Brining the Late 19th Century into the 21st Century 

A new iteration of Truckee’s historic theater upstairs in the Capitol Building is once again open to the public. After months of careful renovation, Mark Buzzard, CEO of Liberty Bell Smart Home and Alpine Electric, announces the opening of the showroom and theater to the public.

The theater’s history reaches back to 1870 when the Capitol Building was constructed with Hurd’s Saloon downstairs and live entertainment on stage upstairs. After the turn of the century, silent films were shown as well as live stage productions through the 1970s. Rumor has it Charlie Chaplin once performed on the iconic Capitol Theater stage, Buzzard notes.

At the same time, the nature of the building and venue’s historic elements made for some potential impediments to the project that Buzzard and his team had to overcome.

“By far dealing with the town of Truckee building department and the Historic District zoning regulations was the most difficult part of the project,” he recalls.

“Also due to the fact that we were working in the oldest building in Truckee (built in 1870) presented various construction challenges we had to work around and get very creative.”  

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Acoustical Room Treatment Requires Precise Planning 

The new Liberty Bell Smart Home showroom features innovative and efficient security, electrical, and smart home design for architects, builders, and clients. 

The integration team, with some supplier assistance, now can tell a story about the rich history of the building, and how they transformed it by bringing its technology into the 21^st century. That involved quite a bit of planning on Liberty Bell Smart Home’s part.

“Before we began the building was just a wide-open room and we essentially had to build a room within a room to get the theater acoustically correct,” Buzzard explains.

“I have to credit Jason Meyers with Control4 on referring me to CinemaTech to make sure we did it right and I am so glad I did. CinemaTech now has us listed as a partner and certified showroom.” 

Truckee Theater Project Puts Liberty Bell Integration Prowess on Display 

The Truckee theater renovation includes additional seating and is available to host film, art and literary performances.

“Offering this historic space as a gathering venue for town community events is an opportunity to strengthen our relationships with existing customers and expand into exciting new projects,” Buzzard says. 

He notes that Liberty Bell Smart Home and Alpine Electric creates peace of mind for the homeowner, and in this case light commercial client, through fire and alarm monitoring, surveillance and alerts as well as audio, video, smart home, theater and media, indoors and outdoors.

The team, which recently earned honors as top volume seller for the Control4 territory of Northern California, Nevada and Southern Oregon, installed myriad other subsystems governed by the control system to design a comprehensive system befitting the historic building. Among them: Lutron HomeWorks QSX with Palladiom keypads and shades for lighting and shade control; QTran, DMF, Lutron, Lucifer, Sonneman, and WAC Lighting fixtures; AV from Bowers & Wilkins, James Loudspeakers, Leon, Triad, Sonance, Marantz, Sony, Samsung, and Stewart Filmscreen; Control4, Qolsys, Luma, Yale for security/climate/surveillance; and Power from Torus and WattBox with Snap One’s OvrC platform. 

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