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High-Tech Hits Home
Entertainment, security and house-management systems make this Lehigh County home hum
by BETH W. ORENSTEIN, (A free-lance story for Lehigh Valley Style Magazine)
When Glen and Karen Hill set out to build their dream home in Upper Saucon Township, they had one goal in mind: it not be boring. The result of their efforts is a three-story, 3,900-square-foot contemporary that is, as they so wanted, definitely not boring.
Completed late last fall after a year of construction, it is also a smart home that is a monument to the future. The future in terms of technology was important to Glen, owner of Current Concepts in Coopersburg (www.CurrentConceptsHas.com), which designs and installs home-automation systems for area builders and homeowners and is a consistent winner of the Lehigh Valley Builders Association's awards for professional excellence. Hill naturally wanted a home with state-of-the-art lighting, home data networks, audio and video distribution, heating and cooling, security and other electronics.
The future in terms of mobility also was
important to the Hills. While the home sprawls among three stories, it incorporates features (including an elevator, extra-wide doorways and receptacles 18 inches high) that make it accessible to those with physical disabilities. The Hills, who have been married for 10 years, know it is a place where they can comfortably grow old together.
The home also was built to showcase the Hills' eclectic collection of art, including prints, paintings and sculpture by contemporary artists.
Very little about the three-bedroom home is ordinary. Built into the side of South Mountain, the exterior of the home is gray synthetic stucco with bright red trim on the windows and doors. The home's few windows facing the street to the north are frosted so that no one can see in. However, privacy isn't a concern because the house sits below street level on nearly six heavily wooded acres.
The home has no lawn. Instead, the home features a wrap-around Trex deck (Trex is a
composite lumber made of recycled wood fibers and plastics that neither splinters, shrinks or swells), designed to eliminate the task of lawn-mowing. "We're not young, so the idea was to minimize maintenance as we're older," Hill explains.
While the north side of the house has few windows, the south side more than makes up for it. Each window is positioned to take advantage of the magnificent view.
The dining area, a formal room wouldn't have fit the Hills' lifestyle, has a wall-size window which affords a magnificent view of the monastery in Vera Cruz, Saucon Field and Homer Research Laboratories.
A 4-by-6-foot window over the hydro-massage whirlpool tub in the master bath on the second floor shares a similar view of Saucon Valley. "At night, it's really pretty," Hill says. The tub window needs no shade because "it's extremely private back here," he adds.
Design angles
In keeping with the not-boring theme, most of the home's room shapes are quite unusual; few walls meet at right angles. The entrance foyer, for example, is circular, which meant that the wooden doors to the powder room and the home's electronics command center had to be hand-made.
Hill collaborated with Olaf Starorypinski of Light & Illumination in Emmaus to design the lighting. It took them six months. The unusual room shapes and ceiling heights made it quite a challenge, Starorypinski says: "The lighting had to be appropriate for the house. In some places, that was easier than others."
The solution in the great room was two circuit monorail low-voltage tracks shaped like clouds and hung from the ceiling. "The clouds allow you to distinguish different areas in the same room," Starorypinski
says. The track lights can illuminate the dining area, the couch or the bar.
The foyer contains another example of creative lighting. Here, Starorypinski wanted to achieve a number of different effects, including creating layers of light, one of his trademarks. He used a low-voltage tension wire system mounted horizontally. The system allows the Hills to project images onto the walls, such as a reindeer at Christmas, as well as illuminate the translucent window panes. Throughout the house, Starorypinski also choose low-voltage down lighting to highlight the artwork.
The Hills spent more time and money on lighting than most homeowners. "That's mostly because of the kind of people Glen and Karen are," and not because it's a fully automated home, Starorypinski says. When it comes to automation, the house has it all.
