Bill Joy’s 10,500-square-foot apartment in New York’s West Village looks more like the home of a die-hard modernist than a tech guru. But there’s more to it than white walls, Barcelona chairs, and urbane chic. "His technical demands were stringent," says Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier (think Getty Center), who will finish work on the home this fall. "But we found ways to conceal things."
Cold Storage
Vented cabinets with built-in cooling units hide the room’s embedded controllers, DVD players, and auxiliary inputs.
Home Port
The bedside nook houses a custom multimedia panel with six ports. Joy can plug in earphones to the home’s music system, pipe in tunes from an iPod or laptop, or add new tracks to his 1,600-album inventory.
Hidden Picture
A hi-def 50-inch plasma screen (mounted on a swivel arm) emerges from from behind Wilson Audio speakers.
Lights, XM Radio, the Web - every media source and room in the apartment can be accessed through a wall-mounted touchscreen, coded with custom Java software.
Nestled in the shadow of Aspen Mountain, with postcard-perfect views of Colorado’s peaks, this weekend getaway - built by a tech investor and his wife - manages to be all things to all people: It’s utterly livable, it’s a kid’s fantasy (complete with a fully loaded game room and a sleepover den for 12), and it’s perfect for parties (a 64-speaker system ensures that guests will hear the toasts even if they’re on the patio). Chalk it up to clever design, thousands of wires, and some 52,000 lines of custom code.
Moving Picture
A Sharp 1,280 x 720 scan projector drops from the ceiling.
Screen Saver
An 8-foot GrayHawk screen (from the Imax screen makers) descends from the millwork.
Rack Time
Wooden cabinets hold custom racks made to rotate out for easy upgrades. They hide a laundry list of components: a DVD player, satellite receiver, DirecTV box, TiVo, Xbox, PS2, speakers, amps, and subwoofers.
Total Control
An AMX touchscreen tablet controls lights, window shades, temp, and music in 18 zones.
Thermally conductive roof panels and subsurface piping along the walkways melt snow and ice.
A concealed scanner under the doorbell reads fingerprints and unlocks the door for family members and regular visitors.
Skylights fill the stairwell with daylong natural light from four roof-mounted mirrors - aka heliostats - that track the sun.
The chef can watch a live feed from the dining room on a 9-inch fold-down monitor to know when it’s time to offer seconds.
The trash shed has vents that pipe odors 50 feet away, keeping bears foraging for scraps far from the house.
At altitude, low air pressure can affect the neon-xenon gas in plasmas, making a buzzing noise. This NEC tweaks the gas to avoid this.
To help visitors rest easy, an oxygen line supplies master and guest bedrooms, ensuring sea level conditions at nearly 8,000 feet.
The chimney doubles as a 35-foot rock-climbing wall, designed by engineer and renowned climber Neal Beidleman.
This 10,000-square-foot family getaway is one of only 300 in the Santa Lucia Preserve near Carmel, California. "I want the kids to play outside," says Dad, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, explaining why there’s no home theater. The Crestron automation system, however, is top-of-the-line, emailing the owners when it detects anything from a burst pipe to a security breach. The system can also email footage from the security cams to the owner’s PC or cell phone.
Window Watcher
Door and window sensors tell the central automation system whether something is open or closed. To check status, the family calls up layouts of the house on one of the in-wall touchscreens or via the Web.
Power Down
An All Off switch in the garage can turn off all the home’s lights. It also cuts out audio amps and lowers the thermostats and floor heaters to a preset level.
Swim Ware
Set the pool’s temp or fire up the hot tub from any touchscreen. A poolside remote controls the music playing through the 18 outdoor speakers.
Throughout the house, touchscreens connect to a 300-gig music server and to Musicmatch, an Internet jukebox.
A Crestron panel in the barn - the kids’ playhouse - controls music and temp, plus the lighted path back to the house.
Three master monitors control lighting in 48 zones, audio in 32 zones, video, security, and thermostat.
Using the floor plan as an interface, a Crestron panel can set lighting "scenes" for each room, plus air and floor temperatures.
Video from the house TiVo, DVD or VCR, and any of the home’s security cameras can be accessed from anywhere in the house.
