When Barry Gordon does things, he doesn't do them by halves. It shows in his stunning electronic home, and in the way he responded to our Your Home contest. So thorough was Barry's entry, in fact, that we've decided to print Barry's essay about his home virtually word for word. But don't let Barry's enthusiasm scare you off. If you have a home you'd like the world to see, just send us a short rundown in an email and we'll take it from there. Like the homes we feature, the way you describe your connected haven is a very individual thing.

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The Gordon Residence

The house is fully automated with electronic control of all functions. In addition it has a dedicated Home Theater which operates in High Definition.

Overview

The house is approximately 5000 square feet under air. It was customed designed by I and my late wife Jill. We then acted as general contractors in a sort of unique way. We hired a GC, but all skilled trades such as stone masons, landscape designer, cabinet makers worked directly for us not the GC. The house consists of several functional areas:

• The Master Suite -- (Master Bedroom, Master Bath, Master Closet, Gym)
• The Guest Wing -- (Guest Bedroom, Guest Bath, Office/Spare Bedroom)
• The Theater -- A private home theater (28 x 32) with its own bath, and wetbar
• The Great Room -- an open area with 12-foot ceilings (all other rooms have 10-foot ceilimgs) comprising the entryway, living room, dining room, kitchen, and the leisure/family room. No walls separate these areas in the great room
• The Pool Deck -- fully screened with sliding doors to the great room and master bedroom
• The Garage -- A three car oversize garage with a separate workshop and utilty / storage / automation closet.

The bedrooms and theater are carpeted, the rest of the house has marble floors in a mat finish. The house, due to the large volumetrics and generally hard surfaces, is poor for voice recognition. The theater has special sound control (acoustic panels) applied. Most of the rooms are oversized. All switch plates are at "adult hip" height, this is very convenient, works well with children and assits those with disabilities. The house lighting is all high hats and special niche lighting for effect, all under X10 control. Every light is controlled by a Leviton "Green Line" switch. They are very reliable, but they do not transmit when operating locally. If I had it to do over I would have gone for the more expensive type that also transmit. Here is the floor plan of the house to give you an idea of the general layout. The storage closet in back of the garage is where the home automation control equipment is located. The theater is at the top right. The fish tank is a marine (salt water) show tank visible from both sides and encased in native Florida Coquina stone.

Key Features of the House

All aspects of living in the house are under control of the automation system (Homeseer). The automation system is on its own one hour UPS and backed up by a standby generator system that also powers about half of the house during power outages.

The house has a complete LAN (wired at 100 Mbps and wireless at 54 mbps). There are seven computers always on (automation, theater, in-wall touchscreens). All computers are self initializing on failure or by command with "heartbeat" monitoring of the touchscreens.

There are five touchscreens. They are Panasonic CF-01 handheld computers running Win/95. All control operations are touch based. Four screens are in-wall recessed units and the fifth is a flip down under a kitchen cabinet. They can be reloaded, reset, powered up/down and restarted from the home automation system.

The house electrical system was designed from the ground up to be X-10 friendly. X-10 in the house is about 99.99% reliable. This is over a three year experience period. There are over 80 X-10 devices installed in and around the house

There are two background music systems; one based on XM satellite radio and the other on stored mpg files. The house touchscreens control both systems. The background music is only available in the great room and the pool area. The background music will fade in and fade out if the automation system has messages that need attention (doorbell, caller-ID anouncements, etc.).

The theater is a dedicated room designed as a combination theater/music room. The sound system is 7.1 channels set up for DTS, with all channels of identical construction. Total audio power exceeds 2600 watts, with peaks of 3000 being handled by the sub woofer. The video system is front projection High Definition at 720P native with the screen having a 10-foot width (133" diagonal). There are two HD satellite (DirecTV and Tivo) receivers holding about 60 hours of HD or 600 hours of SD video. The theater has a fully integrated control system (AMX- or Crestron-like) but built and designed by myself. It is based on a laptop PC that receives IR from a Philips iPronto remote control. The iPronto tells the PC what button on what screen was pressed, and the PC then takes care of everything being set up correctly to perform the desired action. When the theater is started, the PC fades into "Hooray for Hollywood" and fades out when everything is warmed up and ready for the audience. The selected source is then on the screen.

Media is stored on the automation computer. Copies of all CDs and concert DVDs are stored there. Regular movie DVDs are kept on twin 300-slot DVD changers in the theater with access by movie name through the DVD librarian, part of the theater control system. All selection is simple point and click. No typing is ever required.

The two main computers (automation and theater) talk to each other. This allows the theater computer to control the lighting by telling the automation computer what it needs done. Likewise the automation computer tells the theater computer when important callers are on the line (caller-ID) causing the theater to pause, mute and announce the caller. The house touchscreens talk to both the theater control computer and the automation system. This is because all media-based activities are under the control of the theater system, while all house control is under the automation system.

There is a full IR network throughout the house so a simple credit card-sized remote can perform functions such as indicating that I am retiring for the night. The automation system then adjusts the house for the night. Various activities take place at night. For example hot water circulators are turned on at about 6 a.m. so that hot water is available at all fixtures with no more than a five-second delay.

