INTERIORS ELECTRONICALLYREPRINTED FROMJULY-AUGUST 2001

Theater of the YearWinner Revealed

This intricately detailed replica of Tuscan village

painstakingly crafted. A veiw of the village is provided

when the video screen is not in use.

I had a college roommate who’d traveled to places that Icould only imagine existed—the dark jungle temples ofBangladesh, the diamond mines of South Africa, the bunkersof Midway Island, the lava fields of Reykjavik—and he sworethey were all real, breathing places. I dreamed of adventuringlike him, the wise, modern-day Indiana Jones, who onlyneeded a whim and a will to incite him into another mysteri-ous month-long sojourn.

I absorbed tale after tale, over many months and many fineinternational beers. Before graduation, he handed me a largebrown box. In it, I found books by Pico Iyer, photocopied arti-cles by Bob Drury, well-worn and dog-eared volumes of LonelyPlanet. “But start here,” he said as he handed me one specialbook. “This is where life begins, and should end. This land is thegenesis of discovery.” And with that I took his only copy ofUnder the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes.

Of course, I read the tome cover to cover and was entrancedby what Ms. Mayes celebrated as “the voluptuousness of Italianlife.” Its vivid imagery immediately made me wish that my famil-ial responsibilities and student loans didn’t loop around my necklike an albatross, forcing me to reread each chapter, and hope,that one day, I too could venture like my collegiate compatriot tothe place where a world of discovery begins.

While I never visited Tuscany proper, the sense of urgencyconflagrating for years has been quelled by a visit to an islandhome off the coast of Georgia. It belongs to a family that billsthe same $18 million estate as an “island dream,” a place for themto entertain friends and strangers alike, a getaway intended tobe a departure point of discovery.

That point of discovery is an incredible dedicated hometheater I was sent to experience and review. Coincidentally (orby graceful and divine intervention), the theater perchedupon the top of the winding staircase—a marvel designed byworld-renowned Theo Kalomirakis and Michael Brothers (both ofTK Theaters), engineered by Steve Haas of SH Acoustics, andinstalled by Atlanta Home Theater—reproduces the experience ofdiscovering and exploring a secret Tuscan village. And althoughI have yet to sleep a day under the Tuscan sun, I can’t imaginehow an hour in this theater, with my favorite movie projectingfrom its Digital Projection 6SX DLP projector in this environ-ment, could be any more sweet. Like my roommate stated yearsago, but in an altogether different but related context, this hometheater is a “genesis of discovery,” of course, of the audio/visual kind.

Picture this: a starry night sky overhead, and around you, thecolored and textured stucco walls of an outdoor amphitheaterfacing a fading sun that casts its glow on the entire room. As you

This award-winning theater takes entertainmentenvironments to a new level.

By Tank Menzies

SkyUnder the Tuscan Sky

A Crestron color touchscreen controls the theater, from

the stars above to the view onscreen.

sit down in front of the screen, you can practically feel thebreeze of the Tuscan night gently rolling in. And as the lightsdim, a brilliant night sky is gently illuminated above, thework and design of Kevin Bebel of J. Fredrick Construction.The overall effect is to bestow a level of romance notachieved since I took my ex-girlfriend to see AnthonyMinghella’s soaring epic The English Patient.It all started when the homeowner saw a profile in

Architectural Digest of an installation Mr. Kalomirakis did forthe installation located in, of all places, the Ukraine. Mr.Kalomirakis was flown out to Atlanta to discuss potentialdesigns for the homeowner’s theater. At the time, the home-owner intended to replicate the Moroccan-themed FoxTheater in Atlanta. While Mr. Kalomirakis did some initialconcept drawings, ultimately, the feeling was aMoroccan/Islamic theme didn’t fit synergistically with therest of the house. After exploring various concepts, the ideaof placing the theater in a faux-outdoor setting, tucked com-fortably within the hills of a quaint village in Tuscany provedto be the needed inspiration.The biggest challenge was to create the scale of the village

to make it feel real. The scale had to be right or the illusionwould be lost. Fifteen-foot-high walls were created and tex-tured with limestone and brick. The actual “set” was built ona soundstage in Connecticut, and then dismantled andshipped out on trailers to Atlanta, only to be remounted onthe site.All of this works to expand the definition of home theater,

and to push the envelope of design. TK Theaters concen-trates on creating more than just theaters, but rather, envi-

