Personal Assistant Tips: Home theaters for the UHNW
Personal Assistants and Estate Managers are often tasked with getting their UHNW employers luxury home theaters. CNN brings us the best of designer David Frangioni.
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What goes into the opulence when serving the high net worth
Now that we are living in different times, celebrities and billionaires have to find new ways of enjoying entertainment without having to go to a crowded movie theater. In bygone days, the VIP could send their personal assistant to hold seats at the local movie theater. Well, that's no longer necessary because the super-rich can now get their own theater installed in their mansions.
World-class entertainment is having a movie theater in someone's home that plays consumer format but gives you the theatrical experience without compromising quality. In many cases, it exceeds what you get in a commercial theater. What we want to achieve is sound that is better than a commercial theater -- just what every billionaire wants.
The surround sound effect is very dramatic, but not overbearing. We balance the sound all around. And the picture that you see in the home theater needs to look like as it does in the full-sized movie theater; but when you're not watching movies, you need it to look like a giant television. So, there is no need to send your PA to the local electronics store for high-net-worth families to try to find a screen bigger than this one.
Aiming for perfection when serving VIP families
When you're building a home theater in a mega-mansion, you can really break it into two parts of electronic systems. The performance and playback of the system and the interior the visual aesthetics. We also do what we call lifestyle room clients will do couches and large chairs. Celebrity actors, movie directors and A-list producers really enjoy this.
We are too much more of a family style casual gathering room. The design we see on the walls has to also have an acoustic quality to it. The ceilings, side walls, and the floors need to have an absorptive and diffusive effect, sonically, to integrate with electronics that we've installed. Any celebrity or VIP will tell you that a comfortable listening environment is important, and you can send your personal assistant to get the snacks and popcorn for you.
There's a wide range of what someone can spend on a theater. You're looking at between $100K and $150,000 -- and it can go well past two million dollars.
That's just common place even in large home or estate. It's something that requires some level of appreciation for how you experience your content in your home.
