Sometimes things don’t go as planned. This 5,500-square foot home in Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., was never expected to have a sophisticated Crestron home automation system. In fact, its owners initially only wanted a simple entertainment system for the family room. But plans changed dramatically when the owners decided to completely rebuild the existing structure. With the walls completely exposed, it was a good time to run cabling for a bells-and-whistles control system, so that’s what they did.

The custom electronics (CE) professionals from iHome Solutions, Miami, were kept on their toes throughout the entire two-and-a-half year project, especially when it came to connecting the home’s lighting to the Crestron system. “Just when we thought we had our lighting design finalized, the homeowners would add another chandelier,” says iHome’s Enrique Campuzano. “In some cases, the new fixtures exceeded the maximum wattage on the original design, which meant we had to run new cabling and add new modules to the lighting system.”

The design of the entertainment gear didn’t go quite as expected either. In most homes, says Campuzano, customers like having all the entertainment gear located in one single rack, and they had prewired this house thinking that its owners would want the same. No so. Instead, they preferred to outfit each TV with its own set of components. iHome adjusted, and worked with the architect to design cabinetry to hide the equipment.

Fortunately, the security portion of the control system stayed on course. Images from eight IC Realtime surveillance cameras can be viewed on TVs, Crestron touchpanels, iPhones and iPads. A DVR records the camera images, which can only be accessed from the owner’s Mac computer. The lighting was integrated into the security settings to help the vacation house appear occupied when its owners aren’t there.

Check out the slideshow for more images of the tech inside this Bay Harbor Islands home.

Lisa Montgomery - Contributing Writer

Lisa Montgomery has been writing about home technology for 15 years, with a focus on the impact of electronics on a modern lifestyle.