Devout modernists know that perfect form doesn’t merely follow function. It’s function boiled down, stripped bare, magnified and then—this is crucial—honored. Or as Frank Lloyd Wright put it, “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”

Such a union was born when soon-to-be empty-nesters Dr. Steve Fadem and his wife Joyce looked to reconfigure an unused playroom. “The discussion was whether to turn it into a pool room or a theater,” Steve says. “A lot of friends who had pool tables said we’d use it the first three months and not much after that.” A home theater, he surmised, was something they’d use forever.

But the space had to be more than functional; it had to be multifunctional and transformable. The room had to be easily changeable as a place for entertaining and relaxing, and as a work space for Steve, a private-practice nephrologist who is also a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and runs The Nephron Information Center, an educational website. The space would double as a computer workstation one day and a concert hall the next; a formal screening room on some nights and on others, a cozy parlor. Issues of theme, motif and embellishment were secondary to those of flexibility and adaptation.
At the recommendation of Joyce’s parents, the couple enlisted Marks & Salley Inc., a Houston-based corporate architecture and interior design firm that accepts select residential work. Guided by Randy DiStefano, a designer who headed up the theater’s architecture, and interior designer Donna Minyard, who now runs her own design firm, the team devised a plan to satisfy the homeowners’ needs, both professional and personal.

All of the high-powered equipment that the homeowner researched and selected for his theater, with the guidance of custom installer Bill Maxey of Media Designs in Houston, Texas, is neatly housed in a customized equipment room wrapped in rich cherry wood. (Click image to enlarge)

“We thought it would be wasteful to make it too big,” Steve says of the 16-by-20-foot space, “since a lot of the time it’s just one or two of us.” Thus, small in scale and subtle in design were high on the wish list, in addition to comfort via theater-style seating “so you would pay attention to the media, not to each other.” The room needed to command attention without being too arresting.

Stellar sound was also paramount. “I like music and I like it to sound really, really nice,” says Steve, a lifelong audiophile.
To further define their must-haves for the space, Steve researched equipment and read reviews to compile a list of necessary gear; together, the couple visited several showrooms to test-drive various theater systems. But it was a visceral, off-the-cuff comment by Joyce that sealed the deal. “When she walked out of one theater [asking] ‘Where’s the popcorn?’ I knew that theater was the one,” Steve says.

To achieve the extraordinary quality of sound the homeowner required, the home theater’s framework was specially designed to be a room within a room, which is created through a frame of insulation and other materials. The angular shape of the space provides incremental, three-to-four-inch angles on the sidewalls and the ceiling; the rear of the room boasts the widest angles.

“Classic concert halls are fan-shaped,” says Bill Maxey, president of Media Design, a residential systems integrator in Houston, Texas. When sound waves bounce off parallel walls, standing waves are created, which result in anomalies in sound (i.e., certain frequencies are louder than they should be). The room’s angled walls help eliminate standing waves, making the resulting sound much more accurate.

The Fadem’s theater also incorporates the same live-end/dead-end configuration found in professional recording studios. In the front of the theater, or the dead end, the sidewalls are absorptive thanks to the plush draperies. The sidewalls in the back are diffusive thanks to diffuser panels composed of different widths of wood, each of which are tucked behind drapery fabric. “When the sound fires from the front speakers, early reflections are absorbed,” Maxey explains. “But in the back when the sound hits that end of the room, it scatters in a thousand directions.”
And the resulting sound? “Awesome,” Steve says, alluding to how his current favorite musical selection—a redigitized recording of Rachmaninoff—sounds in his theater. “It’s almost as if you’re transported into a different era with the finest piano music ever.” Guitar music is another of his favorites. “It’s incredible—you can hear every note,” he says. But Steve isn’t the only member of the Fadem family who appreciates concert-hall quality sound. “The kids have played their share of Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, and it all sounds excellent,” he adds.

While the theater’s design and layout may appear simple at first blush, every design element is a deliberate selection, from the cherry-wood doors and bookshelves to the carpeting’s soft mauve undertones. (Click image to enlarge)

While the room’s look is minimalist and unencumbered, with walls bathed in black, the space is bold in its tailored elegance. Gold accents lighten the look in the form of simple screen curtains and two sidewalls of valenced gold draperies that conceal acoustic paneling. Streamlined sconces glow along the walls. The buff carpeting’s mauve undertones are offset by a cherry-wood “curb” bordering the room, which provides another layer of visual texture and depth. Sound-diffusing cherry wood near the back of the room, in the form of double doors, cabinetry and shelving with built-in lighting, adds warmth and depth. Every design element in the home theater is downplayed to allow the performance at hand to shine.
To find the perfect seating arrangement, Joyce tested dozens of chairs. Guests want to put their feet up, she thought, and “slip into another world.” The six roomy, black leather reclining chairs by Irwin Seating fit the bill. Behind the second row, two Baker Knapp & Tubbs swivel chairs, upholstered in a muted burgundy weave, nestle up to the granite counter to create a third level that doubles as a desk or a dining area for eight. The only less-than-subtle design element of the room is the pair of black speakers flanking the screen. B&W 801s, which in many audiophiles’ eyes are works of art in themselves, are meant for showing off. Each is strategically positioned—11 feet apart and 13 feet from the listening apex—to form an equilateral triangle, providing authentic two-channel stereo and an indescribable sound. Additionally, the Fadems have upgraded to high-definition TV. “Everyone kept asking me if I was going to buy tickets for the 2004 Super Bowl, which is in Houston this year,” Steve says. “I told them I don’t need to go—I’ll just watch the game in here.”

The end result is an understated elegance that belies the theater’s casual practicality. But more importantly, the homeowners realize that the room is more versatile than they could have imagined. And with the third Fadem child going off to college in the near future, the homeowners realize the theater affords another hidden benefit.

“[Having the theater], we know they’re going to come home on vacation,” Joyce says.