A traditional home theater pushes the envelope with it's unorthodox floor plan, elaborate European woodwork and a mind-blowing sound system.
The ability to put aside one’s own opinion out of respect for the other party’s desires goes against the grain of human nature. It’s an evolved trait. And for the top expert in his or her field to do such a thing—especially the founder of a particular industry—well, that behavior is more than rare. It’s honorable. And brave.
Theo Kalomirakis is just this kind of brave person.
Kalomirakis is the designer behind this plush private screening room. In addition, he’s the owner of the eponymous home-theater design firm in Manhattan, Theo Kalomirakis Theaters.
And he’s known around the world as the “father of home-theater design.”
From the beginning, Kalomirakis’ client was very clear about wrapping his new home theater in rich woodworking that was finished with a shiny lacquer. Kalomirakis, however, disagreed with his client and recommended a different approach: He told the homeowner that the theater’s elaborately carved millwork shouldn’t be covered with a heavy lacquer.
“In my mind, it’s a little too reflective,” Kalomirakis says. “I was concerned it would be wrong for the theater.” Nevertheless, the theater designer understood that the high-gloss sheen was very important to the homeowner. His client had to have that look. So Kalomirakis honored his client’s wishes.
Seven years later, after the client’s home theater was completed, Kalomirakis saw the room in all its high-gloss glory. And he was pleasantly surprised.
“I was very nervous to see it because I was not on site when they installed the millwork,” Kalomirakis says. “I was worried that the shine would ruin the effect. But the owner, a very sweet man, kept saying: ‘Don’t worry about it. It looks great. It’s not distracting.’”
Sure enough, the homeowner was right.
Since Kalomirakis built his first home theater in 1985, he’s orchestrated more than 400 stunning residential cinemas. Not surprisingly, he’s mastered the fine art of hearing and honoring other people’s opinions and needs. “In our world, it’s always about compromise,” he says. “If one part, like me, insists on the design aspect that he or she presents, other trades get screwed up. You have to be able to work out the differences with the contractor and the acoustic consultant.”
In this project, one of those “differences” involved the theater’s ceiling treatment. “This home has the most amazing craftsmanship,” Kalomirakis says. “They hired people from all over the world and have a lot of decorative painting throughout the house.”
As a result, the designer envisioned the theater as an extension of those breathtaking paintings and wanted to cover the ceiling with an enormous mural. But after consulting with acoustician Steve Haas, the owner of SH Acoustics in Milford, CT, about the ceiling mural, the design team concluded that it wouldn’t work: The theater’s numerous speakers had no place to go other than in the ceiling.
And if the speakers had to be tucked into the ceiling, Kalomirakis’ mural would have to be orchestrated on a microperforated material to accommodate the sound. With time, the integrity of a mural canvas dotted with thousands of tiny pinholes would be compromised and would sag.
So Kalomirakis shifted gears. He wholeheartedly agreed with Hass that the ceiling would have to “lose a little bit of visual appeal” in order to achieve the best sound possible. That meant the massive ceiling mural was now a thing of the past. But Kalomirakis’ new vision for the ceiling—two massive wheel-shaped coffers arranged in a figure-eight pattern, with acoustic fabric stretched between each spoke—won out.
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