Automatic mansion
The home has a HomeWorks Interactive lighting-control system by Lutron and a PHAST home-automation system that blends high-quality audio from multiple sources and multiple zones with elements of heating, ventilation and air conditioning. The Europlex security-control system is from Protect Alarms of Allentown. As a result, the house has many futuristic features: The Hills can call from any phone anywhere to check the status of their security system or turn lights on for guests. A customized voice prompt assures them that their instructions have been carried out. When they return and disarm the security system, the HomeWorks Interactive system lights the way from the garage to the kitchen without the homeowners fumbling for switches.
Sensors planted in the floors turn lights on and off as
occupants pass from room to room or go up and down stairs. Vehicle sensors in their driveway alert the homeowners that guests have arrived. The homeowners can look at any TV screen to see who is ringing the doorbell. When the Hills are away from home, the system replays their normal, everyday lighting patterns so that their home appears to be occupied.
The Hills can control operations throughout the entire house from keypads in the headboard of their bed. They also can use remote control to turn on the gas fireplaces in the master bedroom and living room.
HomeWorks Interactive also allows the Hills to create the perfect ambiance for whatever they are showing in their home theater, whether it's comedy, drama, action or adventure.
A push of a button summons the elevator that can hold up to 500 pounds. "When you call the elevator, HomeWorks Interactive turns the light on in the elevator car," Hill says. "When you select the floor, it will light the lights
on the floor you're going to. After five minutes it shuts the light off in the elevator."
Motorized window shades can be programmed for different heights depending on the position of the sun. The shades allow some sun in the early morning and mid-afternoon while dining, or block out the sun (as do the skylight shades) when watching the wide-screen TV in the great room.
The home also has 12 independent zones of audio. The Hills can select FM stations, CDs or satellite broadcasts to air in any room in the home. The home is wired for microphones in all rooms for voice activation, although the system isn't activated because Hill doesn't believe that the technology is far enough advanced. "It's still in its infancy," he says. Hill did not opt for Internet-ready kitchen appliances because, he says, "the level of appliances used in the kitchen weren't yet available." However, the kitchen has the necessary Internet wiring in the walls so it will be easy to
update when it comes time. He purposely chose lighting, audio, security and HVAC systems that are able to talk to each other at the chip level versus the contact level. The difference is incredible.
Appliance alliance
A typical alarm system is an example of contact-level or contact-closure outputs, Hill explains. "You push the keypad button and it turns the security system on or off, and it's done. It can't do very much else. "With the systems integrated at the chip level," continues Hill, "your security system is listening, your home automation system is listening, your audio system is listening, your lighting control system is listening. With one push on an alarm keypad button, you can do things such as turn off the lights, turn down the heat, turn off the stereo and set the alarm. One button starts or shuts off everything. That is true home automation."
All windows and skylights in the home are equipped with Truth motors, which open and close automatically depending on outside conditions.
For example: It's a nice day and the Hills have the skylights and windows open and the air conditioning off when they leave. A few hours later, it clouds up and starts to rain. The system senses the moisture, closes the skylights and windows and turns on the AC.
The home also has FutureSmart structured wiring, which allows the Hills to plug computers into as many as eight locations throughout the home, and change them around as easily as they could lamps. The structured wiring in their home consists of a bundle of two RG6 coaxial cable, two Category 5e wire and two fiber optic cables to each wall or area.
The coaxial cable is capable of handling the high bandwidth signals that are required for satellite television. The Category 5e telephone and computer wiring can pass digital data at very high speeds. The fiber optic cable is for use in the future to connect computers to printers, scanners and other peripheral devices at high speeds. "It is important to
use this cable in your home to insure your new home doesn't become obsolete in the near future," says Hill, who gives seminars on residential technology at the Lehigh Valley Builders Association's spring Home Show.
The home is heated with radiant floor heat designed and installed by S.C. Harmes Contractor of Newmanstown (eastern Lebanon County). All the floors are heated, including the floor of the three-bay garage. A separate air conditioning system cools the house in the summer. The house has nine zones for heating and five zones for air conditioning.
