We know this great place to go bowling. It has new lanes. It’s clean and well-lit. And it has an automated scoring system where you punch in someone’s name and it pretty much does the rest, even automatically raising bumper guards for the little ones when their turns come up. You never have to keep score; the system does it all for you.

This system even remembers you when you return. No kidding! That’s because it’s a pretty exclusive place. And it has a bar and a movie theater. You can even watch movies while you bowl. You can have birthday parties there. The only drawback is that you really can’t bowl there unless you’re invited. It’s in someone’s home.

“This family really loves to entertain. They’re getting close to retiring, and they wanted to bring all of their favorite pastimes into their home and share them with their friends and family,” says Gabriel Karlis of electronics design and installation firm JD Audio and Video Designs, based in Fort Lee, NJ. “They use [the space] for watching sporting events, hosting birthday parties and just for fun family time. It serves as a real multipurpose room.”

As you enter the room, you see a friendly bar with what looks like a 12-inch flat TV. It’s really a Crestron touchpanel, but you can watch 120-plus TV channels on it or view the outdoor perimeter cameras. You can also pick a song stored on an AudioReQuest Fusion system, which rips CDs to a hard drive for instant access. You can listen to plain old FM radio or turn around to watch a movie or show on a 63-inch Fujitsu plasma TV on the wall across the two bowling lanes.

Beneath the plasma TV and flush mounted into the wall are three Sonance Virtuoso in-wall speakers and a Triad in-wall subwoofer. To round out this surround-o-drome are two Sonance Virtuoso in-ceiling speakers located over the bar.

The plasma screen doesn’t just display video. It’s also tied into the AMF electronic bowling system, so it can display the scores as the strikes and spares pile up.

Bowlers also have access to a Sony DVD player and Super Audio CD (SACD) player housed in a rack beneath the stairs. Lighting in the room is controlled via Crestron in-wall dimmers located throughout the house.

If you get tired of bowling, just step down the hall to the home’s own shooting range. You can watch the action behind bullet-proof glass or take aim yourself. A wall-mounted Crestron controller with a screen shows an up-close image of the target 100 feet away, so shooters don’t have to wait for a motorized pulley to deliver the target and see how they did.

No matter where you are in this basement, you’re a part of the action.