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DETROIT DESIGN / SPIRE INTEGRATED SYSTEMS
September 2023
LUXE ON THE LAKE
This family home blends modern architecture and high-tech automation with bits of Detroit’s rich history.
Ryan and Wendi LaFontaine knew exactly what they wanted before they built their dream home. All they needed was a dream team. After they found it, the couple was intimately involved in every single room in their 11,815-square-foot-plus manse on Genesee County’s Silver Lake, near Fenton. The result is a monument to their family and their love of Detroit’s history.
cE Pro / dsi luxury technology
August 2023
California’s First Zero-Carbon Residence Comes with a Self-Healing Smart Grid / DSI Luxury Technology creates a truly groundbreaking smart home to meet the homeowner’s environmentalism aspirations.
Malibu: the land of luxury and fame in California, and home to the state’s first zero carbon home. But that doesn’t mean the house is a barebones setup. To keep in line with the homeowner’s aspirations of having a 100% off the grid home with all the environmental controls fit for the utmost comfort and modern entertainment, they brought on the team at DSI Luxury Technology to create a truly groundbreaking smart home
residential systems / precision media
July 2023
The CI and the Side Hustle / Precision Media’s Brian Richards uses his professional talents to create a unique — and extremely successful — AirBnB destination.
Brian Richards, owner of Precision Media in Englewood, Colo., has owned the log cabin in nearby Idaho Springs for more than 20 years. Located next to a river and surrounded by a national forest, the property had everything a guest could want in a peaceful, get-away-from-it-all vacation. Everything, that is, except a luxurious adjoining treehouse.
That omission has been fixed….
elle decor / opus a/v/c
July 2023
A Beach House Designed to Look Like a Factory from the Industrial Revolution
Rising up from a sprawling plot of land on Connecticut’s exclusive—and incredibly idyllic—Canfield Island is an imposing structure that, at first glance, resembles more of an industrial complex out of a Charles Dickens novel rather than the “comfortable” home that interior designers Amanda Jesse and Whitney Parris-Lamb describe when talking about their client’s distinctive dwelling.
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Connected Design / Atlantic Control Technologies
August 2022
Oceanfront Cottage Combines Technology and Architecture with AV Integration
The Annapolis, Maryland based AV integration team from Atlantic Control Technologies was summoned to a Rehoboth, Delaware beachfront property. Sitting on the Atlantic Ocean, the home was designed by renowned architect Robert Gurney, whose modern creations are distinctive, progressive and aesthetically brilliant.
As an oceanfront property, it was intended to be a recreational vacation destination for the family. Thus, says the integrator, the technology in the home needed to be both fun and functional, and rugged enough to stand up to extreme climates while also adhering to the strict aesthetic demands of the architect.
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technology designer / denizen
July 2022
An interview with John Palser, owner of this recently re-branded systems integration leader.
ECHO SYSTEMS, THE MIDWEST’S TECHNOLOGY AND LIGHTING DESIGN POWERHOUSE with headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, recently initiated a large-scale brand refresh including a name change. Echo Systems’ acquisition of Kansas City based Integrated Electronics in 2019 and Dallas Sight and Sound in 2021 led to a major expansion of territory, talent and offerings, and owner John Palser felt it was time to reimagine the company as one unified team under the new name of Denizen. I recently sat down with John to talk about his history as one of the country’s premier systems integration and design firms and his thoughts on working with design-build professionals and delivering the perfect technology experience for his customers.
CE PRO / denizen
May 2022
Leading Midwest Integrator Echo Systems Rebrands as Denizen
One of the Midwest’s powerhouse integration companies, Echo Systems, has initiated a large-scale brand refresh including a name change. Echo Systems’ acquisition of Integrated Electronics in 2019 and Dallas Sight and Sound in 2021 led to major expansion of territory, talent and offerings, and owner John Palser believes it is time to reimagine the company as one unified team under the new name of Denizen.
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ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST / DSI LUXURY TECHNOLOGY
JUNE 2020
Inside Hollywood Hitmaker Ryan Murphy's Serene NYC and L.A. Homes
The house now has a weird monastic hush—you enter into an absence of noise and brightness and you feel nourished, forcibly calmed. Grounded. We even applied the rule to the kids’ playroom. A comfy sofa is covered in cotton the color of pewter; a Faye Toogood gaming table is the color of ramen. I thought our boys would rebel, but they actually love it. When we had our first dinner party in this house, six months ago, I casually declared I didn’t want to hang much art because the white plaster walls were the art to me. From around the table came a chorus of agreement: “Don’t touch the walls!” So we haven’t. The exceptions are a mammoth Helen Frankenthaler, a very somber Magritte (the expert eye of Sotheby’s Peter Kloman found both for us), and the occasional oversized sculpture in bronze by the likes of Jean Arp and Lalanne.
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wall street journal / DSI LUXURY TECHNOLOGY
JUNE 2020
A Beverly Hills Spec House With a 15-foot Waterfall Lists for $39 Million
The Beverly Hills property is in tony Trousdale Estates, where high-profile owners include the singer Elton John and billionaire Bernard Arnault.
