Remember the staircase scene in the movie Titanic? Who would have thought you could make a home theater out of it.

But that’s what theater designer Donnie Hackett of Casa Cinema Design came up with, basing the elegant starlit dome of this theater on the one from the set of the blockbuster movie. The engineered wood pieces were made to look like elegant wrought iron and were suspended by cables. More than a thousand fiber-optic light strands in the dome give the effect of the night sky.

“One night I was flipping through the channels, and I saw the scene on the staircase. I bought a copy of the movie and freeze framed it so I could simulate the design,” Hackett says.
Hackett and electronic company Professional Audio Video Engineering (PAVE) conspired to build the theater for a Parade of Homes showcase in Nashville, TN.

The room provides other titanic luxuries, too, such as a projector and screen that beam superwide CinemaScope pictures like those shown in commercial theaters. In fact, this room featured the first CinemaScope installation with a Vidikron projector in Tennessee. The Vidikron Model 30 ET projector shines its 2.35:1 image—wider that HDTV’s 16:9 image—onto a custom-made 120-inch screen.

Curved pocket doors in the back open at the press of a button, and a motorized bookcase swings open to allow entry into the adjoining pub room. The equipment is hidden behind a framed picture in the back, which lowers at the press of a button. Meanwhile, high-end LSA Group front speakers and TruAudio surround channels are located in the front pillars and ceiling and receive their signals from a Marantz receiver and DVD player. Everything is controlled by a Crestron home control and lighting system.

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Steven Castle - Contributing Writer

Steven Castle is Electronic House's managing editor. he has been writing about consumer electronics, homes and energy efficiency topics for two decades. He is also the co-founder of GreenTech Advocates.