ronments that focus on additional enter-tainment activities that tie in thematicallywith the dressing of the theater. The inspi-ration for the theater’s design was drivenand subsequently rooted in the same Italianarchitecture in the rest of the home. Thisway, the theater works synergistically withthe rest of the house. But conversely, thetheater’s architecture creates related atmos-pheres. There are rooms such as theTuscany-inspired wine cellar, where thehomeowner often treats guests to wine tast-ings, a full popcorn kitchen stacked withevery refreshment imaginable, and beau-tiful verandas and gardens that evoke theancillary emotions intended by the envi-

ronmental movement vanguarded by TK Theaters. The endresult is a breathtaking theatrical experience that wonCEDIA’s first prize for architectural design.The great thing about this theater isn’t just the award-

winning design. The story only begins there, since theengineering is quite remarkable in and of itself. From myperspective, if you’re a dude in Los Angeles driving a Jagand promising waifish visitors to your Hollywood Hillshome a peek into the postmodern future, stacks ofexposed gear definitely fit the bill. But when the theateris meant to convey an adventure or a diversion, a place wherethe family can snuggle up and get caught up in a flick, such as

A miniature model house sits

atop a hill in the

theater, giving the walls of the

“courtyard” the appropriate

scale.

Double doors create

the feel of an

outdoor courtyard.

More details, such as shrubbery and an “outdoor” foun-

tain, add to the suspension of disbelief.

this one, then the vehicle of transport, which in this case is thehome theater’s technical system, can’t be exposed. Anythingelse would kill the illusion, and play as an uneasy and restlessreminder that the island jaunt will end within a few dozenhours.From the start, the homeowner wanted top-of-the-line gear—

which could be upgraded easily and effect an unparalleledhome theatrical journey of immersion—that would parallel thework of TK Theaters. As such, Scott Ross of Atlanta HomeTheater was trusted with installing the high-end technology insuch a way that it blended seamlessly into the surroundingspace without threatening to infringe upon the delicate illusioncreated by TK Theaters. The engineering entailed camouflaginggear, such as the massive Wilson Audio speakers, and an X-S

Speakers are painted to match the exact color and texture of the ceilings that envelope them in

various rooms of the house.

Double doors to the Tuscan “house” expertly hide the equip-

ment rack, which is filled with high-end gear.

subwoofer, into the walls. Additionally, he utilized X-1 GrandSlamm front speakers, which work in unison with theWATT/Puppy rear and center channels, all driven by Jeff Rowlandpower amplifiers. All of the gear is infused into the environment ina manner that fails to foil the fantasy. Atlanta Home Theater also employed many sought-after

and high-end components to meet the homeowner’s rigor-ous demands. A Meridian 861 surround processor drivesthe audio output generated by the 800 DVD player. The Da-Lite Cinema Vision video screen, with automated masking,provides a palette upon which the projector, complement-ed by the Faroudja scaler, casts its digital images via a pow-erful kick from the latest in three-chip DLP technology.

The theater boasts an incredibly sophisticated lighting sys-tem. For all the work that went into the design, the home-owner couldn’t afford to just have downlights. The idea was toduplicate the animated feel that Broadway lighting provides.So, spotlights with gels were incorporated so that the home-owner could adjust the intensity of the lighting, and make theroom come alive to whatever degree he wanted.But after the theatrical experience has ended, your travels

have just begun. You see, the house itself consists of more than50 rooms to explore, including eight bedrooms, charming patioswith beach views, a billiard beach house, rock and fountain gar-dens, a heated pool that sits just beachside, and an outdoorwhirlpool. Each of them is interconnected by a Crestronautomation system—controlled by a CNMSX-AV processoraccessed through CT-1000 touchpanels—providing the gueststhe means to easily control the integrated audio and video sys-tems. For example, let’s say your getting dressed in one of theeight bathrooms before your party arrives. With a few strokes ofthe keypad, you can set the mood for their arrival by getting theoutdoor waterfalls started, your new favorite CD playingthrough any number of camouflaged in-wall speakers, the fire-place roaring, and the whirlpool fired up. All together, the engi-

Theo Kalomirakis prides himself on creating “sets,”

where lighting evokes a lifelike experience.

ABOUT THE INSTALLERAtlanta Home Theater, owned and managed by Scott and Jennifer Ross, opened to the

Atlanta public and became a CEDIA member in 1996. Now the city’s turnkey provider

of high-end custom projects, Atlanta Home Theater’s strong design team and 10

installers are key elements to their success.