The newly constructed house was developed by a group of investors led by local residents Lisa and Jonathan Bloch. The project is the first spec house to be designed by Mark Rios, one of the architects behind the renovation of the iconic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. In the past, Mr. Rios said, he has designed homes for music executive Clive Davis and television producer Darren Star.
The six-bedroom, modern home spans roughly 12,500 square feet across two levels. Mr. Rios, a founder of RCH Studios, said he designed the house and garden to take advantage of a “killer view” of the Los Angeles basin.
qualified remodeler / cantara
FEBRUARY 2020
Outdoor Living: Audio and Video
Today, it’s all about more Wi-Fi, more televisions and more music. And as projects grow in size and sophistication, specialists are required right from the very beginning.
Allen Construction, the Santa Barbara, California-based full-service remodeling icon, is thriving. Last year the company completed approximately 150 jobs on $24.6 million in revenue and was ranked No. 61 on the QR Top 500 list. Year-in and year-out, it is seeing a steady flow of big-ticket, whole-house projects. And nearly all of them have large outdoor-living programs, says Eric Johnson, vice president of construction for the company.
CEDIA AWARDS 2019 / cantara
DECEMBER 2019
Best Integrated Home Level II
The winner in this category was part of a complete remodel of a mid-century home that was built for a young couple who felt technology integration was absolutely key to their living experience.
One of the systems that most impressed the CEDIA judging panel in this home was the distributed audio. The client wanted music at background levels throughout the house, and wanted each room to deliver consistent sound. The integrator used different-sized Sonance speakers in the various rooms, and custom-programmed each channel.
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CE PRO / THE GUILD
OCTOBER 2019
What is the Guild Integrators’ Alliance? An inside look at this group of 14 elite custom integration companies, which communicates daily, and shares sensitive business information to elevate their performance.
CE PRO / SAV DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS
OCTOBER 2019
Cory Reistad is the president and founder of SAV Digital Environments, an HTA-certified, Montana-based designer, manager and integrator of home and business automation solutions. He’s also a real-estate developer, and his most recent project was a condominium complex in Bozeman.
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LA TIMES / CANTARA
OCTOBER 2019
Is another record in the cards for Casa Encantada?
The Bel-Air home of financier Gary Winnick — a 40,000-square-foot 1930s-era trophy perched above the Bel-Air Country Club — has twice set the record for highest price of a residential real estate sale in the U.S.
Now, the storied estate is listing for sale at $225 million, making it the most expensive home publicly listed in the United States and a contender to unseat the current California recordholder for selling price: $119.75 million set this year when the former Spelling manor in Holmby Hills changed hands.
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CE PRO MAGAZINE / UNMASKING THE GUILD
OCTOBER 2019
An inside look at this group of 14 elite custom integration companies, who communicate daily and share sensitive business information to elevate their performance. As a group, these leading companies connect regularly, ask and share openly, host workshops and events throughout the year and more: breaking down the barriers that often hinder a company from achieving the next level of success.
CRAIN’S 12 COOLEST OFFICES IN CHICAGO / PREMIERE
OCTOBER 2019
What makes an office cool? We use the term as a catchall for a well-designed workplace that's a good representation of the business and allows employees to work comfortably and efficiently. After that, opinions diverge. Should they be homelike, with lounges, table tennis and the like? (No, says judge Richard Wright of Wright Auctions.) Wright, along with interior designer Michael Del Piero and Crain's assistant managing editor Jan Parr (a longtime design magazine editor in a previous life), chose 12 offices out of 78 submissions for this year's crop of Coolest.
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MOUNTAIN LIVING HOME OF THE YEAR / SAV DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS
SEPTEMBER 2019
Every year, Mountain Living receives dozens of projects submitted for our Home of the Year contest. After months of deliberation, our Editorial Team reviews each submittal and chooses one home, and the design team behind the project, as the winners.
Throughout the last decade, our Home of the Year winners have ranged from a modern cabin and a rustic dwelling to a contemporary, grand legacy home in Aspen. Each home has a distinct look but all are influenced by Western style to complement its mountain location.
METROPOLIS MAGAZINE / PREMIERE
SEPTEMBER 2019
For a young family from California’s Bay Area, the Lakeview penthouse in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood was almost perfect. Situated on the 38th and 39th floors of a Lucien Lagrange–designed building, the duplex offered expansive views of the Loop and Lake Michigan. Because of the building’s mansard roof, however, it suffered from an awkward interior with deep arched-top dormers and sloping walls.
DEZEEN / ATLANTIC CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES
SEPTEMBER 2018
American architect Robert Gurney sought to open up views, and balance old and new, while renovating a four-story historic dwelling in the Georgetown area of the US capital.
The project, called Renovation on Cox's Row, entailed the refurbishment of a slender brick dwelling built between 1805 and 1829 by Colonel John Cox, who later served as Georgetown's mayor. It is one of five along Cox's Row, considered one of the area's foremost examples of Federal-style architecture.