Case study · Needham, MA
A family of three generations bought a 1917 poured-concrete estate in Needham and wanted to stay home more. We spent two phases turning it into a house with a private cinema, whole-home music and Wi-Fi that reaches the pool.
Built
2025 to 2026
Control
Control4
Lighting
Lutron HomeWorks QSX
Cinema
130-inch LED wall
CE Pro Home of the Year 2026: Gold
Best Whole-House Smart Home under $1M
CE Pro Home of the Year 2026: Bronze
Best Home Theater over $100K
The home and the goal
The house was built in 1917 out of poured concrete by an owner who brought in his own crew. It is solid in every sense. The original wiring runs through channels cut by hand into brick, and almost nothing inside can be opened up without a fight.
The new owners are a multi-generational family: parents, children and a grandmother under one roof. They asked for three things. Every room should have strong Wi-Fi and cameras that just work. Music and TV should be easy for every age in the house. And the third floor should become a real movie theater, the kind of room that makes a night out unnecessary. That is where the name came from.
We split the work into two phases. Phase one, in the spring and summer of 2025, covered the network, cameras, lighting and five entertainment rooms. Phase two, from August 2025 to May 2026, built the third-floor cinema and added Lutron HomeWorks QSX lighting and shades across the house.
The hard part
Concrete stops Wi-Fi and it stops wire. We could not demolish anything, so every cable path had to be found, not made. We used the old brick chases where we could and planned access-point locations so that a dozen Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 7 access points could cover the house through walls that block a normal router completely. Seven more outdoor units cover the yard and pool.
The cinema had its own challenges. The room is on the third floor, so the screen, speakers, seven subwoofers and the equipment had to be planned around the structure and around heat. We installed a 130-inch direct-view LED wall in a CinemaScope shape from Just Video Walls, which we believe is the first custom installation of its kind in the country. It needs no projector and no dark room to look right. A madVR Envy video processor, a Marantz AV10 and AMP10, Leon surround speakers and James Loudspeaker in-ceiling Atmos speakers do the rest, with Kaleidescape for movies. The room has an isolation transformer and a voltage-regulating UPS so the picture and sound stay clean.
The result
The cinema has tufted velvet walls and three tracks of motorized blackout drapery that close with the lights at the touch of one Control4 remote. A hidden door in the wall leads to a billiards lounge and guest suite.
Downstairs, the family room has a James Loudspeaker soundbar built into the mantel and two Séura mirror TVs that look like framed mirrors when they are off. Coastal Source bollard speakers and a subwoofer play music around the pool. Lutron Sunnata keypads, roller shades, Roman shades and drapery run on schedules or with one button. A Starlink line backs up the internet so the cameras and Wi-Fi stay up.
In 2026 the project won two CE Pro Home of the Year awards: Gold for Best Whole-House Smart Home under $1M and Bronze for Best Home Theater over $100,000.
Ubiquiti UniFi Wi-Fi 7: 13 indoor and 7 outdoor access points
Ubiquiti AI Pro 4K cameras
Starlink internet backup
130-inch Just Video Walls LED cinema wall
madVR Envy, Marantz AV10 and AMP10, Kaleidescape
Leon and James Loudspeaker speakers, seven subwoofers
Séura mirror TVs, Sony BRAVIA TVs, Sonos
Lutron HomeWorks QSX with Sunnata keypads
Lutron roller and Roman shades, motorized drapery
Control4 control and Halo remotes
Coastal Source outdoor audio
Yes, with more access points and a careful plan. Here we used 13 indoor Wi-Fi 7 access points, each wired back to the network, placed so the signal never has to pass through more than one concrete wall.
It is a screen made of LED panels instead of a projector and screen. It is much brighter than a projector, so the room does not have to be dark, and it can be built to any shape, including the wide CinemaScope shape used here.
Usually. We plan cable paths through existing chases, attics and closets, and build the room's acoustics and wall treatments on top of what is there. See our home theater work in Boston.
We design and install smart home, lighting, shade and theater systems across Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Tell us about your house and we'll set up a walkthrough.
