Honolulu Tower

Our objective was to design and build a family entertainment area in the living room for high-fidelity music listening and immersive movie watching, while preserving the home's sleek design.

The irregular shape of the living room and the full-height glass doors on the front stage wall—which lead to a tranquil outdoor Japanese garden—presented a major integration challenge. The client wanted an unobstructed view of the garden while listening to music. Placing a static center speaker in front of the glass doors was out of the question. To solve this, we designed a custom motorized lift that raises the center speaker and lowers a Stewart motorized acoustically transparent screen only when watching movies. The entire sequence is controlled seamlessly via an iPad. Finding a suitable location for the subwoofers without cluttering the room was another hurdle. We custom-integrated two Steinway Line Source woofers (comprising 12 x 10" woofers total) into the extreme corners of the room, hidden completely behind the drapes. Consequently, the only visible speakers are the elegant Steinway Model C mains, while the surround channels are handled by discrete Steinway in-ceiling speakers.