Recently I was called to visit with the parents of an NFL player who was putting their sons theater together for him in his brand new home. The player owns 2 homes, one in South Florida and the other one in the state of the team he plays for. Since the player is seldom around, the parents offered to help him get his theater done. The interesting problems were many. The first problem is that the parents are making all of the decisions with no idea what they are doing. Another issue is the room itself. It is a room made out of an attic space which is 40' long but only 13' wide with a 7'8" ceiling. To top the odd shape of the room off, the only access to the room is by way of a very narrow stair case which though new is flimsy. When you get to the top of the stairs you walk into the rear of the space where a wet bar has been built which is wall to wall and in that part of the space the ceiling is about 9' tall. The floor is all wood and as you can imagine there is quite an echo in the space.
In my initial conversation with the parents I learned what they wanted and what they have seen. Their exposure to theater designs was very limited to what was described as 1 or 2 poorly thought out rooms. They wanted the front of the room or proscenium to be like a wall unit with display cabinets on each side to show off trophies, helmets and so forth with the screen in the middle. The front has an item that must be designed around in the form of a dry wall build out that is like a bench that spans from left to right 2' deep and 3' tall containing AC ducts. They also want a wainscot on the side walls with columns to break the space up. The wood on the floor is a red stained look and they want red walls, red wood work, red seating and if they have to have carpeting it would be red. The player plays for a team that has red as one of its colors. They had a rudimentary 3-D of the space which a wood worker doing other things in the home came up with which was following what they told him they wanted.
I asked what the room was built to be originally and was told a theater. It came out after a bit that the builder is 25 years old and probably didn't really know what he was doing. By the way the player is also 25 years old and didn't know how to guide the builder. So what was left was a very poorly designed room for any purpose never the less a theater. The one positive is that on each side of the room are 2' wide doors that provide access to the large open space on each side of the room which is the balance of the attic. This makes retro fitting the electronics and speakers easy as well as any lighting changes. The floor was surprisingly poorly done as it was springy and very loud to walk on. There is no way to keep the sound contained in any way because of the open stair way and flimsy floor.
Did I fail to mention that the player wants a pool table by the bar and 3 rows of seating for the screen? I can't imagine how they are going to get a pool table up these stairs. Seating will be challenging enough. He wants the largest screen he can have and there lies another serious problem. 3 rows of seats, large screen and a ceiling of only 7'8". I advised that a sight line would have to be created to see what would be possible. I suggested that a 235 aspect screen would make a lot of since as it could be pushed close to the ceiling which would solve several problems. It would allow the projector to mount flat to the ceiling or perhaps be partially recessed and if the screen is high enough we might be able to get away with 6" rises for each of the 2 rear rows. These guys are all tall so we need whatever tricks we can use. I suggested that the memorabilia should live at the bar and not at the front of the room. This would allow us to bring the screen out and if a perf screen, the speakers could be hidden. Now we can have a proscenium. By the way, they were thinking about a drop screen with art or an image of the player on the wall when not showing a movie. I expressed that they would be spending money on an inferior device with no advantages. In our conversation I expressed that I am a professional and have been designing theaters for more than 15 years and this room would be a challenge even for me.
I invited the parents to see some properly designed rooms and about a week later they visited my facility. They liked what they saw but another issue arose. They want to keep the cost low because as they said, the player would only live in the house for 3-5 years and they did not think he would get his money back out of it. I advised on going with a classic in neutral colors which would increase the value of the home but they are stuck on the team red color. Then came the discussion about budget. The comment that they stated is that they didn't want to spend $200K on a theater in a home he would not be in for long. Now, we haven't discussed budget but more came from them. They said that they looked at seating somewhere and "It was too expensive, at $1,000 per seat". I advised that $1K is where it starts for anything decent. I put the proposal together and forwarded it to the AV dealer that we are working with to present to the parents. The interior came out at about $125K which would provide everything they wanted but I am guessing about$100k more than they thought they were going to spend. The electronics will put this room to $200K. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. If they go with the wood worker and cheap electronics, it will be a really bad theater and by bad I don't mean good!
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