A Desert Oasis (read more…)

HOME SIZE | 10,000 square feet
BUILD TIME | 15 months
BUILDER | Graves Development
ARCHITECT | Marc Lemoine
LIGHTING CONTROL | Crestron
HOME CONTROL | Crestron

Our client is a executive who is well versed in the atmosphere of 24 hour operations. Since the main focus of his industry is to host and entertain, he knows the importance of A/V, Automation and Lighting control as a necessity for his home as well and they too need to run like clockwork. Aware of these needs, Crestron was the logical choice as it is a well known and respected solution. Our project scope covered the basics like A/V distribution, Lighting, Shade, Pool, Security and Climate control but with detailed programming the home now saves energy and greets the homeowners return differently based on time of day making the home truly feel alive. These solutions solve the needs of both ours and the clients and are further supported with remote monitoring and user control. As we know clocks don’t run forever, with that said future proofing the home via efficiently placed conduit networks run throughout the skeleton of the home. Now the home can be upgraded in the future with minimal to no retro-fitting and every aspect of the system can be controlled remotely from his home away from home….wherever that might be.

A few unique aspects of this home were the 10ft x 10ft 1100lb center pivoting glass front door. The door is secured with dual magnetic locks that are controlled from the Crestron PAC2 lighting control processor and are unlocked from the engraved Crestron lighting keypad located at the entry. By unifying all of the subsystems in the home, we can utilize a button on the light switch to control other things like the front door and garage doors. For instance in the garage there is a 4 button keypad that controls the garage lights and garage door all from the same keypad as well. It doesn’t get any more simple then that. From the Exterior, access to the home is granted by entering a security code into a Stainless Steel Holovision intercom with integrated camera and glass keypad. The keypads codes can be changed by the homeowner from a Crestron TPMC-8L touchpanel located near the kitchen once you have logged into the security page. The camera located inside the intercom comes into play while you are watching TV in any room in the home. If a guest rings the doorbell while you are watching TV, the current source will pause and the video will switch to the front door camera. By the time you get back from answering the door, the TV will have switched back to the current program waiting for you to resume watching the program.

One of the great opportunities we had with this project was to rid all of the closets with doors in the home of traditional light switches. Using the Crestron PAC2 we installed sensors in the doors and a combination of both door and motion sensors in walk-in closets. With programming for instance, the coat closet will always greet you with light when you open the door to place a jacket and turn off when closed. If the door stays open, it will time out after a predetermined about of time. The walk-in closets stay on if someone is inside with the door closed. To us this is the main goal of automation, make life easier and so integrated that you don’t even notice the lights turn on when you walk into a room. With Ideabox the home is finally alive.