When you’re building a home, there’s a lot of numbers associated with the process. There’s the acreage of the property, square footage of the home, size of the electrical service, just to name a few, and the biggest number of all of course is the cost. For this three home Rhode Island estate, while all those numbers can certainly define this project, there’s a few other numbers that stand out. 

You could choose from the 86 shades and drapes that adorn the windows and doors, maybe it’s the 150 dimming and switching modules that control thousands of lights you find impressive, or perhaps it’s the 167 keypads for control or even the 17 repeaters and 8 processors that handle communication with them all that does it for you. While they’re all important, the biggest number of them all is the smallest; one. These three houses, which span several acres of ocean front property, are controlled by one Homeworks QSX system. It was imperative for the homeowners that these properties be controlled together, to act as one complete space, a seemingly insurmountable task that was only made possible with Lutron.

But while these 3 homes now share one system, it didn’t always start that way, and each one presented their own set of challenges in making the 3 spaces into 1. On the southern portion of the property was the original home that was built in 1992 and a cottage style guest house, which was built just up the hill in 2018. The two spaces are interconnected by a backyard oasis, fit with a tennis court, bocce court, pool and hot tub, a large pergola, cabana and plenty of decorative walkways and gathering spaces overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The Cottage was first designed with a Homeworks QS system and the Original Home had a failing Insteon system that never quite worked right. The solution was to retrofit the original house with Homeworks QSX, utilizing the existing wiring and infrastructure from the previous lighting control system and upgrade the Cottage with Panel Link to QS Link Translators. Once this was completed, the homeowners now had the ability to not only control their homes independently, but also the space they shared, allowing for cohesive control to entertain effortlessly. Whether it’s turning on gas firepits and torches, decorative fountains by the bocce court, operating the pool and spa covers, TV lifts that activate during a Movie scene, or setting the atmosphere of the outside space for a night of unforgettable entertainment, all could be done with the press of a button or from their phone via the Lutron app. 

With these spaces now interconnected, the last piece of the puzzle was the 20,000 square foot home being built on the Northern part of the property. While the other two spaces served as their longtime home and entertainment space, this new structure would be their primary residence and sported all the amenities one could think of both inside and out. 

Featuring a putting and chipping green with illuminated golf holes, a state of the art movie theater, wine cellar, a full service spa and beauty salon that rivaled the Four Seasons, a home gym designed by an NBA athletic trainer, a golf simulator, indoor and outdoor bars, an arcade – you name it, it’s here. And while you could make the argument that you may never have to leave this new space, that’s not how it was intended to be used. With parties and social events having guest lists in the hundreds, the idea was to allow for one property to flow into another, making it feel like one.

Palladiom glass keypads were installed to match the elegance of the new home and that design lent itself to scene based controls that allowed for simplistic and intuitive control of such a sprawling area. Whether it was staying in for a mellow night, having the firepits and porch heaters on during a chilly evening, closing the shades to protect the artwork from the midday sun, or lighting up a path to get across the property to the pool, it’s all handled with a single button press or timeclock. 

So when it’s time to throw the party of the summer and the homeowners are preoccupied with the caterers, landscapers making the yard look just so, or the pressure of having hundreds of guests descending upon your home expecting the best in entertainment, the least stressful part of their day is simply pressing the “Party” button and knowing that in a matter of seconds it will all be transformed into a jaw dropping experience. That’s the power of Lutron.