If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk and if there’s any company that abides by that adage it’s Coastal Source. That was exceedingly evident when the outdoor lighting and audio specialist recently invited dealers, reps, designers, and other tradespeople down to its Marathon, Fla., headquarters located in the Florida Keys for its “Palms in Paradise” event.
That’s where CEO Franco D’Ascanio and his family live and breathe Coastal Source as well as its sister company, D’Asign Source, which are located next door to each other. Together, the two companies frequently collaborate to create incredible design-build homes — many right on the waterfront — that spotlight outdoor technology.
D’Asign Source has an impactful Coastal Source lighting demo in its showroom.
It’s truly a family business. CEO Tony D’Ascanio was the brainchild behind D’Asign Source while brothers Franco is president and Amedeo D’Ascanio serves as COO. During the tour of the D’Asign Source showroom, sons Franco Jr. and Nick led guests through the vast array of outdoor and indoor home décor accoutrements including an impactful outdoor tech demonstration.
Carrying on Coastal Source & D’Asign Source Family Legacy
Franco Jr. is the company’s VP of Construction, Architect, and Nick is Project Executive, Landscape Architect. Both are well-versed in communicating to potential clients project details from D’Asign Source and Coastal Source, whose collaboration enables the companies to build multimillion-dollar homes from the ground up.
(left to right) Franco D’Ascanio Jr., Franco D’Ascanio, and Nick D’Ascanio discuss EVO lighting and Palms in Paradise properties.
And, of course, they are all decked out with plenty of outdoor technology, used in various fashions as illustrated intimately during the Palms in Paradise showcase.
“It started way back in 1958, when my grandparents came over – they started doing handyman jobs, my grandmother was a seamstress, they had three boys and from there, the business kind of grew into different interests, but always surrounding building things together. Not just a family, but a family business,” Franco Jr. recounts.
“I’m third-generation, we have six of mine in D’Asign Source. I dabble in Coastal and it’s actually kind of fun for us.”
He notes that the current Coastal Source building was purchased decades ago, but when the opportunity came up to acquire the virtually adjacent real estate the family scooped it up and built the D’Asign Source showroom.
Franco D’Ascanio Jr. leads guests on a D’Asign Source tour.
The final stop during Palms in Paradise was a $20M property that is Nick’s pride and Joy.
The complementary brands and locations enable the companies to deliver a full-scope pitch to prospective homeowners on a local level – which often means a vacation home for part-time residents.
“There’s furnishings, we have our architects here, designers, project management… all the different facilities for our office to do custom homes, estates, resorts, and restaurant work. Mainly we do high-end estates – mini resorts – in a way,” Franco Jr. says.
“From that [coastal weather] exposure, we want things to last down here as much as we can. A lot of our clients are from up north as well, so seeing that, they want to transplant some of our ideas and products that are bulletproof up there.”
He remarks that Coastal Source’s origin essentially came from wanting to really create products that would be resilient and last in the Florida climate, and the company realized that there was an overall need for more durable outdoor solutions.
“A lot of places can benefit from erosion resistance, weather resistance, bulletproof kind of products; then make it easy to install, enjoy, create, change… so we’re always working toward that goal.”
Stunning Palms in Paradise Residences Get Full Lighting & Audio Treatment
Palms in Paradise also served to highlight Coastal Source’s latest lighting and audio solutions – the new EVO lighting series as well as the latest Bollard speakers, Cube subwoofer, Razor speakers, and new low-profile Pathfinder speaker.
For guests, as shown during the event, Coastal Source/D’Asign Source offers multiple ways to experience outdoor lighting and audio right there onsite thanks to effective and strategic demo areas. The lighting demo inside D’Asign Source is similar to what Coastal Source had at CEDIA Expo last year.
Epitomizing everything Franco Jr. had conveyed, the final stop on the Palms in Paradise tour was a $20M sprawling estate that Nick D’Ascanio and team built. It features a massive pool that incorporates lazy river-type of waterways and a bar area, and several zones of outdoor lighting and audio – a mini resort, indeed.
This Palms in Paradise ‘mini-resort’ includes an extensive pool design that gets lit up with the rest of the backyard.
“This is my biggest project, this is my pride and joy,” Nick enthuses. “I spent over four years in total on this project. The pool is outstanding, it’s about 8,000 square feet of just surface area the pool is about 200,000 gallons – it’s actually four pools in one.”
Another property’s outdoor lighting wound its way amid a lovely tree and garden pathway to enhance the aesthetics of the space. Another home dotted its backyard with loudspeakers that pipe in audio and extend out to the boat dock for full sound coverage.
“I cut my teeth on installs, outdoor installs. The more we got into houses and doing everything from project management to building… I still love the outdoors,” Nick adds. “It’s easier, it’s far superior, clients are less picky, and everything just tends to go better.
“Also, the biggest area of D’Asign Source that we’ve grown is this outdoor environment. It started off as you have a house, you built a house, maybe there was some money left over for landscaping – maybe. Then you start building with some commodity plants, maybe some Royal Palms, some Ficus and moving along… now we’ve exploded that area to where people are almost focusing on that first and then building the house around it.”
Bollard speakers blend in well amid the flora by the waterfront.
CEO’s Property Impressively Showcases Sweeping Outdoor Technology
The ultimate showcase for outdoor technology during Palms in Paradise was the first home that the guests toured, the only one shown at night – as Franco D’Ascanio welcomed everyone to his own home.
To say his property incorporates a lot of Coastal Source lighting (see main image above) and audio would be an understatement. But while the outdoor audio was certainly impressive, the true stars of the evening sky were the super-modular and easy-to-install EVO series glowing throughout.
It goes hand-in-hand with another aspect of the family business, a nursery for importing and cultivating flora (especially an amazing variety of palm trees). These stood as pillars in D’Ascanio’s landscaping and shone gorgeously lit up by the company’s fixtures.
His home provided a jaw-dropping amount of lighting that brings out the details of the palms as well as myriad other trees (taking a tour with D’Ascanio includes listening to his arboreal expertise), sculptures, and other structures.
Holistically, the Ketra outdoor lighting and audio integration typifies the standards that D’Ascanio and Coastal Source pride themselves on when it comes down to attention to detail and bulletproof performance.
“The properties [on the Palms in Paradise tour] have won multiple awards and are beautiful, but we were trained to see all the problems, not the beauty,” D’Ascanio says of how the company became an elite outdoor technology provider.
“If you know our products you know they install easily… from our standpoint, we feel it’s our job to make it hard for [integrators] to do it wrong. And we really want to be best-in-class – not just our products but the relationship with [partners], the quality of our demos, the quality of our programs, the customer service, the warranty, all that.”
Founder Franco D’Ascanio has guided the evolving Coastal Source outdoor loudspeakers and lighting lines.
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