Imagine yourself on a tropical island ... soft, white sand at your feet, the sun and surf gently caressing your face, a Tahitian-style grass hut to catch the cool ocean breeze. Add an icy margarita, a well-stocked minibar, somewhere soft to sleep, and you have the makings of an awesome vacation.

For many people, an island getaway like this happens once in a lifetime. But why should it? That was Dave Henry's thinking as he set out to build his family vacation home on the Pacific shore of Guatemala. Like any open-air island resort, his home would reside steps from the sea and blend beautifully with the native vegetation. It would be lush in landscape and laid back in attitude.

And, of course, it would offer all the creature comforts of home and then some. For the Henry family that included not only comfortable beds, but big-screen TVs, digital music both inside and out, and an effortless way to operate the home's lights, home theater and other electronic equipment.

Wide-Open Spaces

Open floor plans are common to many homes, but the Henry residence takes the popular design to the extreme. With several individual single-level "tiki huts," the home resembles a rambling resort, complete with a swimming pool, waterfall and swim-up bar. There are no doors on any of the buildings, and windows are rare. Without these typical lines of demarcation, rooms spill into one another, and the entire house becomes one with nature. "Anyone can have a house by the ocean," says Carol Saravia, co-owner of Sistemas Contemporaneos, the company that designed and installed the home's electronic systems. "But in this one, the owner is not just comfortable, he truly feels like he's at the sea."

Aside from being visually stunning, there are other reasons for this unique, organic design. First, it precludes the need for air conditioning. Ocean breezes flow easily throughout the house, creating natural ventilation and cooling in most of the rooms. Second, the open-air design provides a great view of the ocean from every area. Third, the floor plan is ideal for socializing. Intended mainly for weekend use and to host family reunions, this house is designed primarily for entertaining. Guests can stroll from the pool table to the swimming pool without missing a second of a movie playing on the huge outdoor-yes, outdoor-video screen.

Liquid TV

Even if the family is still floating in the pool, there's no need to dry off to enjoy a movie. The homeowners and Sistemas Contemporaneos made sure of that. Aimed at the pool is a 106-inch Draper Cineplex screen-just like the kind at a real movie theater. The screen is a permanent fixture of the patio, but is positioned so that anyone who's relaxing at the wet bar or at the outdoor seating area can comfortably see a bright, vivid show. Even from the beach the image is visible.

Finding the best spot for the screen, however, was a minor challenge compared to protecting the DVD player, the video projector, the speakers and the other sensitive A/V equipment from the damaging wind and salt water. "The marine environment here is more severe than any other place I've seen," says Alfredo Saravia, the systems designer and coordinator of the project. And just like the screen, these components would be exposed to every element Mother Nature whips up. Rather than risk damage to the integral workings of the home theater system, Sistemas Contemporaneos asked the architect, Roldolfo Solares of Solares & Lara Architects, to design a small closet behind the screen. Here, they installed two equipment racks. One rack holds the amplifiers, power conditioners and controllers that are important to the operation of the video system but that the owners never need to touch. Housed in the other rack are the surround-sound processor, the DVD player and a VCR. A well-sealed door provides access to this equipment for the loading of movies.

Of course, every great movie deserves great sound. The installers carefully sealed a suite of Tannoy speakers and subwoofers from the wind and humidity by tightly fitting them into a wall, exposing only the speaker grilles. All of the connections and wiring are completely concealed within the equipment closet.

About the only exterior piece of circuitry not fully protected from the elements is the remote control the family uses to run the theater. Even though the AMX ViewPoint is no rugged camper when it comes to the weather, the family still uses it when they're parked at the pool. After all, it only takes a second or two to get the sophisticated system going. One touch of a finger to the screen of the remote revs up the Runco video projector, cues the surround-sound receiver and activates the DVD player. This same portable touchpanel can operate other areas of the house, but friends and family usually wait until after they've dried off to do that.

Toweling Off to Tunes

The outdoor home theater may be the entertainment masterpiece of this Tahitian-inspired home, but there are plenty of other ways to enjoy a long weekend here. An Audioaccess system, for example, treats the homeowners and guests to music throughout the entire property. Again, the open design of the house challenged the home systems installation crew. "The home's architecture and the amount of artwork and decoration made in-wall speakers impossible to put in, except in the billiard room," Saravia explains. "We decided to go with exterior-grade monitor speakers from NEAR, which have proven to have very high-quality, accurate sound reproduction as well as excellent durability in such a saline environment." Although the speakers are freestanding, Sistemas Contemporaneos still managed to conceal them within the landscape and the wooden ceiling structures.

Two Parasound amplifiers ensure that the speakers are able to fill the large, open areas with sound. At the family's favorite place to listen to music, a sitting area nearest the sea, Sistemas Contemporaneos beefed up the audio by installing a dedicated amplifier, as well as a Velodyne subwoofer and four A8 NEAR speakers inside a cabinet that doubles as a bar.

