Much of the interior in this ultimate bachelor suite had to be convertible. The space doubles as a venue for personal and business entertaining so it always has to look its best. At the same time, the owner didn’t want to skimp on the luxuries of contemporary life. He wanted to be able to view a plasma TV from the living room, dining area, and kitchen without having the home resemble the sales floor at a home theater boutique.
Rabinovitch and the electronics designers at IDS Audio/Video in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., fashioned an all-around solution. The rugged mechanism that houses the flat-panel display rotates 360 degrees, allowing the owner to position the TV toward a variety of living spaces in the high-rise home. One minute it’s delivering the news to the kitchen table and later on it swivels to show 24 to the loveseat in the living room.
The owner can listen to the sound of the TV from just the front three left, center, and right speakers, or he can go all out and create a surround-sound cinema-like effect utilizing a pair of in-wall speakers mounted flush in the wall. In full-throttle mode, the system also engages the thumping bass of a stand-alone subwoofer that provides the booms and overall bottom end that anchors a movie soundtrack. The sub-woofer is hidden inside the furnishing elements of the room, making it, too, invisible to the casual observer.
The bathroom boasts its own TV, a 20-inch LCD model that also swivels to meet the whims of the owner. The high-mount flat-panel can be viewed from the glass-enclosed steam shower or from the tub. Installed on a flexible mount, it had to be both reachable and at a sufficient height where it wouldn’t get in the way of someone walking through the room. One last consideration, says Rabinovitch: “It had to be at a convenient viewing angle both from the tub and the shower bench.”
Although the apartment was gutted to make room for an entirely new design, the contractors were faced with the constraints of existing dimensions and boundaries. When it came to electronics, those issues meant limited options for home theater needs and control interfaces. Still, they were able to accomplish everything the owner wanted to achieve thanks to some 20/20 foresight. At the wiring stage, they were able to snake electrical, data, and video cable to all the right locations, which allowed for easy integration of electronics once the walls went up. “The main thing was a lot of preplanning, integration, and coordination of the media consultants with the overall planning of the project,” says Rabinovitch. “We were able to anticipate everything as much as possible in terms of location of controls and integrating technology.”
With a disappearing TV; preset lighting scenes that dim to create moods for dining, romance, or entertainment; and blinds that automatically rise and fall at the touch of a button, there’s a 007 kind of vibe to this sophisticated space. The comparison isn’t lost on the homeowner. “He decided to have some fun with it,” says Rabinovitch. “When the TV is activated for viewing, the theme from the Goldfinger movies begins playing through the speakers.”
Bond has returned once more. —Rebecca Day specializes in writing about home electronics. She can be reached at customhomerd@aol.com.
