Indoor Pool and Theater Requires Sophisticated Control System

What do you do with a huge home addition that includes a pool built inside an all-glass conservatory with more than 100 windows and a killer home theater with a custom-designed barrel-vaulted ceiling?

Start by putting motorized shades on all those windows—including the walls and ceiling in the conservatory—and make them operable by a push of a button, because all those windows are no friends to projection screen, or to privicy.

Custom electronics company Connected Systems Group of Salem, Mass., also added a full-blown Elan g! home control system in the home, which is owned by former Genzyme chairman Henri Termeer.

This Elan g! system integrates more than 200 motorized window shades, 16 motorized windows, 90 Pulseworx lighting loads, pool fans and Pentair pool and spa equipment, eight thermostats in the new addition, 10 surveillance cameras with DVR, a Hunter irrigation system and controls the property’s two entrance gates, each with a camera.

When someone approaches the gates, the g! system automatically turns on the gate camera and displays the video feed on the system’s touchscreens in the kitchen and swimming pool room.

That’s not all. Termeer also has fast, simple control over 13 zones of audio, 11 TVs and a home theater that features a 110-inch motorized screen, a SIM2 projector on a motorized lift and a 7.2-channel surround sound system. The theater produces professional quality sound, partly thanks to the acoustical backing applied on the custom-built ceiling.

Termeer controls his g! system from four iPads with the g!Mobile app, a 10-inch Elan touchscreen in the kitchen and a 7-inch Elan touchscreen in the swimming pool room.

The pool conservatory uses a combination of Lutron wirelessly controlled shades and a few custom-made shades to cover every inch of glass and go from night to day with a single button push. The shades can also be controlled in groups so that only some of them let the daylight through. The Elan g! system controls the shades as well as the pool temperature and salt content.

Individual “apps” for each subsystem allow the homeowners to control security, climate, lighting, media, irrigation, pool/spa, messaging, video and photos with the flick of a finger.