With so much ground to cover, it's a good thing the Henrys never need to run back to the house to start the music. Access and control of music are just steps away. All nine of the residence's Audioaccess keypads were rendered weather-resistant by the application of special coatings and watertight coverings.

One-Button Simplicity

Also able to withstand the weather are the LiteTouch keypads that operate several electronic devices in the house, including motorized window shades, ceiling fans, some swimming pool equipment, and most of all, the light fixtures. The LiteTouch system perfectly suits the easygoing lifestyle of the homeowners and the huge, open design of the house. The Henrys need only touch one button on a LiteTouch keypad to set the house in motion. For example, whenever the button bienvenido (welcome) is pressed, the landscape lighting and pool lights activate simultaneously. In addition, lights recessed in the floor illuminate architectural columns to create eye-pleasing silhouettes. Glowing ceilings come to life, as fixtures progressively light the handcrafted wood structures and palm roofs in rhythmic patterns. Table lamps around the exquisite furniture accent the decor, delicate fabrics and oriental ornaments. Finally, palm-blade ceiling fans turn slowly and water bubbles quietly in a pond. With one button, the family has created an environment that's ready for entertaining a group of friends or relaxing on their own. What a way to come home!

High Tide

Most homeowners would never dream of bringing their expensive audio and video systems outside, much less leave them there permanently. Then again, most homeowners don't live in a house like this, where grass huts and huge open spaces welcome the wind, water and sand. It's a unique architecture and design that calls for an equally unique application of technology. By utilizing some of the architectural elements of the home, the home systems installers at Sistemas Contemporaneos were able to conceal the electronic equipment from view and protect it from the harsh ocean environment. The well-protected powerful amplifiers, plenty of speakers, a DVD player, a VCR, and a 106-inch weather-resistant video screen bring top-notch entertainment alfresco.

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A 'Lite' Touch -- When One Button Is Enough

We humans have a tendency to overdo it. We eat too much on holidays, we play two hours of basketball when we really should have stuck to the original 30-minute scrimmage, we charge way too much to our credit cards … should I go on?

Well, it's no different when it comes to controlling a house. It's awfully fun to imagine operating everything from anywhere. But like maxing out a credit card, this is hardly a practical approach.

The LiteTouch system that runs the Henry household has enough brains and brawn to handle any task thrown at it. The Standard CCU, the brains of the LiteTouch home control system, is effectively a supercomputer. A home systems professional uses special software to program the system to control any device-from audio and video equipment to thermostats-in any manner the homeowners see fit. The custom-tailored program enables the CCU to transmit instructions to electronic components automatically, based on the time of day or conditions in and around the house. But mostly, the system responds to signals received by wall-mounted keypads located throughout a residence.

Every button contained on these keypads can be programmed to enact a set of commands that are different from the rest. This certainly would bestow amazing versatility on a home, but at the risk of overdoing it.

Rather than overwhelm the Henry family with too many buttons and too many control choices, the installers at Sistemas Contemporaneos created only a few general control options. While simple on the surface, the handful of scenes issued by the LiteTouch system affect the entire home-a task that takes full advantage of the system's amazing power. The system not only operates the home's lights (a LiteTouch specialty), but also its ceiling fans and swimming pool.

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Equipment List

Lighting Control System
LiteTouch Standard CCU
LiteTouch 8-channel dimmer modules (8)
LiteTouch 8-channel relay modules (6)
LiteTouch quad dimmer modules (4)
LiteTouch dual power supply module
LiteTouch humid location keypads (27)

Whole-House Music System
Audioaccess PX-700 multiroom audio controllers (2)
Audioaccess keypads with weather-resistant
mounting kits (9)
Parasound Z-12 twelve-channel distribution amplifiers (2)
Parasound HCA-1500 two-channel high-current amplifier
ADA PF201 amplifier
Parasound TDQ-150 zone reference tuner
Pioneer PDF-908 high-capacity 100-disc CD changer
Sony CDP-CE375 5-disc CD changer
Panamax 500 surge protector
Sonance VC51WR volume controls (2)
NEAR A6 all environmental speakers (24)
NEAR CAL 5 in-ceiling speakers (4)
NEAR A8 all environmental speakers (4)
Sonance Symphony 623T in-wall speakers (2)

Home Theater System
Runco DLC-2000HD projector
Draper rear-projection system
Draper Cineplex 106-inch HDTV screen
Parasound AVC-2500U AV controller
Parasound HCA-2205AT 5-channel high-current amplifier
Parasound HCA-1500 two-channel high-current amplifier
Tannoy CMS8-8 in-ceiling monitor speakers (4)
Tannoy PS350B Studio active subwoofers (2)
Panamax 500 surge protector
Sony SLV-70XS VCR
Pioneer DV-344 DVD player
AMX Viewpoint color touchpanel

An alias has been used to protect the anonymity of the owner.

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