And to think it almost never came to be. This jungle-themed home theater outside of Indianapolis was the brainchild of interior designer Robert Orr. Orr convinced his father, who custom built the home, that a lower-level room should be upgraded to a full-fledged theater.

One trip to the showroom at TriPhase Technologies in Carmel, IN, was enough to persuade Orr’s parents that a home theater wasn’t a bad idea at all, as long as it didn’t approach the $250,000 price tag of the showroom’s trophy theater. The family contracted with systems designer Tom Wilburn to come up with an impressive but downscaled media room that included simplified remote control and coordinated lighting.

Wilburn selected the Sony VPL-VW60 SXRD (Silicon X-tal [Crystal] Reflective Display) projector for the job. The 1080p projector provided Wilburn’s clients “the best value for a future-proof technology,” he says. On the speaker side, the Orrs didn’t quite get the Triad In-Wall Platinum speakers they had heard during the TriPhase audition, but came close with Triad’s offering, the Gold series. “The owners feel they got the same Triad sound,” Wilburn says.

The theater gave Orr Jr. a destination for prized monkey sconces in the rear of the room. He then built a jungle theme around the sconces, including a ceiling cove painted with a jungle theme and oversized bamboo stalks “planted” in urns on either side of the 100-inch screen.

The owners’ request for simple operation was met by RTI’s T2C remote control, which TriPhase programmed to mimic the look of the Elan touchscreens used throughout the house. In addition to his-and-her satellite DVRs, the owners enjoy content from their Escient FireBall DVDM-100, which stores and serves music and movies.

“They love that when they buy a new DVD, they load it into the FireBall, and it never has to come out,” Wilburn says.

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately EH was unable to obtain more photos of this home theater.