A 3,000-square-foot showroom is the heart of Atlanta Home Theater. Here, they dis-

play and demonstrate a multitude of home theater products (from vendors such as

Vidikron, Wilson, and Meridian) and lighting, all in a showroom with beautiful custom

cabinetry and home-automation features for the phone, security, and more. AHT

designs and builds all the custom cabinetry, outdoor keypad posts, and numerous fin-

ishing pieces in their own woodworking shop.

Consistency, reliability, and quality in workmanship have helped to build AHT’s

strong reputation in the Atlanta community. From start to finish, AHT is recognized for

their finely tuned skills in design and professionalism.

neering of the entire house creates a totalaudio and video environment that sets anew standard in automated living. The fact remains that I may never get

to visit the world like my college room-mate and will not be able to open myrucksack and share with him tokens oflost worlds and peculiar terrains. But I dohave a memory of a place that I can say,like Tuscany itself, is a genesis of discov-ery in its own right, which celebrates thevoluptuousness of life for those who arelucky enough to experience it. Anunparalleled audio and video experi-ence nestled in the heart of a lucky fam-ily’s island dream..

Installer:

Atlanta Home Theater

880 Holcomb Bridge Rd.

Ste. 110-B

Roswell, GA 30076

(770) 642-5557

Designer:

Theo Kalomirakis

TK Theaters

35 W. 36th St.

New York, NY 10018

(212) 239-7399

www.tktheaters.com

CONTACT

A Sony television pops out of a decorative

cabinet in a common area of the home.

If these gardens could talk, they would relay the

location of the Stereostone speakers hidden

among the fountains and plants.

EQUIPMENT LIST Theater:

• Sony SAN-24MD1 HDTV dish

• Marantz MV880 S-VHS VCR

• Crestron color touchscreen remote

• Niles IPC-12 power protection

• Billy Baggs equipment rack

• MIT speaker/interconnect

• Lite Touch lighting-control system

• RPG diffracted diffusion panels

• RPG binary amplitude diffusion

panels

• RPG Modex low-frequency

absorption panels

• Owens Corning Acoustics White Core

• Kinetics DIM floating floor

• Johns Manville Permacote acoustic

lining

• Zero International door seals

• Custom low-frequency absorbers

• Custom vibration-isolation materials

• Digital Projection 6SX DLP projector

• Faroudja DVP3000 video scaler

• Da-Lite Cinema Vision 199-inch 16:9

screen

• Da-Lite Pro-Imager masking system

• In-Line 35-foot RGB cables

• Meridian 861 surround processor

• Meridian 800 DVD player

• Wilson X-1 front speakers

• Wilson WATT/Puppy center speaker

• Wilson WATCH side speakers

• Wilson WATT/Puppy rear speakers

• Wilson XS subwoofer

• Jeff Rowland 8Ti/HC front amplifier

• Jeff Rowland 8Ti/HC center/sub

amplifier

• Jeff Rowland MC-6 side/rear amplifier

• CA DTC-100 HDTV DSS receiver

Wholehouse:

• Crestron CNMSA-AV control processor

• Crestron CT-1000 color in-wall

touchpanels

• Xantech ZPR68-10 amplifier

• Xantech EXP9 zone expander

• Xantech PA-1235 12-channel

amplifiers

• Xantech RT-8 IR router

• Pioneer Elite PRO-710HD HDTV

• Sony KV-36FV16 televisions

• Sony KV-32S42 television

• Sony KV-27S42 television

• Middle Atlantic 5-43 equipment rack

• Sony DVP-S360 DVD player

• Sony CDP-CX53 CD changer

• Sony SAT-B55 DSS receivers

• Sony SLV-N50 hi-fi VCR

• Dynaudio Audience 60 speakers

• Niles in-wall speakers

• Stereostone Sierra Junior speakers

• Marantz RC5000i LCD touchscreen

remote control

• Niles VCS-2DW volume control

• Niles WVC-2W outdoor volume control

• Vantage Point C26 ceiling-mount

bracket

• Xantech dinky link

• Cinepro powerlight 1800 line

conditioner

• Niles IPC-12 power protection

• Channel Vision multiswitcher

A wax security guard keeps an eternally vigilant

eye on the wholehouse equipment rack, located

outside the library.

Posted with permission from the July/August 2001 issue of Home Theater Interiors ©Copyright 2009, Source Interlink Media. All rights reserved.

Reprinted by Wright’s Reprints. For more information about reprints from this magazine, contact Wright’s Reprints at 877-652-529561581