THE SMART HOME

ONE SMART APARTMENT

The most recent rage with high-end clients looking at remodeling or starting new construction is making sure their home is a smart home. Making their homes accessible from any where in the world through their iPhones is the new must have. When you can lunch in St. Tropez and lower your living room shades in Ho-Ho-Kus all at the same time there's an immense sense of security and power.
We are working with several clients right now with way more knowledge than I have about all this gadgetry. Give me a flip switch for my lights and a remote for the TV and I'm fine. Beyond that it's all wasted toys stuffed in a dusty drawer whose purpose will only get stranded in the maze of my mind.

But what I can appreciate is that the Savant showroom used by Phoenix Audio/Video to entice technophiles is totally amazing. Designed by Thom Felicia this space is move-in ready and I'd change the address on all my business cards for the opportunity to live here.

Loft living in New York is always challenging. You are usually dealing with raw space where everything is exposed. It's a designer's dream and nightmare at the same time. The charm of the space is in the exposed rafters, brick walls, and concrete floor, all elements that make the space enticing but at the same time make it difficult to work with. You can cover up the rafters with a false ceiling and drywall the walls but then you've lost the reason you chose a loft in the first place. So what do you do with all the mechanical needs required for normal living? Here the designer chose to expose the HVAC running it along the ceiling with a duct that is so beautiful it begs to be exposed.

The rest of the kitchen uses state of the art appliances mixed in with open shelving and cabinetry in a rift cut oak stained a driftwood grey.

The floor plan is a massive open area containing the kitchen, dining area, media center and conversation alcove. Scale is an important element of drama in the space as seen in the over-sized light fixtures in the dining area. A portion of the brick wall is left exposed and then lit giving the space a sense of being extended beyond the drywall frame.

The media area is the third bay running along the near wall. There was no need to worry about sun glare here. All the windows are part of the control system that can be lowered or raised for TV viewing. Of course, it's all remote, you can raise or lower them from anywhere in the world with a mere touch on your iPhone.

Even the coffee tables contain media screens with atmospheric imagery swimming around the room.

Adjacent to the media area is a nook suited for conversation with a circular arrangement perfect for an intimate party of close friends

The bedroom, office and bathroom are broken out into separate rooms. The tranquility of the bedroom is enhanced by the cool colors and panoramic photography.

TVs pop up from their hiding places inside cabinets topped by birdcages. This unit can just as easily do a slow retreat back into its under-cabinet home.

The most mind-boggling aspect of the bedroom is this sliding door that hides a huge walk-in closet.  The three monitors that line the door are curved to follow the circumference of the circular closet. It's one of the mysteries of the space that made me slap my face in disbelief.

Then for the real information fanatics the office has so many bells and whistles it's a as if you're standing on a turnstile spinning round and round trying to take it all in, speakers, monitors, control panels, Oh my.
I have to hand it to Thom. I'm sure there was a fair amount of input from Savant but the ultimate design is breath taking.













THE GALLERY

Frankfurt, 1965
Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer
Represented by Edwynn Houk Gallery