At a young age, Emmy award-winning actor Bryan Cranston learned the value of recycling and prolonging the life of things he owns. Today, he has taken his eco-conscious lifestyle one step further by building a new LEED Platinum certified beachfront home near Los Angeles, CA.
L-R: Robert Ridenour, Brand Manager for ELAN Home Systems, Bryan Cranston, and Justin Brees of AM House in Cranston’s new Los Angeles-area beachfront home.
The home, which Cranston dubbed 3Palms, uses solar panels, radiant heat, low-energy appliances, LED lighting and natural ventilation to cut energy usage, and everything from the lights to the motorized window shutters can be controlled from anywhere in the world through the simple-to-use ELAN g! Entertainment and Control System.
“My grandparents and parents taught me about recycling when I was a boy,” Cranston said. “It was just part of their lives — composting, recycling, repurposing and using things until they were of no use, not succumbing to the temptation of buying something new simply because it’s new. I’ve been of that mindset for 50 years, so when I started thinking about creating a new home on the beach, I decided I wanted to do a net-zero energy house and get LEED Platinum certification.”
After finding a suitable beachfront plot that housed a very unsuitable, inefficient 1940s home, Cranston began designing the new 3 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom home using every energy-conscious element possible. Considerations include motorized window shutters for protection from the elements, solar panels for electricity, solar thermal units for hot water, house-wide LED lighting, high-performance insulation, wood from FSC certified sustainable forests, and the ELAN g! Entertainment and Control system to make everything easy to use, manage and monitor, including schedules for lighting, heating and security, plus worldwide access to check on the home.
“I’ve already used the ELAN system remotely with the mobile app to check on the security cameras,” Cranston said. “I was rushing out the door, and as I was driving away I had a moment of doubt where I thought ‘Did I close the garage doors?’, so I went on the system and checked the cameras. One of them lets me see the garage, and sure enough it was open! So I went into the system, pushed close, and that was that. It’s worth its weight in gold right there.”
In addition to the security cameras, garage doors and window shutters, the ELAN g! system allows Cranston to use his iPhone or iPad to control his whole-home music system and every light both indoors and outdoors. With pre-set schedules for heating, lighting and security, he never has to wonder whether his home is running at optimum efficiency. The g! system also has a history feature where he can view the past usage of each system and then easily make any adjustments he wants.
Cranston can even see which lights or speakers are on in each room, then turn them off one at a time or all at once. Justin Brees of custom electronics installation company AM House programmed a super convenient ‘Home/Away” button that sets the home up for when he leaves or returns. It’s specially programmed to shut down the house when no one is home, with actions such as turning off all the lights and speakers, arming the security system and closing the shutters. For additional “Away” mode security, some lights go on at random intervals at night to simulate that someone is home.
To show the public that eco-living can still be comfortable and stylish, Cranston is leveraging his celebrity status to share his new green home with television viewers all across the U.S. in a syndicated weekend series called “Real Green”. The series will air in late 2013 and will be broadcast on more than 100 local affiliates and cable networks. It will cover the entire project from conception to move-in and include segments with all of the experienced professionals that helped make his dream home a reality, including the builder Bryan Henson, project designer John Turturro, and custom electronics installer Justin Brees.