The pool is fully under control of the automation system, yet will operate in a fully stand-alone mode. This includes the spa system. It uses two-way communications so the automation system always knows the system state. This was needed because there are spa side controls and a dedicated indoor control/status panel.

All cars contain RFID tags (guests get one if they are staying in the garage), which are tracked by an RFID reader in the garage. When a car leaves or returns, the system knows it, and can have the automation system open/close the proper garage doors; arm/disarm the house; and greet the arriving individual (if they are driving their car).

The automation system (Homeseer) includes a Web server allowing for complete control of the house from any place in the world through a browser. The browser is well secured and the house is completely firewalled into a "stealth" position where no ports are visible other than the Web browser.

The automation system provides the "alarm clock" for each bedroom. Control is graphic through a touchscreen. Wake-up announcements are made as scheduled and a brief weather report is spoken. Each bedroom can have its "alarm clock" set to the needs of its occupants. When I was working, there was a default mode for the master bedroom, which knew about weekdays, weekends, and holidays. In addition, my secretary could email the house travel itineraries and the bedroom alarm clock would automatically adjust my wake up time.

The power strips on the kitchen island are under control of the automation system and may be scheduled by timers to start coffee for parties, etc.

The HVAC system is basically stand-alone, but the automation system can interrogate it and command it to change modes or alter temperature set points on a zone-by-zone basis. All setback operations and various special operating modes (e.g. "On Vacation") are under control of the automation system.

Big Ben plays it chimes on the hour courtesy of the automation system. It starts at 10 a.m. and ceases to opeate when I indicate I am retiring for the evening.

The front doorbell is just a switch, which is sensed by the automation system. The system then plays the current wave file (generally two notes, but on holidays it changes: Halloween it's the fog horn from the "Addams Family," Christmas season it's sleigh bells, etc.).

Barry's home can also be viewed at www.The-Gordons.net

The Equipment List

Automation System

• Main Computer: Home Built, Rack Mount, 2.4 Ghz; 1 Gig RAM; 120 Gig SATA Raid Drive-"C"; 300 Gig RAID ATA Drive-"D" (Media); ASUS A7N8X-8 Motherboard; (2) WIN V92 56K PCI Modems (CallerID, FAX)
• Operating System: Windows XP Pro, SP2
• Control Program: Homeseer
• Music Server: SLIM MP3
• X10 Interface: CM-11A
• TTS Audio Amps: (4) ELK 10 watt amplifiers
• TTS Speakers: (4) 6" In-Ceiling (Each bedroom + Great Room)
• Digital I/O: Marrick Lynxport 10
• HVAC control: RCS TR16 Thermostats; RCS RS485 Hub
• RS232 Interface: IOnetworks Edgeport8
• IR Interface: USB-UIRT
• VR Interface: Gentner AP800
• Pool Interface: Jandy Aqualink Serial Adapter
• Touch Screens: (5) anasonic CF-01 Handheld computers (WIN/95)
• House LAN: Linksys Based, Switched 100mb wired; 54mb wireless; Broadband DSL Modem
• Satellite Distribution: TERK 4+1 x 8 Multiswitch (+1=OTA antenna)
• X10 Switches: Leviton Decora Green Line
• UPS: APC 1500RM (30 minutes backup time for all automation eqpt.)

Electric Power

• Main Service: 300 Amp underground service split to two 150 Amp feeds
• Standby Generator: Generac Guardian 100 Amps, 15 KW propane on one feed on;y
• Transfer Switch: 200 Amp Generac fully automatic transfer switch
• Grounding system: 1" x 8 feet copper rod at Service entrance. All bonding to this rod
• Breaker panels: (2) 42 circuit breaker 150 Ampere panels; three 40 Amp subpanels
• Surge Suppression: (2) Leviton Whole House Surge Surpressors
• X10 Phase Coupling: ACT CR234 Coupler repeater
• Special: Neutral wire in every fixture, switch box

Home Theater

• Projector: Benq PE8700
• Screen: Dalite Perm-Wall Da-Matte finish 133" diagonal
• Audio Processor: Lexicon MC-1
• Audio Amplifier: Outlaw 770 7-Channel Amplifier
• Speakers: (7)- B&W Signature seven in wall speakers
• Sub Woofer: Velodyne HGS 12
• DVD Changers: (2) Sony DVP CX875P
• Laser Disc Player: Pioneer Elite CLD-79
• Remote Control: Philips iPronto
• Control System: IBM A10 Laptop running software I developed (Crestron like)
• DVR: (2) DirecTV (TiVo) HR10-250
• Video Monitor: (2) Dell 20" LCD monitors
• Component Switcher: (2) KDS 4x1 (7x1 component + S/PDIF)
• DVI switcher: Gefen HDMI 2x1 A/V switcher (HDMI+S/PDIF)
• A/V Media Player: Roku Photobridge HD-1000
• Game Player: Sony Playstation PS-2

Whole House Audio

• Audio Preamp: Xantech RP41AV
• Amplifier: Kustom Six Zone, Two Inputs
• House Speakers: Cambridge Audio 8 inch In Wall (3-pair)
• Patio Speakers: Bose 6 inch Outdoor units (2-pair)
• Volume Controls: Xantech VCIR (4)
• Music Source - 1: Turtle Beach Audiotron
• Music Source – 2: Polk Audio XMR-12 XM Satellite Receiver