Paul Colton knew what he wanted. Lugging a dog-eared copy of an old magazine with a picture of a stunning home theater, Colton walked into Genesis Audio & Video, which built the theater, and said, “This is what I want. Can you build this?”

When the Gorman Richardson design team was invited to build a state-of-the-art theater for a customer, they faced a major challenge. Their world-traveler clients envisioned a screening room that would feel like their own private harem, a place where they could “escape into a fanciful world.”

“We planned to do a traditional theater with stacks of seats,” the owner recalls. “Then my wife and I decided against that.” Instead, they imagined a room that did not resemble a theater—a small, intimate space that comfortably seats four to six guests.

Skipping the flash, this theater goes for clean looks and high performance.

When this Florida homeowner was looking to convert his TV room into a full-on home cinema, he turned to Advanced Audio Design in Sarasota.

The result is both elegant and stylishly simple.

Contest Winner cyberManor shows what's possible with this award winning Sunnyvale, CA home.

Microsoft, seeing the potential of their Media Center in a custom install environment, started a contest for the best install that was based around one of their Media Center PC (or, as the case may be, PCs).

As you can imagine, each entry was based on how well they integrated the Media Center, along with the gymnastics sounding "technical merit" and creativity/originality.

Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping like a night on the town in The Big Apple. Dramatic deep purple skies. Soaring skyscrapers. The spectacular, twinkling Brooklyn Bridge.

Homeowner Robert Coulombe, a professional bridge builder for 18 years, has always been smitten by the Brooklyn Bridge—so much that he made the 1883 engineering marvel the focal point of his new home theater. 

For their home theater, Timothy and Kelly Phelan wanted the look of a 1920s picture palace, complete with heavy red velvet theater curtains and a lot of antique gold. And like the rest of their 17,000-square-foot Colorado Springs home, they wanted their private screening room to be comfortable for them and their five children, whose ages range from 3 to 22.

The winding cobblestone driveway and abundance of rosebushes at the entrance is charming, albeit somewhat ordinary. But when the perfectly aged, 12-foot-tall arched wooden garage doors open to reveal a floor that is fashioned after the one in Venice's 16th-century Salone Maggiore, you realize that nothing is as it appears at Villa Rosa Rugosa, Danny and Shelley Brose's 18,000-square-foot Italian Renaissance fantasy villa in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

In the Land of Home Theaters, carefully crafted movie-watching spaces satisfy a wealth of psychological needs. Some people build them to ensure quality family time—a plush place where they can plop down with the kids, watch the latest DVD release and bond (it’s a sneaky, somewhat selfish tactic, but it guarantees parents will see their offspring at least one night a week).