Santa Monica Beach Front Luxury

Beverly Hills Smart Homes (Beverly Hills, CA) won URC’s Best Residential Installation Silver Award for a luxurious beachfront home in Santa Monica, CA.

It takes elevated vision to craft a unique redesign. Often, elements that make a renovation different involve the foundation system as well as compelling visual aesthetic. In this instance, both form and function combined in this incredible project in Santa Monica, CA.

Challenging many boundaries, including numerous layers of integration delivered in unusual manner, created a showcase project for the homeowner, renovation contractor, architect, Beverly Hills Smart Homes, URC and numerous other experts involved.

The project pushed the limits of integration and made URC’s Total Control® the clear choice. Controlled with an MRX-30 Premier System Controller, two TKP-9600 touch screens and two TRC-1480 handheld remotes with voice control, the installation includes:

• Fibaro Z-Wave® multi-function sensors.
• 9 audio zones utilizing a combination of Sonos Arc Soundbar, PORT and new AMP Controller used in a 5.1 surround application.
• Sonance in-ceiling stereo pairs and single-point stereo where appropriate.
• Russound D850 eight channel amplifier.
• August Z-Wave exterior deadbolt to control the entry gate lock/unlock.
• Alexa voice control for all URC Z-Wave light switches, dimmers, outlets and television locations as well as ten Lutron motorized shades.
• Lutron LR-HVAC Controllers with flush-mount wall sensors to control four zones of HVAC control.
• Wilson Pro Cell Phone Booster Kit with roof-mounted antenna, Pantry mounted broadcast antenna and Garage Closet mounted amp.
• Automated Honda outdoor generator in front patio area with fully customized and ventilated enclosure and garage mounted APC safe transfer and sensing interface.
• Commercial-grade Luxul wired and wireless Gigabit network backbone including an ABR-5000 Router, XWC-1000 Controller, three XAP-1600 AP’s and XMS-2624P Managed Switch.

In addition, URC’s Total Control was able to integrate with a life-sized T-800 prop from the movie The Terminator.

Clearly, this level of integration required a desire to create an elevated, one-of-a-kind experience. This vision started with a homeowner with vision and several years of prior URC Complete Control experience. This power couple boasts engineering, technical and medical experience and an eye for design that rivals the best Santa Monica has to offer.

“Having lived in Santa Monica earlier in our lives, my wife and I realized a dream when we purchased a home that we had once only joked about owning - overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Although we initially thought of doing some quick and easy cosmetic reservations, we somewhat reluctantly, but with great excitement, made the decision to perform a full-scale renovation.

Going into the design phase of our project we brought with us familiarity with URC’s products and platform from our last custom-built home. We brought our “wish list” to Jay Dobensky (Beverly Hills Smart Homes), and through a great deal of conversation, vision and brainstorming, we created our initial solution in late 2019. However, like so many other projects in 2020, ours was greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the many subsequent shutdowns, supply chain disruptions and other factors impacting housing in California and across the globe. While our problem was small in comparison to many suffering from the pandemic we were able to ultimately turn this extended-timeline challenge into a benefit by amending the project scope to include new hardware and software options that were released only during late 2020. Jay took full advantage of these opportunities by keeping us current with new options as they became available. By doing so, we maintained the cutting-edge framing of our solution while also elevating the standards for the project as a whole.

What we ultimately ended up with at the project’s mid-2021 conclusion was far more sophisticated, integrated and personalized than what we had initially designed. Jay’s unique ability to interject just the right amounts of technology in just the right places, with ease-of-use and conformity to our total home design and decor was something he focused on incessantly until we were completely satisfied.

As an advanced level end-user, I thoroughly enjoy the vast array of control and customization that we have available with URC’s Total Control, yet my family can also use the system with ease using Amazon’s Alexa or from one of the many, uniform interfaces, be it the wall touch screen, universal remotes or the apps we now can’t seem to live without on our phones and iPads.

Through his work, Jay helped us enhance our in-home entertainment and living experience, while simultaneously allowing us to do our part for the planet -- an absolute requirement for us. Jay’s background allowed him to devise not just a reliable and enjoyable technical solution, but one geared towards sustainability and conservation where we control our lighting, Lutron shades and heating/air conditioning in not only the most convenient, but also the most efficient and environmentally sustainable manner. Projects of this nature and magnitude are always full of hurdles and unexpected navigational hazards, and ours was no exception. The vagaries of the pandemic only added to the normal to and for, yet what we ultimately arrived at was worth the investment for the many years of enjoyment and satisfaction yet to come!”
- Ron P. (Homeowner)

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