There are few things more physically demanding than playing in the National Football League. So after more than 100 games for the Green Bay Packers–including a victory in Super Bowl XLV, in which he scored a touchdown on an interception–Nick Collins had earned some hard-fought relaxation with his wife Andrea and their five kids. And thanks to integrator Millennium Systems Design, his new ELAN-equipped home makes that about as easy as it gets.
“This is the second home we’ve done for them,” said Mike Barry, president at Millennium Systems Design. “They also had an ELAN system in their first home. The new home is much larger, much more spread out–a single-story, ranch-style home. They have four boys and a girl, and a lot of activity in the house, and intercom capabilities, communications, and ease of operation were probably the biggest focus.”
Retired Green Bay Packers safety Nick Collins enjoys using his home’s 13 TVs to watch multiple football games simultaneously, supplied by the ELAN HDMI matrix distribution system.
To meet these focus points for the 10,000-squarefoot home in Winter Garden, FL, the Collins family had Barry’s team install touchpanel controls for the ELAN system–which consists of a gSC10 System Controller, three g1 Systems Controllers, and a two S1616A Multi-Room Audio Amplifiers–in almost every room, a feature that gets a lot of use.
“We have panels in pretty much all the major areas of the home,” said Nick Collins, who describes himself as a “gadget guy.” “So if I’m in that area, I can just go to the panel and pretty much pull up anything I want in the house.” One of the features the family uses most frequently from the touchpanels is the ELAN intercom system, which comes in handy given the expansiveness of the floor plan.
“With the older kids, we find more of a use to call them over the intercom if they’re in different areas of the home,” Andrea Collins said. “It’s convenient. I actually use it moreso for Nick than for the kids. If he’s in his office or somewhere there’s a panel, instead of me screaming through the house, I’ll just hit the intercom and nine times out of 10, I’ll use the video feature.”
The home theater is equipped with a Sim2 projector, 123-inch Stewart screen, and a Dolby Atmos system featuring KEF THX-certified speakers and subwoofers.
Speaking of video, there’s a lot of it. The home has 13 TVs, supplied by a 4K-capable ELAN HDMI video matrix distribution system. “He wanted to be able to watch football throughout his game room and outside, where there’s six TVs, and he wanted to, of course, play six games at once,” Barry said. “And with the push of a button be able to move it all to one game, if it’s the most important game–if the Green Bay Packers are playing.”
For more focused entertainment, the home also has a dedicated theater room with a Stewart Filmscreen Luxus Deluxe 123-inch Sound-screen, Sim2 LUMIS 3D-Solo 1080p projector, and Dolby Atmos system with KEF THX-certified in-wall and -ceiling speakers and subwoofers. “I love the fact that when I go into my theater room, it’s like a real theater sound system in there,” Nick said. “It sounds like we’re at the movies.”
The rest of the home doesn’t disappoint on the audio front, either. “We’re a family that loves music,” Nick said. “We have it all through the house. My wife, when she’s cooking, or taking a shower, stuff like that, she streams from her phone.” The house boasts 19 audio zones–one for each room–with Origin Acoustics in-ceiling speakers and SpeakerCraft in-ceiling subwoofers. And it doesn’t stop when you step outside: the courtyard features SpeakerCraft Ruckus landscape speakers and Origin ceiling speakers in the covered porch, summer kitchen, outdoor living room, and cigar yard.
The music doesn’t stop when the family goes outside–the patio and pool area also feature ceiling and landscape speakers.
Naturally, the home’s sprawling layout and sophisticated entertainment appointments make it a prime place to entertain friends and family–occasions in which Nick enjoys surprising guests with his system’s capabilities. “They’re just amazed by the fact that I can just be talking to them and go to my phone and change something, and they’ll be like ‘How’d you do that?!’ he said. “They love the fact that I can be anywhere in the house and change channels, settings on the TV, change zones for the music–all kinds of stuff.”
To ensure everything is able to consistently entertain and impress, the Millennium team equipped the home with a Pakedge gigabit network. And given the frequency of electrical storms in Florida, and the property’s remote location at the end of a power line, they incorporated a Panamax M4320-Pro power conditioner with BlueBOLT remote management to prevent surges and faults, and to easily reboot devices should interruptions occur.
The home features plenty of audio throughout, with 19 separate zones featuring in-ceiling speakers and subs from Origin Acoustics and SpeakerCraft.
Since moving into the home in February, it has so far proven an ideal base for the next chapter of their lives–Nick now works as a personal trainer and Andrea runs a popular cupcake business. And the ELAN system, with its ability to control the entertainment, HVAC, and security systems, is helping to make things even easier.
“I like everything about it,” Nick said. “I can listen to my music through it, I can talk to Andrea through the intercom on it, I can set my alarm through it, I can do a lot of things with it. And there’s still some other things I can add to it.”
Matt Pruznick is associate editor of Residential Systems and Systems Contractor News. Follow him on Twitter @Pruznick.
