The World’s Best Home Theater You Can Build for $250,000

If you love movies, or just have a lot of friends and want them to have the best home theater experience, all you need is a lot of space, and a bank account big enough to spend $250,000. What will you get in this home theater system you ask?

Part Home Theater, Part Laser Light Show

The 174-inch screen. The dusk-to-dawn time lapsed constellation-filled sky ceiling. The 200-pound, ultrahigh-performance projector. The airtight 350-pound custom door that seals the room like Fort Knox. The chairs’ frosted glass cupholders that glow with LED lights.

Fire in the Sky

As viewers settle into the theater, a walk-in mode programmed into the Crestron control system keeps the room well lit and fills the sky ceiling with daytime blue.  Then show time begins. A programmed 7-minute delay lowers the lights and fades the sky into coral, magenta and finally a midnight blue. Fiber-optic LED constellations appear, and shooting stars streak overhead.

Design Shines

For the theater design, the homeowners desired something slick and contemporary to fit with the rest of the house, as this room would be a signature addition to a signature house designed by renowned Peter Gluck and Partners.  The unorthodox blue and charcoal colors help achieve a modern feel, while the special ceiling and lighting, including downlighting, effects, step and stage lights.

Prefab Theater

First Impressions worked with A/V installer HED South and interior designer Holmes Newman to create the entire structure, down to every nut and bolt, in North Miami, Fla., before shipping and reconstructing it in the owners’ upstate New York home.

Great Seats

The supple and slick Italian leather CineLounger seats where manufactured by First Impressions and custom-dyed to match the wall panels. Meanwhile, four-way masking on the 174-inch screen that covers the unused top and bottom portions when superwide 2.35:1 aspect ratio movies are shown. The slightly curved, overlaid and LED-backlit acoustical panels, as is the concealed and powerful Genelec surround-sound system.

Designed by Jeffrey Smith of theater designer First Impressions Theme Theaters, Part Home Theater, Part Laser Light Show is the best Theater in Electronic House magazine 5th Annual Home of the Year Awards.

Part Home Theater, Part Laser Light Show

Part Home Theater, Part Laser Light Show

Part Home Theater, Part Laser Light Show