Modern Home Spaces: Highlands Ranch Home

Leo and Angela began building their Highlands Ranch home back in 2015. Knowing that they wanted to embark on creating a pretty elaborate electronic system, Leo contacted several local integrators, and then chose ListenUp after meeting with the team at our Denver Showroom. Ultimately, what convinced me to go with ListenUp was just their stability over the years, Leo says. I could obviously tell that there was a lot of knowledge. I talked with them on the front end, and I could see that they had done it before and that they could handle the breadth of the project we were trying to take on.

Planning is key

One of the things I really liked about ListenUp was that there was a lot of patience and willingness to spend the time on the front end, to really get the project to the place we wanted it to go, while always respecting what our budget was, says Leo. We decided on a customized application, where we use Control4 and TiVo.

Leo and Angelas wish list included a whole-house automation system that would allow them to simply and easily integrate multiroom audio and video distribution, climate control, security, lighting control and surveillance system monitoring. They wanted to be able to record and play back TV programs, do streaming apps such as Netflix and play music from services such as Spotify. It was important that the system be controlled by both hand-held remotes where appropriate as well as with iPhone/iPad apps connected to the wireless network.

Manager of Technical Operations Jeff Blundell was the project manager, and Field Technicians Justyn Born and Matt Andreasen were responsible for the design and installation of the system. One of the challenges on this job, explains Jeff, was to try to give the clients everything they wanted, but still meet their budget. Fortunately, they were very flexible and willing to work with us to determine the priorities. For instance, in a big house like this over 7,000 square feet advanced lighting control in every single area would have been pretty costly. Leo and Angela agreed that there were certain places where it wouldnt be necessary. So we did our initial programming to their specifications, and after they moved into the house and lived with things for a while, weve gone back and reprogrammed certain areas to tweak things to their needs.

Sensational sights and sounds

In the lower level rec room, theres a media area with a 4K Sony projector, a 135-inch Stewart screen, Bowers & Wilkins in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, two REL subwoofers, an Arcam receiver and multiple TV and music sources. The other areas of the rec room bar, shuffleboard and cardtable area feature Sony 4K TVs and Bowers & Wilkins architectural speakers. Two all-weather speakers from Definitive Audio are mounted in the lower level patio, and the exercise room has a wall-mounted 50-inch TV with a Sonos Playbar for sound, with an Oppo Blu-ray player and TiVo MINI box as sources. Leos office features a 58-inch plasma TV that he brought from their previous home.

Matt and Justyn did a lot of programming for us, Leo says, so I can hit one button to go into football mode and all the blinds go down in the lower level, the lights go off and the big screen and three other TVs all turn on to ESPN. Weve got the same type of one-button control to watch movies. There were a lot of little details involved in the project for ListenUp, like making sure that even though were running the sound through the Arcam amp for the big screen TV, we could still sync the sound from the big screen TV to the other three TVs in the room. The main level features Bowers & Wilkins architectural speakers throughout; the great room sports a 75-inch Sony 4K TV and the kitchen has a 40-inch model. A 65-inch Sony 4K TV, Sonos Playbar and in-ceiling Bowers & Wilkins speakers grace the master bedroom, while the three guest bedrooms all feature wall-mounted TVs brought from the couples previous home and installed by ListenUp.

Intersted in creating the smart home of your dreams? Schedule a consultation at listenup.com/smarthome.