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Audio Video Interiors September
Zen & THE ART OF BUILDING HOME THEATERS
STORY BY MARILOU TAYLOR
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADAM CROCKER
Meet the dream team who turned turnkey home theater into reality. Keith Willis and Jon Heberling are partners in Innovative Theatres in Santa Monica, California. The name is apt because innovation is what they offer. In addition to designing and installing world-class custom theaters and A/V systems, the partners have perfected Classic Editions. It is a collection of five pre-designed theaters complete with strong design themes, well-balanced audio/video packages and what financial types call economies of scale.
"Designing and building a home theater can involve an architect and interior designer certainly audio/video and automation specialists and probably a host of building trades," says Willis. "The concept behind Classic Editions is to go 'in-house' to incorporate all those trades and services into one company. This allows us to manage the process seamlessly and dramatically reduce the stress level."
The five designs in the collection bridge the taste market from the eye-catching art deco dazzler dubbed "Cinema Erte" to a serene space called the "Zen Room." "The theater is the room that can depart from the rest of a home's interior design if desired," says Willis. "It is a fantasy room for many clients."
"Cinema Erte' captures the imaginations of many of those clients with one of today's most prominent styles for home theaters," says Jon Heberling. "It has elements of the movie palaces of Hollywood's Golden age, plus other icons of style such as the Queen Mary and the Chrysler building in New York."
If it is surprising to hear audio/video professionals speak so familiarly about design and style, consider the backgrounds of both. "A lot of what we create comes from a visual emphasis." Heberling says. "I have a degree in interior architecture from Cal State Long Beach and designed commercial and residential properties for 20 years before we became partners."
"I come originally from a music background." Willis explains. "I was a guitar player and engineer who toured with a lot of popular bands in the 1980's. After 9 years of touring i went back to UCLA to pursue my degree in Fine Arts."
Working together, with Heberling doing the blueprints and documents for build-out and Willis specifying and integrating the electronics, they bring each design to life. "We lock ourselves in the conference room for three or four hours and throw ideas around," Willis says. "We start out like that TV commercial that says 'Where would you like to go today?' We build ideas on top of ideas until we come out with a design that's usually very different that what we started with."
For Classic Editions the process took weeks of designing and months of refining. "These rooms are the synthesis of years of our very best work, those custom jobs that took months of on-site designing, building, wiring and installing," says Heberling. "We reassembled these elements into packaged, pre-designed theaters. Because we have done all the engineering, interior design and architecture up-front, we make the process of creating a home theater less laborious, less scary and less expensive." There's the "economies of scale" part of the formula.
And here's how the process works. "Jon and I visit the clients in their home which can be in this country or anywhere. After they select their specific theater design, we discuss all the various options: seating, color palette, wall covering, flooring and carpet, and in some cases wood veneer," says Willis. "And then we talk about the two options for the audio/video equipment: either all the THX components or all JBL/THX Synthesis equipment in a JBL-certified room."
The result truly merits that overworked word "unique." The client gets a theater complete with interior design, automation, audio/video equipment with correct speaker placement and projection geometry, and installation. "With lots of options, we're usually finished in 10-18 weeks depending on the theater option chosen," says Willis.
Of the five theater options, "Zen" is one of the most popular and also one of the least expensive (about $61,000). "This is our Pacific Rim style," says Heberling. "It started with California clients who live in modern homes and want a peaceful, relaxing environment with a minimum of ornamentation. We use acoustic treatments that reduce noise and make the theater a multi-purpose space if they want to practice Yoga, meditate or have a sanctuary of quiet. seating can be flat mats, cushions or recliners."
Another turn of the design wheel brings up "Estate theater," fashioned for the client who says, "I want this room to feel like the rest of my home" (about $72,000). "it could be seamlessly integrated into a 1920s house in Pasadena or a new estate in the Midwest," says Heberling.
Distinctive features such as wooden coffered ceilings and deep moldings can be matched to wood in the rest of the residence. furniture includes mahogany-finished console and glass-topped end tables plus comfortable leather recliners. The stage is curtained with fabric panels gathered at the proscenium sides and a motorized center curtain that draws open to expose the screen. "certain elements like the style of the molding are fairly easy to change," Willis explains. "our rooms aren't standing in a warehouse somewhere; we can allow some customization for each client. Minor deviations do not make a custom room." except for "Erte" (about $88,000). "The metal moldings are pre-cast and if we tweak them we lose the price and time advantage of the pre-designed package," adds Heberling. "But if you want us to invent something for you, we'll invent it."
The Art Moderne design movement, which flourished in the 1930s and 40s, is just as appropriate to today's home theater client as it was then. "In terms of style, Cinema Moderne is just beyond the simplicity of 'Zen,'" he continues. Distinguished by sleek lines, light finishes and streamlined ornaments, "Cinema Moderne" (about $53,000) relies on decorative elements such as pale, maple-wood doors and columns, up-lighting in the cornice, fabric-wrapped acoustic wall panels, and both fabric and leather seating.
"After the clients select their design we measure their room and size it up in our computers where we have already created a template for the theater," says Keith. "This template can be scaled proportionally on CAD software and manufactured to the rooms' actual size."
Wendy and Wayne Pritzlaff, who live in a suburb of Los Angeles, witnessed this process in their own home during the creation of "Cinema Moderne."
"We knew we couldn't have a theater the size of many have done and others that we've seen in Audio Video Interiors, but we knew Keith and Jon would do something special in the space we had. They designed the first 'Cinema Moderne' for our under-utilized game room and it works really well in a small space like that."
The final Classic Editions theater in called "Greco" (about $68,200). "This is a great fantasy theater that we did first as a custom project," says Heberling. "It was very successful and was a natural for us to include in the group." Influenced by Greek architecture, it features a proscenium with a dramatic carved pediment, Doric columns and richly detailed molding above the screen and on the cornice. "With such a prominent cornice we used floor-to-ceiling draperies that are equally theatrical but provide a functional wayto correct site conditions such as unwanted windows and doors."
This is just one of Innovative's toolbox of solutions gleaned from other jobs and folded into each pre-designed theater. "With classic Editions, reinventing the wheel is not necessary," Heberling says. "The costly, time-consuming design process has already been completed."
Willis continues, "Classic Editions is unique in that it offers a choice of two integrated audio and video theater packages, each designed specifically with the room's acoustical performance in mind. We use the best electronics available within the budget but, of course, if clients prefer a certain component and it does not compromise theater performance, we'll give it to them. With a modification in price, of course," says Willis.
According to Willis, the beauty of modular systems is that they avoid many of the headaches associated with a re-model, including the "too many cooks in the kitchen" syndrome. "So many of our new clients call us in to fix problems with theaters they spent tens of thousands of dollars on and don't enjoy," says Willis. "People often get confused by architects, interior designers and other subcontractors who each have their own agendas. Eventually, the communication breaks down and the homeowner pays a heavy price. Home theaters, including the building of them, should be a positive experience for everyone." amen to that.
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