellence in Documentation’, ‘Excellence in Rack Building and Design’, and was also the global winner of ‘Best Integrated Home’.

Tech Spec

2N Door Station
Access Networks C120 Wireless Controller
Access Networks Helix Live Monitoring
Anthem MCA 525 Power Amplifiers
Apple TVs
Arcam AV40 AV Processor
AudioControl RS500 Subwoofer Amplifier
AudioQuest Cables
Bosch Motion Detectors
Chief RPMA-020 Projector Mount
Cool Components Active Thermal Management System One
Crestron CP4-R 4-Series Control Processors for Crestron Home OS
Crestron DigitalMedia Card Chassis
Crestron DM NAX 8-Zone Streaming Amplifiers
Crestron DM NVX 4K60 4:4:4 HDR Network AV Decoders
Crestron Handheld Remotes
Crestron Horizon Faceplates 1-Gang & 2-Gang
Crestron Horizon In-Wall Switches & Universal Phase Dimmers
Crestron Horizon Keypads
Crestron infiNET EX Network & ER Wireless Gateways
Crestron MC3 3-Series Control System
Crestron TSW-1070R 10.1” Wall Mount Touchscreen
Crestron TSW-760 7” Touchscreens
Crestron Wireless Passive Infrared Occupancy Sensors
Epson PowerLite LS Series Projector
Leon Custom TV Fits
Leon Horizon HZ33 Soundbar & Mount
Middle Atlantic Full System Racks
Middle Atlantic Full System Rack Lite
Modus VR
Pentaire Pool Controller
Ruckus 24 Port Switches
Ruckus 48 Port POE Core Switches
Ruckus R550 Access Points
Ruckus Wireless ZoneFlex T610 Outdoor Access Points
Samsung The Frame QLED 4K UHD HDR Smart TV
Seura Mirror TV
Snap One 16-Channel NVRs
Snap One Visualint 2MP IP Cameras, Indoor & Outdoors
Snap One Visualint Control
Snap One WattBox IP Vertical Power Strips
Somfy Phantom Motorised Screens
Sonance DSP 2-750 Landscape Package
Sonance LS12T Landscape In-Ground Subwoofer
Sonance LS4T 70V Landscape Series Speakers
Sonance LS4t System
Sonance RK63 Rock Series 6.5” Outdoor Speakers
Sonance Visual Performance VP Series 4”-8” Surround In-Ceiling Speakers
Sonos Ports
Sony UBP-X800M2 4K UHD Blu-ray Player with HDR
Sony VPL-VW915ES 4K HDR Projector
Sony TVs Ranging from 43”-85”, Various Models
Stewart Filmscreen 185” 2:35 Micro-Perf Projection Screen
Sunbrite Veranda 2 Series LED HDR Outdoor TVs
Sunfire HRS10 Subwoofer
SurgeX UPS-42100-85R
Wisdom Audio Insight Series P6i In-Wall Speakers
Wisdom Audio S90i In-Wall Subwoofers
Wisdom Audio Sage Series ICS7 In-Ceiling Speakers