The Hinge House in Beverly Hills - owned by Rugrats cocreator Gabor Csupo and his wife, an artist - is an audiophile’s paradise, with two digital recording studios, a video editing suite, a central music server with 2,000 CDs’ worth of tunes, and at least 20 speakers, each chosen for the specific acoustic environment of a room. The 7,500-square-foot home is dominated by the living room (shown), a theatrical space with 19.5-foot ceilings and a gallery-worthy art collection.
Star Light
A Lutron lighting system with six presets can create an intimate candlelike effect or wash the walls to highlight the paintings.
Disco Inferno
A ceiling-mounted digital disco ball reacts to the beat of the music, casting colored shapes and lights onto the walls and floor.
The art collection, which features Matisses and Picassos, includes a 10-foot submarine suspended from the ceiling.
The media library takes up some 2,500 linear feet of shelf space, wrapping around the home theater to buffer noise.
The crown jewel of the sound system is a 20-year-old, $70,000 Goldmund Reference turntable that’s still considered the best.
SPECIAL THANKS: Aleks Istanbullu Architects; Anson Fogel, Electronic Systems Consultants; John Malick and Associates; Mac McComb, MC2; David A. Pond, ZCON Builders; Richard Meier & Partners; Rich Green Ink; Poss Architecture + Planning 
credit Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP
Bill Joyés 10,500-square-foot apartment in New Yorkés West Village looks more like the home of a die-hard modernist than a tech guru.
credit Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP
Lights, XM Radio, the Web-every media source and room in the apartment can be accessed through a wall-mounted touchscreen, coded with custom Java software.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
Nestled in the shadow of Aspen Mountain, with postcard-perfect views of Coloradoés peaks, this weekend getaway-built by a tech investor and his wife-manages to be all things to all people.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
Thermally conductive roof panels and subsurface piping along the walkways melt snow and ice.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
A concealed scanner under the doorbell reads fingerprints and unlocks the door for family members and regular visitors.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
Skylights fill the stairwell with daylong natural light from four roof-mounted mirrors-aka heliostats-that track the sun.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
The chef can watch a live feed from the dining room on a 9-inch fold-down monitor to know when ités time to offer seconds.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
The trash shed has vents that pipe odors 50 feet away, keeping bears foraging for scraps far from the house.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
At altitude, low air pressure can affect the neon-xenon gas in plasmas, making a buzzing noise. This NEC tweaks the gas to avoid this.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
To help visitors rest easy, an oxygen line supplies master and guest bedrooms, ensuring sea level conditions at nearly 8,000 feet.
credit Aspen Architectural Photography
The chimney doubles as a 35-foot rock-climbing wall, designed by engineer and renowned climber Neal Beidleman.
credit Misha Gravenor
This 10,000-square-foot family getaway is one of only 300 in the Santa Lucia Preserve near Carmel, California.
credit Misha Gravenor
Throughout the house, touchscreens connect to a 300-gig music server and to Musicmatch, an Internet jukebox.
credit Misha Gravenor
A Crestron panel in the barn-the kidsé playhouse-controls music and temp, plus the lighted path back to the house.
credit Misha Gravenor
Three master monitors control lighting in 48 zones, audio in 32 zones, video, security, and thermostat.
credit Misha Gravenor
Using the floor plan as an interface, a Crestron panel can set lighting-scenesé for each room, plus air and floor temperatures.
credit Misha Gravenor
Video from the house TiVo, DVD or VCR, and any of the homeés security cameras can be accessed from anywhere in the house.
credit Coral von Zumwalt
The Hinge House in Beverly Hills-owned by Rugrats cocreator Gabor Csupo and his wife, an artist-is an audiophileés paradise, with two digital recording studios, a video editing suite, a central music server with 2,000 CDsé worth of tunes, and at least 20 speakers, each chosen for the specific acoustic environment of a room.
credit Coral von Zumwalt
The art collection, which features Matisses and Picassos, includes a 10-foot submarine suspended from the ceiling.
credit Coral von Zumwalt
The media library takes up some 2,500 linear feet of shelf space, wrapping around the home theater to buffer noise.
credit Coral von Zumwalt
The crown jewel of the sound system is a 20-year-old, ,000 Goldmund Reference turntable thatés still considered the best.
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