Home of the Year Project Spotlight
- Name & Location: The Staycation Estate, Needham, Massachusetts
- Integrator: Boston Automations, Boston, Massachusetts
- Award: 2026 Home of the Year, Best Whole-House/Smart Home Project under $1M, Gold
The Staycation Estate, completed by Boston Automations across two phases in 2025 and 2026, was designed so a multigenerational family could stop planning trips and simply walk upstairs, downstairs or out back. Every floor offers its own escape, and every one of them is easy enough for a seven-year-old and her grandmother to run with equal confidence.
Multitiered entertainment serves as backbone to Staycation Estate
The journey starts on the third floor, where red velvet drapery closes to seal a private cinema at night and parts by day for video games and sunlight. The screen is an industry first: the country’s first custom JVW/Leon CinemaScope video wall, an approximately 130-inch direct-view LED display.
It’s framed by another first, the Ultima Leon Atlas, a custom hardwood entertainment piece handcrafted around the wall. Hidden in the room is a secret door that opens to a billiards lounge, where vinyl spins on the hi-fi, and a private guest suite with its own audio, lighting, and climate.
Antique mirrors hide lively video feeds
Two floors down, televisions hide behind gilt-framed Seura mirrors that look like antiques until someone presses play. In the gym, Sonance Invisible Series and Stealth Acoustics speakers play from inside the plaster. Outside, Coastal Source bollards ring the pool with music while a buried subwoofer carries the bass, turning the backyard into a private resort.
Custom Roman shades and engineered fabric add personal touches
Custom Roman shades, Lutron Sivoia rollers, and motorized blackout drapery move on Lutron scenes tuned with interior designer Robin Gannon of Robin Gannon Interiors.
The shades were engineered fabric by fabric in close collaboration with her studio: their fabrics, Boston Automations’ motors, and no compromises. Lutron HomeWorks QSX with panelized dimming runs four floors and the grounds through more than 40 Sunnata keypads, dimmers, and switches.
Network repeaters extend functionality without wire clutter
Its plaster-and-concrete construction swallowed wireless signal, so the team placed Lutron wireless processors and repeaters on every floor, invisible infrastructure the family will never think about.
Underneath it all sits a robust foundation: Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 7, Starlink failover, property-wide 4K AI cameras, WattBox IP power management, and rack-built infrastructure.
Tight scheduling demands pristine documentation
Builder Mike McCormack of McCormack Builders needed Phase 1 finished before the family moved in, so networking, security, lighting, five entertainment systems, and outdoor audio were designed, proposed, and installed in roughly 90 days.
Boston Automations documented everything for the Phase 2 it expected, and that discipline paid off when the family fell in love with the third-floor media room and asked for a true cinema. The team air-freighted the LED wall, assembled it three flights up, and engineered isolated clean power to support it.
Multigenerational design garners multiple accolades
Three generations, ages seven to seventy-plus, needed to command the same home. Every decision led to one app, one remote, and keypads any first-time guest can understand.
Boston Automations, a 2024 Lutron Excellence Award winner and Sonance + James Loudspeaker Project of the Year honoree, integrated it all so completely that the technology disappeared. The family stopped noticing it and started staying home.
Equipment list:
- Theater AV
- Just Video Walls ~130″ direct-view LED video wall
- madVR Labs video processor
- Kaleidescape movie server and player
- Roku streaming player
- AVPro Edge 4×2 8K HDMI matrix (third-floor media room, Phase 1 configuration)
- Marantz 15.4-channel AV preamplifier, 16-channel power amplifier
- Leon Speakers custom hardwood LCR with integrated subwoofers, rear and side surround speakers
- James Loudspeaker in-ceiling Atmos speakers with enclosures, powered subwoofer
- Whole-Home Audio
- Sonos soundbars, amplifiers, wireless subwoofers, streamers, surround speakers
- James Loudspeaker custom mantel soundbar, discreet soundbar
- Sonance invisible in-wall/ceiling speakers, sound-isolating enclosures
- Stealth Acoustics invisible loudspeakers, metal back boxes
- Blaze Audio networkable DSP amplifiers
- Leon Speakers hardwood soundbar concealment
- Binary analog audio interconnects, balanced XLR interconnects
- Outdoor Audio
- Coastal Source bollard speakers, bollard subwoofer, outdoor amplifier, Sonos Port stream module, direct-burial speaker cable, surge suppression, line-level cables
- Sonos streaming source
- Displays
- Sony OLED, QD-OLED and Mini-LED TVs
- Séura vanishing mirror TVs with gold frames, entertainment mirror TV
- Control
- Control4 CORE Lite controller with Halo remote
- Lutron HomeWorks processors (wired and wireless), Sunnata dimmers, switches, keypads, wallplates and occupancy sensors, Pico remotes and pedestals, plug-in lamp dimmers, custom engraved keypads and receptacles
- Shading & Drapery
- Lutron Sivoia QS roller shades, Sivoia QS wired drapery tracks, drapery drive units, motorized Roman shades
- Networking
- Ubiquiti gateway/NVR, PoE switches, Wi-Fi 7 ceiling, in-wall and outdoor access points, outdoor PoE switches and utility kits, patch cables, rack panels
- Future Automation Starlink mount
- Security & Surveillance
- Ubiquiti AI 4K PoE cameras, enterprise surveillance drives
- Power Management
- WattBox IP power conditioner, vertical power strip, UPS
- GUDE Systems switched and metered PDU, power hub
- 360 Power Quality isolation transformer
- Innovolt voltage-regulating UPS
- Climate
- Ecobee smart thermostat
This project is part of our coverage for the 2026 CE Pro Home of the Year Awards. Presented annually at CEDIA Expo alongside the BEST Product Awards, the Home of the Year Awards represent the best of the best smart home innovations within the CEDIA channel. Check to see when the next submission window is open in case you have a project you would like to submit and don’t want to miss your opportunity.