Because the home has the same number of lighting controls as a 20,000-square-foot home, a separate, 5-by-10-foot room was built on the first floor off the foyer to house all the central home controls. "It's not a big area, but it's wonderful to have everything here," Hill says.
With input from the Hills, architect Michael Joseph Jonn of Fogelsville designed the home, which was built by Gavin Construction
Management of Bangor. Jonn made a scale model of the home. Hill then re-drew the home using an $80 Broderbund computer program. Then he sought additional assistance from Jonn and another architect friend, Paul Jean Plaza of Allentown. "Using the computer program enabled Karen and I to visualize the rooms with furniture, place the artwork, move windows and 'walk through the home,'" Hill says.
Jonn says that designing an automated home presents some unique challenges, and takes extra forethought so that the contractors have access "to the guts, the wiring, the mechanicals," he says. Home theaters and music listening rooms demand optimal lengths and widths to maximize the video and audio performance. Hill designed his home theater room specifically with those optimums in mind.
Now showing
The home theater is one of the home's star attractions. The room features six seats for formal movie-style viewing and a 100-inch front-projection screen. The theater measures 12-by-18-by-10 feet. "It was specifically done that way for less sound reflection," Hill explains. It was the first room in the home he designed but one of the last to be completed. Like the great room and master bedroom, it's wired for Dolby digital surround sound. The Hills installed a wet bar, compact refrigerator and beer tap just outside the theater so they wouldn't have to walk across the great room to the kitchen for refreshments.
The kitchen, designed by Morris Black & Sons of Hanover Township, Lehigh County, is a dream for the Hills, both of whom love to cook. Two dishwashers, two microwaves and two independent
cooking surfaces allow each to prepare meals without getting in the other's way, although Glen reports that wife Karen is the creative chef in the family. Her spice jars lined up on the granite and Corian center island attest to her abilities, and her five-burner cook top has a vent that rises up with the push of a button to exhaust cooking odors and excess heat. Glen sticks to soups and stews.
Other kitchen amenities include reverse-osmosis-filtered water for cooking and ice cubes, and a 24-cubic-foot Northlands stainless steel paneled refrigerator and freezer.
The second floor is devoted to the master bedroom and bath, a sitting room and an exercise room with a skylight. The suite includes a glass-sided fireplace visible from the master bedroom and the bath/shower area. The tiled walk-in shower has a movable head, a rain head and three body sprays. It also has two drains "because you're pumping water real fast," Hill says.
Tile wile
The shower is also home to some of the Hills' more unique pieces of art: handcrafted tiles, including sculptured noses, hands and toes placed so it appears as if a man and a woman were walking through the shower walls. The Hills bought the tiles at a craft show, knowing they'd someday find an appropriate place for them.
The bath also features separate his-and-hers sinks and toilet areas. Glen's area includes a wall phone with an Internet connection, a 9-inch TV and a magazine rack. "There's never a reason to leave," he says with a smile.
The laundry, which features a front-loading energy-efficient washer and dryer, is also on the second floor. The washer and dryer were placed on a 10-inch-high platform so no one would have to bend while doing laundry, another nod to eventual aging.
The house has
a central vacuum system. Rooms with tiled or hardwood floors, including the laundry, bath, kitchen and great room, are equipped with vacuum pans so it's easy to sweep the dust and hair into them. Even the Hills' basement, comprising Glen's office, is atypical. Its pre-cast concrete walls are 10-feet high, higher than upstairs rooms in most homes. Karen chose a bright green and purple color scheme for the basement walls that fits the home's "futuristic" theme.
Thanks to the access control system, Glen and Karen can give delivery people a number to enter the home at a specific day and hour. The deliverer punches in the number, opens the door and drops off the package. "It registers on the computer by date and time who has been here," Glen says.
Beth W. Orenstein of Northampton is a free-lance writer who specializes in real estate and fine homes.
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